'The 100' Season 7 Episode 3 Review: Nuclear reactor may be contained but Sanctum is still waiting to blow up
Spoilers for 'The 100' Season 7 Episode 3 'False Gods'
In the third episode of the final season of 'The 100', we are back on Sanctum and privy to the knowledge that things are heating up between the various factions. Of course, things are also literally heating up with the nuclear reactor's control rods malfunctioning. If you felt like you were yourself in a boiler waiting for things to explode, you are not alone.
The episode starts with James, from the Ark, and Cora, a Sanctumite, getting inside the power supply room. However, when James and Cora go to the containment unit to figure out why the power supply keeps fluctuating, they get burned by radiation.
Meanwhile, Clarke Griffin (Eliza Taylor) and Gaia (Tati Gabrielle) continue to spend more time together. While Clarke symbolically buries her mom by burying the ring she got from Russell the previous week, Gaia buries the Flame. Both of them are mourning what is lost while equally being worried about Clarke's daughter, Madi (Lola Flannery). The more time these characters spend together, the harder it becomes to deny that "Claia" may actually happen.
Raven starts to show shades of grey
With the nuclear reactor malfunctioning, Raven Reyes (Lindsey Morgan) needs four volunteers to help weld the leaks in the coolant pipes while someone with nightblood helps put the control rods back in place. Clarke would volunteer herself, but she has more pressing matters to deal with, John Murphy (Richard Harmon) would rather want that Clarke do it too, but with Emori (Luisa D'Oliveira) going in, he decides to go along. To recall, both of them were given the nightblood transformation in the last season when they agreed to help the Primes.
However, Raven needs four volunteers to weld — Indra decides to ask WonKru to volunteer. One of the WonKru asks why Indra is speaking on their commander, Madi's behalf, and Gaia steps up to tell the truth that the commander is no more. But Indra does know better and with no commander to follow, WonKru dissipates — this is certainly a problem to be dealt with later, but the nuclear reactor is more pressing. Raven goes to the Eligius prisoners to ask for their help. While Nikki (Alaina Huffman) refuses, her boyfriend, Hatch (Chad Rook), decides to help along with three others.
Raven decides to keep the truth of the danger from them as the four prisoners go into the second containment unit to do the welding. Meanwhile, Emori goes in to put the control rods back in place. It's a race against time and we almost thought we were going to lose her for a minute, but she makes it out. However, the reactor's core temperature is still rising and as a prisoner collapses from the radiation, Raven continues to lie to them — she does not think that they will continue doing the task if she tells them the truth.
She, however, sends Murphy in, thinking he would do anything to survive. We see Murphy and Hatch having a conversation as Murphy helps him. Hatch, of course, knows what is going on — they get the job done in time, but only Murphy survives, courtesy of his nightblood.
When it hits Raven that she did this, she shows remorse and it explains why she doesn't fight back when Nikki beats her up. Nikki is dragged away, but there will be consequences, and Clarke and the others could lose one more faction that was sort of under their control.
Russheda begins to pull the strings
Clarke, of course, also has her mind on Russell Prime's (JR Bourne) execution. In the season premiere, we saw Sheidheda killing Russel in his mind space and taking over his body — this led us to suspect that Sheidheda as Russell (called Russheda by the writers) is most definitely going to try and manipulate things.
One of those ways was to manipulate Jordan Green (Shannon Kook) who has definitely had too much of the Kool-Aid. Russheda gets Jordan to speak to Clarke about talking to his people to stop the True Believers from retaliating.
However, as he speaks to the Prime's followers, one man yells "False God" and shoots Russheda. All hell breaks loose and Clarke and Indra realize that they cannot kill Russell. Later, we learn that Russheda had conspired with a True Believer to get the man to shoot. It's clear that Sheidheda is playing a smarter game now, taking slower moves to achieve what he couldn't in the previous season.
Final thoughts
With so much going on, it's understandable why Clarke and company have not noticed that a few key members like Bellamy Blake (Bob Morley) and Octavia Blake (Marie Avgeropoulos) are missing. Clarke is slowly losing control of whatever fragile peace they had in the aftermath of the events of the last season. Certainly, Bellamy might have had an idea or two on how to fix things. Now, Clarke has neither WonKru's or the Eligius prisoners' or the Sanctumites' support and it is only a matter of time before Sanctum explodes.
This is something we should be expecting, however. With so many different factions in one society, things were bound to go out of control — we just have to wait and see to know how bad it will get.
'The 100' airs on The CW on Wednesday nights at 8/7c.
