Please be aware there are spoilers through the Season 4 premiere, "Echoes". We're talking a nuclear reactor's worth of spoilers, we're going full meltdown mode below.
At long last, the wait is over and it's time for the next chapter in the dark and dreary days of Clarke, Skaikrew, and the Grounders is underway. The 100 is back and The Season 4 premiere made one thing abundantly clear -- they're not going to have a moment of breathing room before the next tragedy hits. The final moments of "Echoes" confirmed it beyond a shadow of a doubt -- all of A.L.I.E.'s predictions are coming true; a new nuclear apocalypse is upon the Earth, and it's not just coming for them, it's already on the way.
This isn't the first end of the world The 100's humanity has faced, and it certainly isn't the first time Clarke and Co. have found themselves in a life or death situation, but for once, they're not up against other people, but nature itself, and there's no way to make a coalition with nuclear energy. There's a ticking clock at the start of this season that's never been there before, which means every character's decisions carry more weight than ever before.
With that in mind, we've got some questions about what's ahead for our intrepid team of survivors that we need answered in the coming season.
Is Jasper Really OK?
I think the short answer here is probably "No".Jasper did not have a good time in Season 3. After Maya's died during Clarke and Bellamy's Season 2 Mount Weather massacre, Jasper devolved into a drunken, sullen shell the vibrant and good-natured young man he used to be, turning his back on his friends (even poor Monty) and losing faith in the leaders of his people. Unfortunately, it was a bit of an unlikeable turn for a number of reasons. Namely, it came across as pretty hypocritical after the hellfire he laid down on the grounders at the end of Season 1, he didn't hold Bellamy to the same standards as Clarke, and it just went on too long. Grieving takes time, but The 100 takes place in a very heightened world where everybody’s dealing with some grief and PTSD, and there’s no time for such excessive self-pity.
It's a bit of a surprise that it took him so long to take the chip and journey to the City of Light, but once he was there he ultimately found the peace he was looking for, snacking on a strawberry ice cream cone as he strolled merrily through the populated streets of a prosperous city. However, his enduring happiness would have come at the cost of humanity's free will, so obviously not worth it, but will Jasper be able to see it that way? He was definitely hit hard by the realization he had been pulled from ALIE's bliss matrix, but ultimately he seemed to mend his very broken fences with Monty and there was even a smile. All the same, you couldn't shake the feeling he was seconds away from eating a bullet that entire final scene, and Rothenberg has since confirmed his suicidal state of mind. Is Jasper really going to be ok in light of one more devastating hit on his pursuit of peace of mind? Can he ever forgive Clarke now that her hand has taken that peace from him a second time? And if he's still going to be a cruel and destructive person to everyone around him, do we care?
Is It finally Going to Be Kane and Abby's Time?
I'm not the world's biggest shipper, probably because I am a grown woman, but there is something about a mature adult relationship on a CW drama that does it for me. Of all the ships in The 100's universe (and I pretty much support them all, because what else are you going to do when the cast is that pretty?), Kane and Abby is the most hard-earned and mature. Over the seasons, they've spent more time at odds than on the same page, but it’s always been infighting between two people on the same team, doing what they believed was right for the future of the human race, and along the way they’ve developed a tremendous respect and obvious affection for each other. Last season teased us with some hot Kabby action, but it wasn’t how any of us wanted that to go down — Abby throwing herself at Kane in one of ALIE’s twisted manipulation attempts.
Sure, as chancellor of Arkadia, Kane was willing to put Abby to the stockades and give her a pretty severe lashing, but ultimately when her ALIE pointed a gun to her head, he yielded and took the chip. To put it into a little perspective, Clarke was not willing to sacrifice free will for the future of the human race, but Kane was willing to sacrifice his for Abby. That’s legit. Both of them did things under ALIE’s influence that will shame them greatly, as was brutally clear by their devastated reactions when they came to. Ultimately, the season ended with them in each others’ arms — I mean, sobbing and traumatized, but they’re there for each other, all the same. We know nothing good can last on The 100, but Kane and Abby have been dealing with apocalyptic shit way longer than their kids and they deserve at least a fleeting moment before the whole world burns in a nuclear meltdown.
What Kind of Crazy Will Jaha Be This Season?
Jaha lives! Probably to no one's delight, but he lives all the same. So what is next for the man who so often makes dubious choices in pursuit of what he believes is right? As Chancellor, Jaha made a lot of questionable moral bargains to keep his people alive; there was the cutthroat floating sentence for any criminal infraction, the culling of is people to preserve the Arc's limited air supply, and of course, sending 100 juvenile delinquents down to a potentially deadly earth as the front line of exploration. That last one is important because it highlights the fact that his ruthless actions have often led to the survival of the human race. Jaha has always been a leader who was willing to sacrifice the few for the many. He tried to pay that off with his self-sacrifice on the arc, but that ultimately led him to the path of ALIE and The City of Light and as we saw in the premiere, that guilt is already hitting him pretty hard.
Like Clarke, Jaha's constantly been put in a position where he has to make impossible choices for the greater good. The difference is, when presented with a future full of nothing but pain, he chose ALIE and Clarke chose humanity. We'll see who's right in the end. What also remains to be seen is how deeply that decision will impact Jaha and how he will try to protect his people without The City of Light to fall back on. Will he rise as a leader once again? Or will desperation push him to more drastic action?
What Side Will Roan Fall on?
Roan has always been a tricky fella' who shares a reluctant and contentious camaraderie with Clarke thanks to shared survival instinct and begrudging mutual respect. The last time we saw the King of the Ice Nation in Season 3, he was shot in the chest and bleeding on the ground. Thankfully he not only survived, he had Clarke and Abby at his side, willing to put their lives on the line to bring him back to health. Now we have to see how much he is willing to put on the line for them in the name of a far-off threat he doesn't fully understand.
There's a pretty big conflict of interest too, because Roan is hungry for his rightful claim to the throne -- a feat that will not come easy given his failure to best Lexa and his history of alliance with Wanheda. The Ice King was able to uphold Lexa's coalition and get Azgeda to fall in line, but just barely and who knows how long it will last. Roan has proven a powerful ally in times of crisis, which means he could be an equally powerful enemy. If his authority is tested, will Roan work with Clarke to save the inhabitants of Earth, or will he chose the Grounders over his survivalist instinct?
Did Clarke Do The Right Thing?
This is the biggie, and likely to be a major throughline of Season 4. When presented with ALIE's inhuman means of human survival and the faith that humanity would find a way to survive on its own, Clarke chose humanity. But was it the right call? No doubt, it is a decision that will come at a cost. Once again, the young leader of Skaikrew is responsible for the fallout, this time a rather literal fallout, and any suffering that follows lays directly on her shoulders. No doubt there will always be someone around to remind her of this (this has been Jasper's beat recently, though the trailers point to some Monty rage too), and no doubt the tough decisions have only just begun considering the world is about to fall into a second nuclear apocalypse. And given what we saw about how things are going in Egypt, it's coming on hard and fast.
The bigger truth here, and what makes The 100 such a compelling show, is that there is no answer to whether Clarke made the right choice, just as there was no answer when she and Bellamy brought down Mt. Weather. This decision bears a different shade of moral complication, but once again, the suffering of many comes down to a choice by a few. The 100 is at its best when it neither excuses nor condemns those choices, but explores them in the context of the new world they create. We've seen Clarke put through the ringer over her life-or-death judgment calls time and time again, to the point of exhaustion last season. While those decisions should never come easy, I'm hoping we won't see a repeat of "Jasper, the guilty conscience" in Season 4. Clarke's decision created a new world once again, hopefully this season will focus that in all its horrors, because we already know the horror of the decision it took to get there.
How Dark Will Octavia Go?
The moment Pike put a bullet in Lincoln's head, we all knew that man was not long for this world. Octavia simply will not have it. We all knew that. But Pike fought side-by-side with the rebels and display bravery in the battle against ALIE and her converts. And The 100 has a proud history of changing your mind about contemptible characters (Hey, Murphy), so once the dust settled, it seemed there might be a reprieve ... until Octavia shoved a blade through his back moments before the finale cut to black. Sure, Pike may have been a genocide enthusiast and a terrible, war-mongering leader, but it doesn't change the fact that that was some straight up cold-blooded murdery shit for Octavia do, and she never flinched.
By making it the closing beat of the season, the writers made a very clear point -- this character is headed down a dark road and she's taking no prisoners. But how dark? Octavia has always been a bit off the beaten path, as you might tend to be if you grew up a secret, illegal child hiding under the floorboards of a spaceship. But she's always had empathy -- arguably more than others given how quickly she accepted and defended Lincoln and the Grounder culture. As we saw in the premiere, she's in full death-dealing mode; equating vengeance with justice and cutting down her enemies with ease. We know from the trailers that she's earning the nickname “Skairipa,” death from above, so that killer instinct isn't going anywhere soon, but how far can she spiral down before her morality kicks back in? And what will to cause her to finally come back to her senses?
Will The Flame Find a New Commander?
If there's one point that remained entirely unclear after the Season 3 finale, it's what the hell happens to the flame and its commanders now? Quick catchup: The Grounders base their religion on the flame, which is said to hold the Spirit of the Commander -- a means to select and guide the new Commander. In truth, The Flame is ALIE 2.0, created by the same scientist a century ago as a means to save the human race after her first AI, ALIE, manifested some pretty serious deleterious outcome and launched the first nuclear apocalypse to reduce overpopulation. Cut to today, while The Flame has been guiding the Earth's remaining humans, the world's remaining nuclear reactors are melting down after a century without maintenance so ALIE creates the City of Light as a means to save humanity from complete extinction. Of course, Clarke eliminated ALIE and her City of Light with the killswitch, but what does that mean for The Flame?
It was never entirely clear how the two were connected outside of sharing the same creator. It seems likely that they use the same technology to "upload" the spirits of people who take in the chip -- the spirits of the commanders all residing within The Flame to guide each new generation, but what happened to them when Clarke destroyed the City of Ligh?. For that matter, how the hell did Lexa get into the City of Light? Was it all one shared network? Do the Grounders greatest warriors spend their afterlife in an abandoned metropolitan City? That's kind of hilarious. But if it is one big network, does that mean that ALIE 2.0 along with the City of Light? Does that mean we'll definitively never see Lexa again?
Most importantly, does the fiame still function, and if so does it different now? We know there's still a night blood out there, Luna, and the apocalypse is coming for them all, so will she return to land and face her destiny? Hopefully, Season 4 will bring some answers about the specifics of The Flame's techo, but regardless of its explanation, we know one thing for sure -- it still holds an incredible power and meaning both to The Grounders, to whom it's a foundational piece of their faith, and to Clarke, who sees it as her last bit of Lexa. Whether or not The Flame still holds the technical power it used to, it absolutely still holds cultural power, so what role will it play in the coming conflicts of Season 4?