The last episode was framed around Bellamy choosing to do what’s right for his people (from his perspective), with his words in the beginning of the episode directly echoing his words at the end of the episode. “I do it every day.” At the beginning of the episode, he’s on Pike’s side and that nothing has changed his mind yet. At the end of the episode, he chooses to protect Miller and Harper from Pike. So, what changes?

Bellamy doesn’t actually undergo any type of character arc in this episode. He doesn’t change. The situation around him changes. Pike becomes more of a dictator, ordering spying on his own people, but Bellamy willingly participates in this. The other characters have doubts, like Monty and Miller’s boyfriend, but Bellamy doesn’t seem to have any moral reservations. When Bellamy arrests Sinclair, Kane tells him that Sinclair will be next to die. Bellamy replies, “Of course not.” And he chooses not to join Kane in his coup. This is actually rather consistent for Pike. In an earlier episode, when they were secretly going to ambush the Grounders outside the camp, Pike orders his people to stand down, saying “We don’t fight our own.” So really, this episode isn’t about Bellamy’s redemption, but about Pike’s descent into dictatorship. He finally crosses the line, from Bellamy’s perspective, when he orders the execution of Kane. Pike says he hopes the execution will make it clear where people’s allegiances need to lie. It does make it crystal clear for Bellamy, but it puts him on the other side now. He chooses to not turn in Miller and Harper, people he committed genocide for to save them on Mt. Weather, because he knows that Pike may order their execution too. That’s Bellamy’s moral compass and that’s what changes for him.

Kane’s choice is too easy, especially when I loved the tough moral choices before on this show. I wish Kane could’ve struggled more with overthrowing a democratically-elected leader. But Kane tells Pike that he’s become a dictator, and the show’s point of view supports Kane’s conclusions. No moral qualms for treason. Kane even says “No matter how I look at it… I am [making the right decision].” While Kane initially doesn’t want to do this, saying that’s not who we are to Octavia when she leaves and to Harper when she wants to shock-lash Pike’s fascist ass, the internal struggle disappears rather quickly once internal spying and informing begins. It all seems rather pre-ordained. Kane does indicate that Pike was different, asking “What happened to you, Charles?” and talking about how he was like on the Ark. Unfortunately, we only see Pike post-Ice Nation. We don’t see what informed this change or how he was like before the change. So, Pike’s character lacks a lot of nuance that it could’ve had — nuance that could’ve made Kane’s choice harder, or nuance that could’ve been a slower and more tragic descent into dictatorship. When Pike says that he would turn himself in if he thought it would help his people, I thought to myself that it could’ve been cool to have a Pike redemption instead of a Bellamy redemption. We’ll see how it plays out, though.

Bellamy’s actions at the beginning, shooting those messengers, seemed kind of harsh and out of nowhere on first watch, but it made sense to me after I watched it again. They were causing unrest. He knew they weren’t going to leave. To preserve the peace and to preserve Pike, he killed them. Otherwise, there could’ve been more internal fighting (like there was with Finn).

I was super happy that Sinclair is okay so far. Being part of a coup didn’t work out so well on BSG.

Alie has been programmed to not override free will and consent. Great. But Jaha doesn’t have the same programming. Uh oh. I kind of figured all along that free will wasn’t gone and this confirms it. Monty was great in this episode and so was Raven. I’m excited to see where this storyline goes next.

As much as I’ve complained about this whole storyline with Bellamy and Pike, I actually really enjoyed this episode. It was so much fun! The cat and mouse game was intense and thrilling. It’s only when I write about it afterward and get super-analytical that I notice these things, but the show’s still a blast.

EDIT:

Forgot to post about Monty’s mom saying that if something helps you survive, then it’s right. It’s a morality informed by her time trying to survive in Ice Nation territory. It’s directly contrasted against Clarke’s morality, which says that there’s more to life than just survival. Lexa, on her deathbed in the previous episode, finally agrees with Clarke, having previously viewed love as weakness, something she was taught by Titus (and something confirmed by what happened to Costia).

It’s flashback time, which means one of Clarke’s lovers has to die. Ascension Day was a good frame for the flashbacks. We learned not only what it means to current-day Trikru, but how it originated through the flashbacks. And now we know that Alie 2 is this AI chip that functions through interfacing with humans, so it should theoretically be more human itself.

I’m not sure how retconny it feels because Lexa doesn’t feel particularly super-intelligent. However, she did manage to unite the 12 tribes and she did have a knack for finding alternative solutions, like killing Queen Nia and blockading Arkadia. The one thing that does feel weird in retrospect is the whole thing where she wanted Clarke to leave her to get mauled by the bear-beast-thingy (I don’t remember what it was anymore). Wouldn’t it potentially eat the commander chip?

It was really cool seeing the actress who plays Alie also play Becca. So I was wondering if Alie had been let out, but it turns out she got out herself, bypassing all the safeguards. Becca determined Alie was too dangerous, but she still kept Alie alive. Her hubris / faith in AI also gets the 13th station destroyed, when she refuses to give Alie 2 up, saying that Alie 2’s intelligence is what will keep the human race alive. I think she truly believed that and she wasn’t just saying it to prevent them from floating her precious. In a way, she wasn’t completely wrong because the air only lasted 1 century instead of 2. It was good to finally see Becca’s motivations and it helped answer more questions.

It seems like Alie 2 was created to correct Alie 1’s faults, and not to combat Alie 1. They already had a “poison pill” for Alie 1. I suspect that Alie 1 may have had an idea of what Becca was trying to accomplish because I bet Becca tried to explain to her that she didn’t understand humanity. Pure speculation, of course.

It’s still unclear what nightblood is. It looks like it’s necessary to host Alie 2. Lexa and all commanders had nightblood. Becca injected it before she was interrupted and told they wanted to float Alie 2, so it doesn’t look like it was created to stop radiation. (But perhaps that’s a pleasant side effect? I don’t understand how Becca was able to take off her suit and not die right away.) The first nightblood was created through injection, so it doesn’t seem like it’s a genetic thing, maybe? But then how are new nightbloods created in this world? In the cave paintings, we see the first “natblidas” who correspond to the people Becca saw when she landed. She had enough to inject them, I assume.

Based on Lexa’s tattoo and the conversation with Clarke about it, it seems like there were 9 nightbloods in Lexa’s class (including herself). It sure sounds like they kill off all the other nightbloods when one is picked as commander. (Which truly makes me wonder how new ones are created. It also makes me frightened for all those kids who didn’t get a line, and I’m guessing Clarke will try to stop the murder.) But one escaped this fate. It was probably Costia, whom Lexa would save, and that may have been how Queen Nia created her nightblood. I even wonder if the nightbloods are created by doing something to pregnant women. It makes sense that the other nightbloods are killed because it would prevent a lot of succession conflict.

Seeing Lexa in a meditative state reminded me so much of Jaha. It just hammered home the AI parallels.

I put subtitles on when I did my second watch, and I noticed that the phrase used to deactivate Alie 2 (make its tentacles go bye-bye) is [indistinct] both times. I don’t even know what language it is. I don’t think this is the case, but it would be cool if the grounder language already existed pre-apocalypse. I do think that this phrase will be important later.

We got to see even more of Titus. We know he’s the Flamekeeper who transfers the AI from person to person. He is a badass who’s able to take out a would-be assassin in Semet. After seeing him take out Semet, I figured Murphy didn’t have a chance in hell of killing him. I also figured Murphy wouldn’t die because he is unkillable. Seriously, I’d be more shocked if Murphy died than if Clarke died, haha. We also know that Titus’s agenda is protecting the commander (not some secret nefarious AI-agenda) and that he more specifically has an emotional attachment to Lexa. But he has his own ideas about what’s important (blood must have blood), how to govern, and how to keep Lexa safe that creates conflict between him and Lexa and him and Clarke. We learn that “love is weakness” is from Titus. Not sure how long he’s been preaching it, pre- or post-Costia, but I’m guessing it’s been a consistent belief of his. It’s an interesting contrast to Alie 2 needing to know how to be human. Love is important to the human experience, and Lexa recognizes this through the end, which means it could be something the next commander will know too. On that subject, the scene with Lexa shouting that she knows how to separate her feelings form duty was great.

On first watch, it seemed like the Americans were just being jackasses when blowing up Polaris. However, on second watch, I realized that the Chinese and Russians were also getting jumpy and thinking about backing out. So, it also a show of power to prevent other stations from getting cold feet. I’m not sure why the dude didn’t just tell them about it. Not the smartest plan.

Tumblr exploded when Lexa died. At first, I didn’t realize the dead lesbians thing was a trope. Total blind spot on my part, which was made worse by me not realizing that it wasn’t just shippers overreacting. I won’t say too much on this because I didn’t even know it was a thing, so it’s not really my place to comment. However, I think it’s unfair to criticize the show merely for killing off Lexa because of 1) her contract situation and 2) the show’s willingness to kill main characters, including Clarke’s male lover. It does seem fair to criticize the show for how it happened because she did right after sex and because it was a stray bullet. On second watch, though, it appeared as if Lexa was running to the room, not just randomly wandering in to get hit. I think she was truly concerned about Clarke and going to help her, but I don’t think all of that was conveyed as clearly as it could have been (the shock was more important for them to convey, which may also have been a mistake if they wanted to avoid some of this backlash). Read other people for a better discussion of this. Lexa was an awesome character, and I’m sad Alycia’s gone. She did get a tender send-off. And at least the sex scene didn’t seem to be catering to the male gaze. When I re-watched the episode on Hulu, it was advertising Fear the Walking Dead, and I may be more interested because of who’s on it.

Murphy was one of my favorite things about this episode. For now, he’s the one person in this world who knows that there are two AIs. Crazy! I enjoyed his, “Trust me, I have no faith” line which says so much about him as a person. The delivery by the actor was great. I also cracked up at the “worship garbage” line. No offense, lol.

Things only get crazier from here, right? There were a few big reveals in the last episode and the hints we’ve been seeing will probably get more fleshed out very soon.

One big thing was seeing that Polis is derived from Polaris, the 13th station that was destroyed. There’s a piece of it on Earth, which was perhaps an escape pod. It’s with Titus. We also know that ALIE has been searching for version 2 of her code. It should be a dormant or incomplete version, according to her. Her creator, Becca, went to space because she wanted “a more secure environment” and ALIE was the reason she wanted a more secure environment.

There’s something going on with Lexa and the previous commanders beyond superstition and reincarnation. Lexa with the incomplete infinity tattoo suggests a link to the “incomplete” 2.0 AI. Her saying death is not the end and that her spirits choose the next commander suggests something technology rather than spiritual using this new information. It’s something some people have been thinking, but this gives those thoughts more evidence. This episode also has Lexa saying that commanders speak to her in her dreams, which may be a more lo-fi version of ALIE ghosting it up everywhere. (I think ALIE is projecting herself through the neural pathways of the converted.) I suspect that 2.0 AI maybe trying to complete itself, and it has something to do with the commanders. Maybe adding their wisdom to the code helps complete it? Who knows. I also wonder if it has some type of vengeance protocol, lol, because Titus has been so obsessed with blood must have blood.

So we already know ALIE was dangerous (because she destroyed the world and before destroying said there were too many people), but we have another hint that Becca thought she was dangerous too. We also knew ALIE was locked away somehow, and I presume it was Becca who did it. Yet we have almost no insight into Becca aside from these indirect clues. We don’t know if Becca actually thought that there were too many humans as ALIE thought. It seems as if Becca shelved ALIE because ALIE was too dangerous and decided to work on a less dangerous version. But then why is ALIE looking for 2.0? Jaha calls it an upgrade, and perhaps that’s what ALIE told Jaha? But if that’s a less dangerous version, why would ALIE want it? There’s something contradictory there that makes it hard to figure out.

BTW, I don’t think I’ve ever seen ALIE lie. Deception seems to be more Jaha’s style. She’s curious as to why Jaha doesn’t tell Raven that she destroyed the world. He calls it an abundance of caution. The City of Light isn’t complete mind-control. They still have free will. They’re just freed from pain (emotional and physical) and then their behavior from there follows from that.

The 13th station had all records of it wiped. It was preserved through myth as this uncooperative station that they had to blow up to get the rest of the stations together. But there’s definitely more to it than that. I wonder what actually happened. Did you want it destroyed, Becca? Did they want to destroy you? There’s so much we don’t know! And I hope we know more soon!

Another big reveal is that Jaha forgot Wells. Wow. Hallucination-Wells leads Jaha to Earth. My favorite Jaha moment is still when he loses it and says “I lost my son” in season one. (Isaiah Washington has done such an amazing job on this show!) So, it’s crazy to see that he forgot Wells completely. I guess that’s what he meant by unburdened. I was wondering if he’d even want to visit Wells’s grave, but I wasn’t expecting him to completely forget him. It makes sense, though. We know that the infinity wafers work by inhibiting certain neural pathways from firing. To ALIE, pain is pain, so they stop both physical and emotional pain. To stop the pain, it seems as if it had to stop the neural pathways that help Jaha remember his son. That leads us to wonder if Raven has forgotten Finn. She’s not mad at Jasper. But I don’t think ALIE is helping her remember the same way that she helped Jaha remember. ALIE went into Arkadia’s mainframe and stopped her conversation with Raven before Jasper showed up. Perhaps she just hasn’t forgotten him yet. (Oh and since we got a better view inside the backpack, it looks like it’s confirmed that the nuke was used as a power source for backpack-ALIE and it wasn’t a ruse about some more nefarious purpose.)

Jasper wants to take the infinity wafer after seeing how great Raven’s doing. He gets maybe the best line of the episode when he says, “You only get scars once you’ve healed.” Abby stops him. We know that Jaha will probably get his keys back because Jackson has been converted. I wonder, though, if Jasper will still take the infinity wafer even if he knew it would make him forgot Maya. I think maybe he would, and that would be frightening. I don’t think that Raven would want to forget Finn.

I doubt the endgame of this series is everyone getting dying and the remnants of humanity living in the City of Light. So, if we assume that ALIE will get stopped somehow, I wonder what the after-effects of the City of Light will be. This show is about consequences, so I doubt anyone who went to the City of Light will just suddenly be normal once it disappears. The forgetting is likely permanent, if maybe the physical pain probably isn’t.

I don’t have as much to say about the other storylines right now, and it looks as if the storylines will be colliding more soon.

Clarke either gets revenge and looks like a hypocrite or has to choose banishment when Emerson-in-a-box is gifted from King Roan (who proves his loyalty and answers some of my questions from last week). She finds her way out of this riddle by granting Emerson his life, preserving blood must not have blood, but she still gets her revenge knowing the psychological pain Emerson will continue to endure. It undermines her decision in a way, but it satisfies Lexa. Lexa’s proving to be a true revolutionary (as she was when she united the clans in the first place). Clexa is full-steam ahead after the drawing scene and Titus getting mad about Clarke’s closeness with Lexa.

It’s cool seeing more of Titus. The show is revealing more and more of his character. He has something going on with Polaris tech and AI 2.0. He wants to protect Lexa. He doesn’t like Clarke’s ideas or her influence on Lexa. (I think it’s because he ships Bellarke, not Clexa.)

Hannah is getting more screen time too, so we get to see that she’s a badass. It’s awesome from a representation point of view. We get to see an older Asian woman be a badass and she doesn’t have to do martial arts, haha. She’s pretty cold-blooded ordering the death of the kid. I was a little confused about how to interpret that scene. One possible interpretation is that she was genuinely being nice to the kid, feeling motherly despite her hatred of grounders, and then decided to kill the kid once she was reminded of her duty. Another interpretation was that the friendliness was feigned so that the kid wouldn’t run right away, to make him/her easier to kill. Not sure which one is right.

Octavia didn’t handle the attempted evacuation in the best way. Yelling you’re all going to die certainly sounded like a threat. I like that the show sets up the poison gas by showing Octavia get hurt by the sap towards the beginning of the episode. Octavia’s getting taken to Lexa in Polis, which could get interesting.

Miller might be in trouble. He planted the bug in Pike’s office and he gave Octavia the horse. Pike tells Bellamy to get proof of Kane’s spying. (It’s telling that he doesn’t throw him immediately in jail, so he’s not a crazy-ass dictator. He thinks he has the mandate from the people and is acting on that democratic mandate.) I’m not sure that Bellamy will buy that the horse just coincidentally went missing. Miller has joined Kane’s side because he thinks it’s the best way to keep his friends alive.

That less than a year left before we starve revelation didn’t quite hit with the same impact as some of those season one choices did. Maybe because we already know Pike’s opinion and that Pike wanted to wipe out the grounder village before he even knew about the soil. It kind of weakens the choice. Pike’s an okay character, but he’s no wonderfully nuanced Dante Wallace at this point. But I think the weakness of the storyline is more Bellamy than Pike. I like to imagine a different version of Gina that was more jealous of Clarke and more “realistic” about peace with the grounders and who maybe could’ve asked Bellamy to stay instead of playing hero when the ice nation woman came and how that would’ve shaped Bellamy’s arc in a more believable way.

One thing I noticed was Kane regretting demanding the election. I wonder if he might be regretting the democratic process and if this may be the seeds of a more tyrannical Kane later on. That’s way too far ahead, and I don’t want to speculate that far because there’s so much unpredictable shit that’s yet to happen.

Parting thought: Abby to Kane, “Let’s call it hope… that you’ll get in my pants.”