'The 100' Series Finale: Why you should watch 'The Last War' even if Season 7 left you disappointed
'The 100' first began airing on The CW way back in March 2014, in what seems like a very different world when you are looking back from 2020. Of course, the world today somehow imitates the show more than it ever has in a case of life imitating art. And just like it is in the spirit of 2020, the seventh and final season of 'The 100' has been somewhat of a downer for most fans.
Character deaths and events seem to happen just for the shock factor with no respect for character arcs that began in the first season and for what viewers potentially expected.
After its last midseason break, with four episodes of 'The 100' to go, episodes 13 and 14 became big disappointments for fans. First, there was Bellamy Blake's (Bob Morley) death at the hands of Clarke Griffin (Eliza Taylor) who wanted to protect her daughter Madi (Lola Flannery). Of course, Bellamy had only been back for fewer than a handful of episodes and even then, his turn as a faithful Disciple to the Shepherd aka Bill Cadogan (John Pyper-Ferguson) made very little sense for viewers.
Bellamy's death only made it worse when it happened with him as a pseudo-villain and effectively ended Bellamy's story with no redemption or closure.
Then came Sheidheda's (JR Bourne) attempt at kidnapping Madi to kill her under the guise of helping Cadogan and after Sheidheda killed Gabriel Santiago (Chuku Modu), Madi turned herself in and voluntarily went to Cadogan in Bardo so that no more of her friends would be killed — making Gabriel's and Bellamy's deaths more senseless than ever. Of course, war is never about deaths that make sense but the writing on 'The 100' in the final season has not been strong enough to justify that.
Even so, the penultimate episode of Season 7 fared much better. We saw Madi become what Clarke once was, which eventually resulted in Cadogan torturing her to the point of her suffering a stroke, leaving her in a nonresponsive state. There was still neural activity, but the parts of her brain responsible for voluntary movement were destroyed by Cadogan's torture. However, Cadogan has gotten the code to unlock the "last war", so before Clarke can mourn, she has more evil to fight.
At this point, we have a completely unleashed Clarke. Here is a Clarke who has truly lost everyone — though it is up for debate whether Madi is actually lost or if the show is enabling an ableist mind view — and from the sneak peek we have seen, she is not going to hold back. Jason Rothenberg, the showrunner, also points out that this will have ramifications and after seeing the extended trailer, we can all but be sure that Clarke is the one to take the test for the human race, so we can only wonder where this is going.
Rothenberg also says the way a story ends is what that story means in the sneak peek. Now, there's a lot of apprehensions when we approach that statement as an anticipating viewer. The season, so far, has not been great for a large part of the fanbase — and we are not talking about a particular ship, but rather, characters as a whole.
We do, however, hope that this means that whatever Clarke has been reduced to in the past season will make sense and bring back the original Clarke that we fell in love with — one who kept a level head to do what needed to be done, without letting her emotions get the best of her.
So much of the current season has been questionable and yet, as longtime fans we keep coming back. We owe it to ourselves to see it to the end. Then, of course, if the episode is not satisfying enough, as fans have pointed out, we can just choose our last favorite season as our final season.
The test and the beings of light have been so thoroughly vague through the season that one thing is for certain: if all of it does not make sense, then we will feel real disappointment. But again, the key is to hold faith, and then, of course, there is always fanfiction.
'The 100' series finale, 'The Last War', will air on The CW on Wednesday, September 30, at 8/7c.