'The 100' Season 7 Episode 5 Review: Bardo's mystery deepens as Blake siblings are put in danger
Spoilers for 'The 100' Season 7 Episode 5 'Welcome to Bardo'
As always when an episode of 'The 100' airs, we are left wondering as to where we can begin. Every time we think Jason Rothenberg and the writers' room of The CW show cannot up the ante, we are left feeling numb (in a good way) and impatient for more.
This week's episode delved into where Octavia Blake (Marie Avgeropoulos) was up to while she was on Bardo — both times — but more crucially, we got our first glimpse of Bellamy Blake (Bob Morley) since the season premiere. Unfortunately, that was shortlived, but more on that later.
In last week's episode, after Clarke Griffin (Eliza Taylor) and the others find out that Bellamy, Octavia, Echo (Tasya Teles) and Gabriel Santiago (Chuku Modu) are missing, they use the anomaly stone to get to them. Unfortunately for them, they did not know which planet Penance was — which we know to be Skyring, aka Planet Beta — and ended up playing anomaly roulette, only to end up in what we and fans think is Nakara.
This week's episode did not feature Clarke, Raven Reyes (Lindsey Morgan), Nathan Miller (Jarod Jackson), Niylah (Jessica Harmon) or Jordan Green (Shannon Kook) at all, but enough happened for the viewers not to miss them.
Let's take a look at what this week's episode gave us and what that means for the remaining 11 episodes of 'The 100'.
Octavia makes a friend in Bardo
The fifth episode of Season 7 spent plenty of time to explain what happened to Octavia while she was in Bardo — both times. Earlier this season, we saw the Disciples' soldiers take Octavia and Charmaine Diyoza (Ivana Milicevic) into the anomaly to go to Bardo, the unknown planet where the Disciples reside.
When Octavia is taken to Bardo, the leader of the Disciples, Anders (Neal McDonough, 'Arrow's' Damien Darhk) gets one of the Disciples, a scientist named Levitt (Jason Diaz) to extract Octavia's memories. While Anders is hellbent on getting what he wants, Levitt is more humane, often trying to get Octavia to cooperate with him so that her brain won't be harmed.
Remember falling in love with Octavia as you watched her evolution through the first three seasons? The joy you felt when she killed Charles Pike (Michael Beach)? We get to witness Levitt's reaction to the same, and we have to say, we are glad Levitt understands that Octavia is not just a killer, even though he hasn't met Bloodreina yet.
Levitt is, however, more interested in finding out about Clarke, so is Anders. As Anders explains in a later scene that Clarke is the key to winning mankind's last war. The concept of the Disciples and Bardo only gets more curious with each episode. Especially when we learn that the Disciples are descendants of those who came to Bardo through the anomaly stone, giving more weight to fans' theory that the Shepherd is indeed Bill Cadogan (John Pyper-Ferguson), the cult leader of Second Dawn from before the first nuclear apocalypse on Earth.
Before Octavia can give Levitt anything more on Clarke, Hope Diyoza (Shelby Flannery) comes to the rescue. This is the first time she traveled to Bardo when she was alone. Levitt helps Octavia escape back to Sanctum (we saw her return in Season 6), however, Hope gets captured.
We also see Hope before she is sent to "tag" Octavia from the season premiere — we learn that it was Levitt who helped her hide the message under her skin in her arm. When Octavia is brought the second time, she refuses to cooperate, but Anders comes to her telling she needs to calm her brother down.
Echo, Hope and Gabriel in Bardo
This episode follows multiple timelines in a disorderly way, but that does not take away from our viewing experience. By the time Octavia sees Bellamy, we also see Echo, Gabriel ad Hope (AnomalyKru) reaching Bardo.
While they make their way over to Octavia, we also learn that Levitt told Octavia to focus on a mantra so that she can beat the memory-extracting machine. When AnomalyKru reaches Octavia, she seems to be in a lobotomized state, repeating "I am not afraid" over and over again.
It is then that we learn what happened after Octavia sees Bellamy. She agrees to cooperate with Anders and tell him all about Clarke if Bellamy is sent back. Just as Anders enters the code into the anomaly stone, one of the Disciples activates his weapon, and in the ensuing blast, Bellamy is gone.
On learning Bellamy's fate, Echo loses herself over her grief. Gabriel's and Hope's pleas for Echo to spare the Disciple who told them of Bellamy's fate fall on deaf years as Echo brutally murders him.
Sheidheda comes out to play on Sanctum
With everything going on, on Bardo, it is almost easy to forget about Sanctum. However, 'The 100' makes sure that the stories are at the top level no matter the location. Hours after Russell Prime (JR Bourne) is spared, the Faithful (the Sanctumites who still believe in the divinity of the Primes) threaten to kill themselves, one per hour until Russell is freed.
We know that the real Russell is no more after Sheidheda uploaded himself onto Russell's mind drive and killed Russell in his mindspace. For clarity's sake, we call Sheidheda in Russell's body, Russheda. Indra (Adina Porter) is doubtful Russell can help, and so John Murphy (Richard Harmon) is sent to diffuse the situation.
Unfortunately, the Faithful soon realize that Murphy isn't Daniel Prime as he is pretending to be and is nearly about to immolate him when Russheda walks in with Emori (Luisa D'Oliveira) and Indra in tow.
While Russheda berates the Faithful, his choice of words makes Indra doubtful, especially when he says he wants their fealty. And as any ardent 'The 100' fan would know, that is definitely Grounder language. Indra soon confirms that Russell is indeed Sheidheda, but as Russheda says, they can't kill him.
So they try to do the next best thing. Indra takes Russheda to the resident doctor, Eric Jackson (Sachin Sahel) to extract the mind drive from Russell.
Final thoughts
We are quite concerned about Octavia's fate at the moment. We don't know whether Octavia will be back to who she was before. However, viewers might remember a shot from the trailer where Octavia and Clarke hold back Hope as the latter cries for her mother. This gives us the sense that we will see Octavia being back to normal again. We also hope Levitt survived because he has grown on us.
The same cannot be said for Bellamy. We don't really see what happens to him when the blast occurs. He may have just gone into the anomaly (or the bridge as it is called by the Disciples), or he may have died as a result. Because this is Bellamy we are talking about, we hardly think the writers would have killed him off without giving him significant screentime. Unfortunately, because the trailer does not show any additional footage of Bellamy, it's a waiting game. Of course, now that we saw Bellamy in one scene, we also wonder whether we may see him more regularly now. Perhaps Clarke and the others come across him as they planet-hop using the anomaly. We just hope that he wasn't sent to Penance where time moves much faster.
Speaking of Bellamy, we have always wondered who Echo is without him and now we get the chance to see what that might be like. Even after five years without him, Echo is devastated on learning about Bellamy. Has she become someone who has nothing to care about any longer? We have seen her become quite close to Hope, so perhaps, (pun unintended), there's still hope for Echo to become her own person.
That the disciples are not the native Bardoans came as a huge reveal, one that has major consequences for the show and could explain the prequel's backdoor pilot that will come later on in the season, and certainly, we cannot wait to learn more about it.
Finally, we are glad the secret about Russheda is out in the open. Again, because JR Bourne is a series regular, we are certain that this is not the end of him. With Russell being killed in the mind space, it is likely that even if the mind drive is extracted, Sheidheda will still have control of the body.
As is usual, a lot happened in this week's episode. 'The 100' does not shy away from fast-paced storytelling or daring to go to unthinkable places. This week's episode dived properly into the sci-fi realm and we are excited to see what comes next.
'The 100' airs on Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW.