The 100 – Bitter Harvest

By starrymag | February 26, 2016

By: Allison Schonter

 

“Will this generation be able to turn things around and learn a valuable lesson from all of this? I hope so, but I have my doubts. The damage has been done. And as a lifelong student of history, it’s quite evident that human beings don’t learn from the mistakes of past generations.” ― Aaron B. Powell, Voluntary

 

 

If “The 100’s” Bitter Harvest had to be summarized in one word, it would have to be history – more specifically how the past comes back to haunt you and how history repeats itself. The theme runs throughout the entirety of the episode and each character is faced with the past and some begin to repeat the actions that others had taken in the past; actions that led to disastrous results. Death has been the norm. It is something common that both the Grounders and the Sky People hold. Death is a part of life and taking the lives of others is a fact of life. On the Ark, a person could be floated for the simplest of crimes and on the Ground “blood must have blood” has been the way of the people for decades. With a chance to start over, to begin a life and a culture where violence doesn’t have to be answered with violence, will the characters chose to learn from the harsh realities of their past or will they continue down the road of death and destruction?

 

 

Pike Seeks to Expand Arakdia…and Eliminate Grounders

 

Yeah, so, about Pike (Michael Beach)…He isn’t making it to the top of my nice list anytime soon. In fact, he may very well be making it to the #1 spot on my bad list. His plans to expand Arkadia have been put in action and he has sent a team out to take soil and water samples. What exactly is his plan? Being from Farm Station, he wants to farm. Arkadia is running low on food and other resources and within a year’s time the people of Arkadia will starve. In order to prevent this, the Sky People need to become active in agriculture once again and the water and soil near the camp offers the prime plot of land for this. The only problem is that a Grounder camp is located in this area.

 

Cue Bellamy (Bob Morley) and a team of others who are sent out with the orders to clear the camp. All stones must be cleared for Arkadia to begin farming and this means wiping out the camp and taking more innocent lives. Bellamy is hesitant at first, reluctant to massacre anymore people, but he easily gives in with a pep talk from Pike who reminds him that their people are more important than the Grounders. Unfortunately (depending on how you view it), Pike’s plans don’t go over smoothly due to Octavia (Marie Avgeropoulos) alerting the camp of Grounders. The Grounders retaliate by shooting flaming arrows at pillars laced with a toxic sap, which creates toxic smoke and ultimately leads to the death of Monroe (Katie Stuart). This death will only serve to infuriate Pike and those following him.

 

The storyline centering on Pike is one of the most interesting of the season. For the first time in “The 100,” the bad guy and one of the major threats is a Sky Person. That person is capable of making the decisions for the entirety of the community and is able to garner the support and loyalty of others. While he believes what he is doing is for the betterment of his people, every action that he makes moves Arkadia closer to war with the Grounders. Pike keeps pushing and soon enough he is going to push too far and action will have to be taken.

 

 

Kane, Octavia, and Miller Team Up

 

Our three heroes seem to be the only ones with a level head on their shoulders at the moment. Their story during Bitter Harvest begins with Octavia, who has been recruited by Kane (Henry Ian Cusick) to keep an eye on Pike’s crew outside of the walls of Arkadia. She watches as the crew collects water and soil samples and she reports the information back to Kane via radio. Problems begin to arise, though, when a Grounder child approaches the area where the samples are being collected and Octavia immediately knows that the only way that the Arkadians will react is by murdering the child. As the child runs away, trying to flee before he can be shot, Octavia quickly darts into the woods, grabbing the child and hiding behind a tree with him until the Sky People give up the search.

 

Back in Arkadia, Kane and Miller (Jarod Joseph) are on their own mission. They need insight into what is going on behind closed doors. In other words, they need a way to hear the discussions that Pike has with the others in his office. This mission involves sneaking into Pike’s office, which is almost thwarted when Pike begins walking down the hallway. Thanks to Kane’s quick thinking, he provides a distraction in the form of a tense conversation between himself, Pike and Bellamy, as Miller places a listening device in Pike’s office. It is because of this device that they find out about the plans to decimate the Grounder camp.

 

Octavia, meanwhile, is still running around outside of Arkadia. More specifically, she is hiding in a cave. She is the only one who can warn the Grounders about their fate. Miller brings her her horse and she rides to the Grounder’s camp, where, after a confrontation with a Grounder, she is finally able to gain their trust. That child that she saved at the beginning of the episode, he returns the favor by interfering and telling the Grounders that she’s the one who saved him. Octavia believes that she has convinced the Grounders to leave and she assures them that what they are doing is as brave as if they had gone to war. “Blood must not have blood” is more heroic than getting revenge and shedding more blood. But the Grounders trick her, knock her out and tie her up. Octavia is smart, though, and she is able to free herself, get on her horse and ride away from the camp while yelling a warning to Bellamy and the others. Her freedom is short-lived and the Grounders quickly recapture her.

 

Octavia’s character is perhaps one of the most intriguing. She is this character that is very much stuck in the in between. She was born an Arker, but she connects with the Grounders. She feels as if she’s a Grounder, but the Grounders don’t recognize her as their own. She is caught in this grey zone where she simply doesn’t belong in either of the groups and both groups hate her because of her relations to the opposing group. And despite their distrust of her, Octavia continues time and time again to help the Grounders, because she connects to them and their ways of life more than she has ever connected to anyone on the Ark.

 

 

The City of Light Finds a Home In Arkadia

 

In last week’s episode of “The 100,” Jaha (Isaiah Washington) began his mission of recruiting the people of Arkadia to join him in the “City of Light.” He had managed to garner the trust of Raven (Lindsey Morgan), the one whom A.L.I.E. (Erica Cerra) saw as the key to getting the others to join. Bitter Harvest picked up where that story had left off and with Raven’s success story, more and more people are taking the chip. Jasper (Devon Bostick), still struggling with the loss of Maya, is curious about the chip, but agrees not to take it until Abby (Paige Turco) discovers what it is.

 

A.L.I.E. recruiting Raven serves other purposes, as well. A.L.I.E. needs Raven’s help. There is a second code that she needs, version two of her code, although she won’t disclose the reason to Raven. The code is believed to be hidden somewhere within the computer systems of the Ark. Raven, being her techy self, connects A.L.I.E. to the mainframe of the Ark and allows her to search for what she needs. But the search proves fruitless. The code isn’t there. The code is in the 13^th station, which had been separated from the Ark and plummeted to Earth decades ago.

 

Throughout the episode, Abby is hesitant to believe that something as good as the City of Light and the promises that Jaha is making of never again experiencing pain are true. She performs various tests on Raven, but nothing seems to be wrong, which leads to the conclusion that the chip isn’t a drug. Abby is actively looking for a reason to prevent others from taking the chip and to prevent Jaha from continuing his mission. She finds this reason when she seeks out Jaha to talk to him, in turn stopping Jasper from consuming the chip. Jaha informs Abby that the chip adheres to the brain stem and stops the pain receptors. It’s not a drug. When asked if he would allow his son, Wells, to take the chip, the former chancellor hesitates. He doesn’t know who Wells is and it isn’t until A.L.I.E. informs him that he responds to Abby, who quickly takes the chips away from Jaha. A.L.I.E. isn’t worried, though, because they have Jackson (Sachin Sahel) on their side.

 

So what’s the deal with the City of Light? Apparently, consuming the chip runs the risk of losing memories of those who were close to you; Jaha forgot his own son. Not only is the chip taking away pain, it is taking away memories, which already goes to show the possibility that there is some form of mind control behind it. And why does A.L.I.E. need a second code? The first code was used to destroy the Earth and the second code was hidden away within the Ark.

 

 

Clarke and Lexa are Forced to Face the Past

 

Bitter Harvest opens with a moment of peace for Clarke (Eliza Taylor) and Lexa (Alycia Debnam-Carey). With the massacre of her people momentarily put in the past and her newest order of blood must not have blood, the two women are finally able to enjoy a moment of tranquility, which just so happens to be in each other’s presence. In an almost Titanic-esque moment, Lexa is asleep on a couch in her room, a book in her hands, and Clarke is transfixed in her work; drawing the sleeping Commander (“The Bitanic,” ladies and gentleman. Thank you, Eliza Taylor, for that ever so clever pun). And, as usual, in this specific moment, the two women are simply Clarke and Lexa, not “Heda” (Commander) and “Wanheda” (Commander of Death).

 

Moments like this never last long for the two leaders, though, and soon enough Lexa awakes with a gasp and Clarke is quick to comfort her. When she sleeps, Lexa is able to hear the past Commanders, those that came before her, and they are telling her that what she has done goes against her people’s ways. Blood must not have blood is not what the Grounders believe; the Grounders believe in avenging the dead by bloodshed and Lexa’s new order goes against decades of belief. Lexa fears that she is destroying their legacy, and Clarke assures her that Lexa’s legacy will be peace.

 

Things keep getting worse and the past continues to haunt them as Titus (Neil Sandilands) comes into the room with a box meant for Wanheda. Inside of the box is Emerson (Toby Levins), the last Mountain Man, and the man who had aided Queen Nia (Brenda Strong) in the attack on the Sky People in Mount Weather. King Roan (Zach McGowan) has sent the man so that Clarke can find justice for her people.

 

This “gift” opens a whole new can of worms and both Lexa and Clarke are faced with the struggle between blood must have blood and blood must not have blood. Emerson is the embodiment of everything that had happened at Mount Weather and the decision that Clarke had made and Clarke calls for Emerson’s death, something that conflicts Lexa. It was Clarke, after all, who had convinced Lexa not to avenge the massacre of 300 of her warriors.

 

When Clarke returns to her room, she finds Titus, who says that they must talk; they need to reach peace for the sake of the Commander. Titus is Lexa’s adviser and it is his duty to help guide Lexa to the right decisions. Despite his attempts to convince the Commander to retract her order of blood must not have blood, Lexa refuses to listen to him and he fears that this will lead to her death. He approaches Clarke in an attempt to convince her to help him change Lexa’s viewpoint. He wants Clarke to sentence Emerson to death and he wants the Grounder tradition to remain in tact, because if it doesn’t, Lexa’s life will be threatened. Clarke refuses to convince Lexa otherwise, knowing that it would only lead to war between their people. This leaves a tension between Titus and Clarke, the two people who are closest to Lexa.

 

In the end, Clarke isn’t able to go through with a death sentence. She realizes that killing Emerson would be more for herself than it would be as a punishment for him. She knows that if Emerson lives, he will be faced with a harsher punishment: living out the rest of his days alone and every day having to remember the lives lost at Mount Weather and the lives of the Sky People that he helped to take. Clarke’s decision infuriates Titus, who calls for Lexa to kill Emerson herself. This leads to Lexa giving a moving speech about peace and the world that she is trying to create for the Grounders, a world in which they don’t have to live in the shadow of death.

 

 

Titus and Polis’s Past

 

The episode ends with an intense scene where Titus and Murphy (Richard Harmon) are in a room together. Yep, those men who took Murphy last week brought him to Polis. Titus has been gaining all of his information on Clarke from Murphy, wanting to know as much as he can about Wanheda. Titus isn’t fond of Clarke and the effect that she is having on Heda.

 

Titus holds the chip with the infinity symbol up and demands to know where Murphy got it and then proceeds to smack Murphy. As the camera pans out, we hear Jaha telling A.L.I.E. the story of the 13^th station (which had been called “Polaris”) and a sign reading “Polis” comes into view, but it is clear that letters are missing. The 13^th station is within the city of Polis.

           

With Polis being the location of 13^th station, this connects the capitol not only to the Ark, but also to the City of Light. The tattoo on Lexa’s back? Well, if you look closely, it seems to depict the 13^th station falling to Earth, which further connects her to the Ark and the City of Light (not to mention the infinity symbol tattoo on the back of her neck). Could Lexa’s “dreaming” and having the former Commanders speak to her be related to this?

 

 

Final thoughts…

           

One of my favorite aspects of” The 100” are the characters, and furthermore, the relationships that they form with one another. The relationship between Clarke and Lexa is perhaps one of the most intriguing and endearing. For the first time in who knows how long, Lexa actually has someone there for her, and not someone there for her just because of her position as Commander. How many times before has Lexa woken up from her sleep, gasping for air as she is haunted by the words of the previous Commanders? And how many times has she had to deal with it by herself? But this time, Clarke was there for her; she was there to comfort Lexa and assure her that her decisions are the right ones. While their relationship isn’t completely mended and there are still moments of tension, the women offer each other moments of peace, brief moments where they can just be two women who have weaknesses and emotions, and not two leaders.

 

“The 100” also dabbles with foil characters. Pike is the foil character to Lexa and this stark contrast between the two leaders and the ways in which they are leading their people provides another pivotal story line. Lexa is a visionary and her focus is peace for her people. She doesn’t want war; she doesn’t want her people to have to experience death as a daily thing. She wants to bring her people peace and put an end to the violence that has been the way of her people since their beginning. Pike, on the other hand, is blinded by vengeance. He lost so many of his people when he landed on Earth and he lost even more during the attack on Mount Weather. He wants Arkadia to prosper and he will do whatever it takes to make that happen, even if it means taking the lives of innocents. He is not seeking peace with the Grounders, he is actively creating more and more tension between the two groups. Whereas Lexa is learning from the past of her people, Pike is following in the same footsteps that led to the destruction of the Earth.

 

Octavia and Bellamy’s relationship is yet another interesting one that is beginning to unfold on screen. They are siblings, but they couldn’t be more different. Bellamy is siding with Pike and is doing whatever the chancellor tells him. While he does have moments where he seems to be questioning what exactly they’re doing and the morality of Pike’s plans, he ultimately follows through and proves to be a loyal follower. Meanwhile, Octavia is doing everything in her power to prevent a war from starting and is actively aiding the Grounders. With Octavia captured by Grounders, and Bellamy and Pike’s knowledge that Octavia is a traitor, how will the Blake siblings’ relationship continue to unfold?

 

 

Don’t forget to tune in to The CW Network next Thursday at 9 pm EST for “Thirteen.”