Post — Aaron Ngo

I waited a long time for the return of this show. Ashamed I still believed it was premiering on the 27th, otherwise I would've watched it with The Flash, but it's okay. I found the time and this season 5 premiere changes the game. There are callbacks to the first season, and we learn the gist of what happened to the characters during the time jump.

Spoilers ahead.

The episode is Clarke-heavy and I'm grateful most of the screentime went to her. I was most curious about how she survived and the relationship she developed with the little girl, Madi. Seeing how all that played out was not disappointing.

The nightblood in her system allowed Clarke to survive the end of the world. But she is barely hanging on to her sanity. Clarke travels to the bunker and attempts to reunite with her people, but it is buried in all this rubble. She knew it would take too long to unearth it and decided to leave in order to survive.

She also finds mementos from the past related to Jasper. His goggles, Maya's iPod, and a note for Monty. Clarke breaks down finding all this stuff, knowing what her actions did to Jasper's psych, which lead to his suicide. I will never get over what this show did to Jasper. He went south his entire run on this show, and Clarke probably blames herself for it.

Clarke even contemplates suicide in an emotional moment. She screams at the birds that she has given up and has nothing to live for. The moment she put the gun to her head, I knew there was no way she was going to kill herself. Luckily, the bird flies over her, and she follows.

What she does next reminded me how heartless Clarke is. After she thanks the bird for leading her out of the desert, she points her gun and shoots it for helping her. She cooks the bird and eats it. Then she goes into a monologue about her previous enemies. How the Grounders, Mountain Men, Allie, and her own people had one thing in common: kill or be killed. How they all followed that mentality to live or to help others live.

Something Clarke doesn't have to worry about once she finds Eden, the only place on Earth unaffected by the radiation. The trees thrived, the unsweetened berries grew, and the water was clean. The only bad part was all the bodies littered around; the people who were affected. The scene where she is swimming reflected a new lease of life for Clarke. She was happy to find a home without the responsibilities of leadership.

Then the child from hell appears. Madi attacks and injures Clarke's leg. The bear trap got Clarke bad. She patched herself up, but while recuperating, Madi stole her belongings, including the gun. I couldn't believe these two would eventually adopt a mother-daughter relationship. After the initial hostile, Madi and Clark softened up to each other.

Six years passed. Clarke tells Madi all the stories related to the past four seasons. The two of them are sweet, but I didn't understand why Madi needed to speak English. It might be related to her learning the language, but she seems to have it handled.

At this part, we're caught up to the ending of season four. The Prison Ship arrives, and Clarke prepares to confront the invaders. She cautions Madi to hide and to not come out until she returns. Madi is rightfully scared, but Clarke is terrified.

An army comes out of that ship lead by a mysterious woman. Two men find and attack Madi. One of them tries to protect her, saying that killing a child is not right. Clarke steps in before they hurt her. Madi shoots the mean one in the head but tells Clarke the one who helped her is a good guy.

The best line of the episode is uttered: "there are no good guys". She shoots him in the head as well. The rest of their people are alerted by the gunshots and scatter to find out what they're up against. I'm more worried about them than Clarke at this point. She may be the protagonist, but she is more ruthless than any other antagonist that have come before her.

That's a weird thing to say about the main protagonist, but there it is. Sometimes Clarke can be a villain. It's like what she said: there are no good guys here on The 100.

Other news! Space Station is operational and everyone (Bellamy, Echo, Raven, Harper, Monty, Murphy, and Emori) are still alive. Murphy and Emori are not together anymore because he isolated himself from the group, not willing to follow the rules. His time back in the station hardened him again.

Bellamy and Echo are together. It was bound to happen after six years in space together and the chemistry they had during fourth season. Octavia will not tolerate this because of what Echo did and neither will the Bellarke fans. Speaking of our Queen, she is the supreme ruler of the bunker and watches gladiator fights between her people.

I like this twist of events. Octavia appeared menacing on her throne. The next episode should give us a glimpse on their time below the bunker. This was an exciting and intense start into season five... everything will be different moving onward.

I enjoyed the Clarke centric stuff the most. The other stuff was fine, just felt weird to have that shift when I thought I wouldn't see Bellamy's group until the next episode. Comment and let me know your thoughts. How are we feeling about the new threat?

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