Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-27794543-20180711010514/@comment-7971816-20180716091829

I remember reading 'murphy starts a fire" in the description or smth and I was ready to get upset for him destroying the valley with a wildfire. To see how that played out was amazing. I have always liked Murphy's attitude of just getting stuff done, and this episode was really a good one for that.

The Raven/Shaw dynamic is still there to remind is that not everything is hopeless. But I wish it wasn't so conflicted with Echo wanting to kill him. Well... not that even? What conflicts me the most is that Raven agreed to it last episode, and now she's flirting with the guy? Or did I dream that. Any ways, Echo needs to stay away from the guy because he seems like the only decent fella around that Valley.

Finally, the whole drama in the bunker was great IMO. When I saw tweets after the episode aired saying the "bellarke dynamic was ruined" and that the writers "recycled plots" with the flame I feared the worst.

But inserting the flame back into the story has been a topic since the beginning of the season. You have a grounder culture who was still raised off of the ideology of the commanders. 6 years isn't just going to wipe that. We saw it with Gaia, and we saw it with the other grounders this episode. The flame will never be irrelevant as long as it's intact and nightbloods are around. So this entire plot made sense to me. In fact, it would have made no sense if they had ignored the potential storyline of Madi ascending.

That said, I  fully expect Clarke to take the flame out of Madi and destroy it, once she had said her final goodbyes and everything. She does not support the flame inside Madi, nor will she take it herself. So I think those two facts should logically lead to Clarke deciding to destroy it, no matter what it represents. Why keep it around if Clarke opposes to the only 2 people who can use it to have it?

Secondly, in regards to bunker drama, Bellamy's betrayal of both Clarke and Octavia came back to hit him badly. He hoped Octavia would have been knocked out longer. He hoped he could reason with Clarke by explaining that he was trying to do this to go to his family in the valley. Both of those plans backfired. And he went and did the one thing he thought was left to do.

Now I've seen people hating on Bellamy for giving Madi the flame. But I feel like that is more because he betrayed Clarke in doing so and people don't like it when Clarke and Bellamy aren't on the same page. But if you watch the episode it's clear that he gave Madi the choice. And yes, she was put into a corner and he didn't sugarcoat anything for her. But Madi chose to. She has been told by Clarke for 6 years (and probably by others before praimfaya, hence why she was hidden from the scouts) that the flame isnt good. She was given this lecture by Clarke often enough, I would think. So all of that was on her mind when she made the choce. The one thing that could make her go along with it anyways, was Clarke being in danger. And that happened to be the situation.

Thing is, Clarke and Madi's relationship changes the entire dynamic of the show. And it impacts the main characters the most. Clarke was always willing to sacrifice herself for her people. She has spoken that line about a dozen times. But now she can no longer do that. Because she had to be there, for Madi. She has someone she loves more than "her people".

And so Clarke leaving the bunker, saying "they made her choice" was entirely  the right plot to go with. Because Clarke has different priorities now. And if that puts her opposite of Bellamy, then so be it.

Ultimately, it seems like Clarke not wanting the flame in Madi is what allowed them to escape. Granted they weren't supposed to make it out of Polis, but they did. If Clarke had agreed to Madi taking the flame, they would have been in great trouble. And while that would've been better for core relationships like Bellamy and Clarke, ultimately it would have hurt the plot, in my opinion.

So yeah

PS: Sorry for the rant so long after the episode aired, but I just had the time to rewatch it so that's why I'm writing this with the episode fresh in mind :p