The 100 – Nevermore

By starrymag | April 15, 2016

By: Allison Schonter

 

Ouch. That’s all that I can say about this one. Ouch. There aren’t enough bandages to mend all of the wounds inflected on my heart after Nevermore. It was emotional pain on top of emotional pain on top of emotional pain, not only for our favorite characters, but also for us, the viewers.

 

Summed up into a simple phrase, Nevermore was pretty much, “The Exorcism of Raven Reyes (Lindsey Morgan),” or rather an attempt to disconnect A.L.I.E. (Erica Cerra) from Raven. An unconscious Raven in tow, Jasper (Devon Bostick) and Clarke (Eliza Taylor) make a mad-dash in the rover to the cave where the others are waiting. Jasper still isn’t happy with Clarke, still blaming her for Maya’s death. Even though now really isn’t the time to focus on such things, he brings it up anyway. Man-pain, man…so much man-pain with him. When Jasper explains what is happening to Raven and how Raven believed that A.L.I.E. could be disconnected using the bracelets, Clarke immediately knows where they need to go. So, off our motley crew goes to pay Niylah (Jessica Harmon) a visit.

 

Niylah, however, isn’t the most welcoming. She’s angry with Skaikru. Her father was killed in Skaikru’s massacre of the Grounders led by Pike (Michael Beach) and Bellamy (Bob Morley). Clarke thankfully keeps Bellamy’s participation in the massacre a secret and Raven is quickly whisked inside to a back room and tied to the bed. Clarke asks Niylah (Jessica Harmon) for the wristband, knowing that she won’t let an innocent girl die, and Niylah retrieves it for her. Sinclair realizes that targeted electromagnetic pulse could potentially destroy the chip, but they need stuff from the dropship so Monty (Christopher Larkin) and Octavia (Marie Avgeropoulos) go.

 

The Dropship

 

Having overheard Octavia in the cave saying that she’s leaving, Monty asks her if it’s true. Octavia tells him that she’s not Skaikru. She’s not Trikru. She’s nothing. She was Lincoln’s people, but now Lincoln (Ricky Whittle) is dead and she feels that she has nobody, that she doesn’t belong anywhere. Even when Monty suggests that she belong to The 100, that they are her people, she disregards him.

 

After rooting through the dropship and getting what he needs, Monty comes back outside only Octavia is nowhere to be found. He can hear noises, though, and soon enough Monty’s mom comes out. Monty asks how she could have turned him into Pike, but Hannah (Donna Yamamoto) denies ever doing so. Monty begins to become suspicious and asks her what color his father’s eyes were, but Hannah tries to divert the question. She can’t remember and Monty realizes that she has consumed the chip. Being driven by A.L.I.E. and the City of Light, Hannah begins to attack her son, but Octavia jumps in to save him. Hannah manages to pin Octavia down and holds a machete to her neck, refusing to stop when Monty shouts at her. Doing the only thing that he can in the moment, Monty shoots his mother. When she feels no pain, he shoots her again, killing her and saving Octavia.

 

Back at Niylah’s

 

Back at Niylah’s place, Raven (under A.L.I.E.’s orders) tries to escape. So determined to free herself, she dislocates her shoulder so that she can use her teeth to untie the ropes binding her hands to the bed, which likewise causes her wounds to reopen. Clarke and the others rush into the room and secure her bindings. Raven; however, fights back when Clarke attempts to tend to her wounds. Speaking through Raven, A.L.I.E. tells Clarke that she wants the chip (The Flame/Spirit of the Commander) and that if she gives it to her she’ll let Raven go. Clarke counters her by saying that if Raven dies, A.L.I.E. will never get the chip.

 

Coming to the conclusion that somebody needs to be in the room with Raven at all times, Clarke decides that she’ll take first watch. As Clarke is cleaning the blood from Raven’s arms, Raven begins to verbally attack her, trying to find her weakness and make her break. She tells her that death follows Clarke and that while Clarke attempts to save everyone, it is really Clarke that they need saving from. She brings up Welles and Finn, but Clarke doesn’t react until Raven mentions that Clarke has probably gotten Lexa killed. This is what could potentially break he and Raven pushes further, blaming Clarke for her father’s death. Pushing her to her limits, Clarke begins to scream at Raven until Bellamy pulls her away. Clarke inadvertently gives away valuable information and A.L.I.E. realizes that they are going to the dropship.

 

Jasper and Bellamy are up next to take watch and Raven/A.L.I.E. continues the emotional torment. She brings up Maya and how Jasper failed to save her. She mocks him for how he’s been dealing with Maya’s death. She calls Jasper weak, pathetic, a coward and a waste of breath. Jasper is someone who couldn’t save Maya so he’s not even able to save himself. She then moves onto Bellamy when Jasper leaves the room. She asks him if it bothers him that he doesn’t get any credit for the massacre at Mount Weather. She brings up Gina. All of the people that died on the Ark are because he had prevented any communication with the Ark during their first days on the ground. She accuses him of killing his mother. When she brings up the massacre of the Grounders, though, Niylah overhears and rushes in, realizing that Bellamy took part in killing her father. This tells A.L.I.E. where Raven is being held.

 

Saving Raven

 

Octavia and Monty finally arrive back at Niylah’s with what they need. Sinclair (Alessandro Juliani) has been working on the bracelet and while he thinks it could work, he fears that it could damage Raven’s brain. Raven is the only thing that he has. Clarke assures him that it is their only chance at getting Raven back.

 

Realizing that none of her minions will be able to reach Raven in time, A.L.I.E. takes it a step further and begins making Raven try to kill herself, crashing her head against the headboard repeatedly. Clarke refuses to let Raven die and she makes a deal with A.L.I.E. – if she stops Raven from trying to kill herself, Clarke will give her the chip. Free from A.L.I.E.’s control, Raven begs the others not to fry the chip as she is afraid, just as Sinclair is, that it will cause brain damage. It is their only chance, though and group hooks the bracelet up to the battery and sends the electromagnetic pulse.

 

It works. Raven is still alive and breathing, but she is unconscious. In a fit of rage and not wanting the City of Light and A.L.I.E. to progress any further, Jasper takes the chip and is about to destroy it before Clarke begs him to stop. She tells him that it’s Lexa – that a part of Lexa is still in there. The chip is the only part of Lexa that Clarke has and Jasper destroying it would be him destroying that. But this reminds Clarke of what she had saw Titus do, of her own duty as Fleimakepa. She saw the A.I. removed from Lexa and she realizes that the only way to fully free Raven from A.L.I.E. is to remove the chip from her. So, she cuts the back of Raven’s neck and black oozes from it, the remnants of the chip. Raven is free of A.L.I.E.

 

Final Thoughts

 

There was a lot of hurt and pain in this episode, but also a lot of healing. Throughout the episode, Jasper is constantly attacking Clarke for what she had done at Mount Weather. He still blames her for Maya’s death, but when Clarke begs him not to destroy the chip, it is as if he recognizes the pain etched onto her face. He feels the heartache seeping into her tone. He recognizes that Clarke has lost someone that she loves and he cannot take the last connection that she has to that person away. By the end of the episode, it is as if Jasper has found a way to forgive Clarke or at least accept what she has done. He is ready to move on.

 

Bellamy and Clarke also seem to have made up. Their relationship is mending. They’ve both done things that they hate. They’ve both taken lives; their hands are covered in blood, though for entirely different reasons. Bellamy’s redemptive arc is continuing, but as a viewer in the audience, is it a little too late? Can Bellamy really come back from everything that he’s done?

 

And let’s not forget about Octavia. Ever since she landed on the ground she has been traversing the land of where she truly belongs. She never really belonged on the Ark. But then she had found Lincoln, and she finally felt a connection and she finally belonged. But Lincoln has been taken from her and so has that sense of belonging. At the end of the episode, though, is it possible that she is beginning to realize that the people around her are her people?

The City of Light. A.L.I.E. Not much to say about this one other than it’s a mess that needs to go away. It’s crazy. And messed up. Thankfully, now that Raven is free of A.L.I.E. and knows that the second A.I. is what can stop her, our group can do what they do best and put an end to all of the bad stuff.

 

 

 

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