'The 100' Season 7 Episode 4 Review: All bridges lead to Bardo, but how long will it take?
Spoilers for 'The 100' Season 7 Episode 4 'Hesperides'
With a show like 'The 100' on The CW, you never know what to expect. This trend continues with the final season and by the time the fourth episode ends, your mind will still try to wrap itself around everything you just saw. Hopefully, our review of the episode helps.
So far, 'The 100' has followed two strands of stories in the fourth season. The first and third episodes are largely around death with the precarious situation in Sanctum. Clarke Griffin (Eliza Taylor) is struggling to bring different factions together — factions that include the Sanctumiites, the children of Gabriel, the Eligius prisoners, WonKru and SkaiKru.
All that is made more difficult with Sheidheda having taken over Russell Prime's (JR Bourne) body, WonKru learning that Madi Griffin (Lola Flannery) is no longer the commander, and the Eligius prisoners being really upset with four of their own dying after Raven Reyes (Lindsey Morgan) misled them in the last episode. Of course, Raven is still dealing with that guilt, but more on that later.
This week's episode sees the diverging strands start to come back together — of course, we're not there yet, but at the pace things are going, we have no doubt that this will happen in no time. Without further ado, here's our recap and review of what went down in this week's episode of 'The 100'.
Five years on Skyring in a heartbeat
When the episode starts, it picks up from where young Hope Diyoza (Shelby Flannery) was left as the second episode ended — alone after Octavia Blake (Marie Avgeropoulos) and her mother, Charmaine Diyoza (Ivana Miličević) were kidnapped by the mysterious soldiers in the octagonal helmets.
Ten-year-old Hope is alone and waiting for her guardians' return every day, but what she gets instead is another prisoner, Dev, whose body we encountered in the second episode. Hope is scared, but she stands up to Dev, who seems to be impressed. Dev and Hope soon get acquainted and he begins to train Hope and help her plan to save her mother and Aunty O. However, when the soldiers come back, their plan goes awry. Dev is killed and Hope is presumably taken by the soldiers to Bardo.
Meanwhile, back in the present (the relative present in Skyring), Gabriel Santiago (Chuku Modu) and Echo (Tasya Teles) are really upset with the mad prisoner who smashed Gabriel's tablet. He runs away and Hope tells them that they have five years to train to get to Bardo — five years being the time the prisoner's sentence ends.
We then move forward a few months — the prisoner is slowly getting back to normal and we learn that his name is Orlando. Orlando will do anything to help Hope and the trip use that to get Orlando to their side. It's difficult, but Orlando finally agrees to train them — he is a "Level 12," meaning he is one of the higher-ups on Bardo.
When D-Day comes — and here is when we see Echo and Hope with the short and sleek haircuts we saw them sporting in the trailer — Echo decides to leave Orlando behind, going against their plan. Despite Gabriel's and Hope's arguments, Echo tells them that even though they became family in five years, they are still not Orlando's people.
In the midst of it all, we learn that the people of Bardo might even be more fanatic than the ones on Sanctum. They are called the Disciples of the Shepherd. The Shepherd is a revered figure who saved them from a burning planet. Again, more on this later — but seeing the type of people Dev and Orlando were and that they don't fit the profile of those normally sent to prison, we wonder what kind of society Bardo has. More importantly, why are they holding Bellamy Blake (Bob Morley), Octavia, and Diyoza captive?
Clarke gets wind of her missing friends
Back on Sanctum, Clarke and the others have finally realized that Bellamy, Octavia and Gabriel are missing. They don't yet know of the existence of Hope, but they have found the bodies of one of the soldiers, whose armor Clarke wants Raven to dismantle.
Raven is still reeling from the guilt of the events of the last episode when her actions caused the death of four people. Clarke reminds her that had she not done it, all of Sanctum would have perished. Nevertheless, perhaps a new project could keep Raven occupied.
However, it turns out there is another soldier waiting at the border of Sanctum to talk to Clarke. Their leader specifically wants Clarke who is apparently the key to ending the last war mankind will ever wage — another shot we had seen in the trailer. They promise to return Clarke's friends if she goes with them.
Meanwhile, Raven removes the helmet and figures out how it works and understands that the anomaly is a wormhole. When she sees Clarke's profile show up, she knows that Clarke is in danger and goes with Jordan Green (Shannon Kook) to help warn them.
Clarke meets with the soldier who then informs them that Echo and the others killed more of his soldiers. He also tells them that Orlando wrote a suicide note before killing himself on Skyring. Still, we have no word on what Echo, Hope, and Gabriel could have gotten up to in Bardo.
With Raven's help, they manage to subdue the soldiers and move to the anomaly stone. Since they don't know about Bardo and the other planets yet, they decide to follow their friends' trail by going to the penance planet.
However, since everything is a guessing game at the moment, they end up in an Ice Planet, which fans have deduced to be Nakara. With Clarke, there's Raven, Jordan, Nathan Miller (Jarod Joseph) and Niylah (Jessica Harmon). There's only one problem — they are stuck there until they find another anomaly stone.
Back in Sanctum, Gaia (Tati Gabrielle) had decided to stay behind to warn the others, but just as she leaves, an invisible soldier attacks her. When she comes to, the soldier was entering a key on the anomaly stone — and just as the two of them disappear into the anomaly (or the bridge), the anomaly stone drops and breaks.
Final thoughts
So much happened in this week's episode and as usual, the closer we draw to the end, the more questions we have. What happened to Echo, Hope, and Gabriel once they made it to Bardo? With the anomaly stone on Sanctum destroyed, will they ever be able to get back there? Will Clarke and the others find the anomaly stone on Nakara in time to reach their friends? Who is going to take care of things on Sanctum with Clarke gone?
'The 100' is delving deeper and deeper into sci-fi with each week. We are also learning more about the people on Bardo and the Shepherd they worship and potentially still serve. Why do we feel like this Shepherd might be related to Bill Cadogan (John Pyper-Ferguson), another fanatical cult leader, somehow? Could this Shepherd have something to do with the lingering mysteries the show will try to answer before it ends?
Meanwhile, it was weirdly refreshing to see Gabriel, Echo, Hope and Orlando become a sort of family on Skyring. It also made us wonder, who did Echo become in those five years on that planet? We know she will still do anything to save Bellamy, but will he recognize the person that Echo has now become? Will that lead to the end of 'Becho'? For Echo's sake, we hope that's the case. Echo is such an interesting character, and with nothing tying her to Bellamy, what will she serve?
Moreover, with time being such an important element this season, when will they all come together? How far would things have progressed on Sanctum or Bardo or Nakara by the time our heroes figure their way out?
And what is Sanctum going to be without Clarke? Russheda is sure to wreak havoc in her absence. Can John Murphy (Richard Harmon) and Eric Jackson (Sachin Sahel) manage to hold things stable? It gives the show a chance to what the post-apocalyptic society would be without people like Raven, Bellamy, Octavia and Clarke around.
'The 100' airs on The CW on Wednesday nights at 8/7c.