Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-5575784-20180425204901/@comment-5575784-20180426001245

If you've remember last season, you'll remember a couple of discussions where I thoroghly analyze the episode and break it down. It's a lot of read in some cases so for the first time I'm just going to start off with a TL;DR

TL;DR The episode was good, but I felt like it would have been a stronger episode had the Season 4 cliffhanger been different. Also, the Becho moment stood out to me the most, but for a different reason.

Ok, so this episode was really fun to watch. It answered the main question that we (or at least I) asked when watching the end of Season 4: How did Clarke survive for 6 years?

We quickly realize that her journey was not all sunshine and rainbows as she constatly struggles for the first 15-20 minutes of the episode, contemplating suicide, breaking down emotionally and physically etc. I'm glad that all of her decisions made sense and probably would have been the exact decisions that Clarke would have made, rather than just make her super good at surviving.

The turning point of the episode is when she finally finds "Eden" and can finally drink and eat prosperously. She comes across an old village and sees many dead people due to Praimfiya.

That particular moment when she opens the door and sees all those people crowding around each other for comfort and compassion knowing that their fate is sealed. See all those people sent chills down my spine, brilliant scenery.

Which brings me to Madi. I was intrigued by Madi's character. She was a nightblood that had ran away from others in order to avoid getting the flame. She's kind of like a better Luna, Ontari mix. We know that she's been hiding from the Flamekeepers because she does not want to be Commander. And... that's it. We know nothing else about her character except that she and Clarke now have this "blood bond". It's a little bit of a let down to be honest.

I would have liked to see more of a dynamic between Clarke and Madi because we cut from Madi looking at Clarke's drawing of her to them being like family. I don't mind an entire half of an episode being dedicated to Clarke and her relationship with Madi, because now we just have to trust the last 6 years with no true dynamic between the characters. The next scene is the ending cliffhanger from Season 4, which brings me to something that may have made this entire episode so much better.

You see, this entire episode I felt no fear for Clarke. I knew she would survive for the next 6 years, and I knew she would have met Madi. That's nothing against the episode, the episode was written well, but I go back to the Season 4 cliffhanger. We knew how this episode would end from the beginning.

So if I were one of the writers and would have retconned the entire last minutes of Season 4, I would have instead shown Clarke dragging herself out of the rubble of Becca's lab and then starting on her journer across the now barren wasteland that is Earth. It would have made everything in the Season 5 premiere 10x better in my opinion.

Now onto the other part of the episode which were the people in space. To be honest, nothing really stood out to me about their parts. They had it easy, eat crappy stuff and survive for as long as they can. Not sure why Murphy felt inadequate and kinda sucks that Emori and him broke up, but other than that it seems to be the only real change in the group up into space.

The ONE thing that stood out to me about the people in space was the Becho scene. And it wasn't because of the relationship between Bellamy and Echo, it was mainly what Echo did at the end of the scene. It's so miniscule that I doubt that anyone would remember it as a drastic moment. But nonetheless it stood out to me because of what I think it symbolizes (and believe me I know I'm going to overthink this)

She picks up her sword and leaves.

Now to many of you that doesn't seem like such an amazing feat. It's Echo, she has a sword and she's gonna slice some s**t up. But it's the scene that lead up to it that makes that little action mean a little bit more.

She starts of the scene by asking Bellamy "What are we going to be now?" Basically slapping all Bellarke shippers in the face and stating that they are now a couple. But in depth, it's what her character has always been an emulation of. She's afraid of change.

The whole scene itself is a mirror to the scene when she almost kills herself in the lab before they launch in the spaceship. All she knew then was Earth, and was terrified of the change of Space. That's just the tip of the iceberg. She clings onto the past as it's what she believes defines who she really is. She believes that everything is going to be vastly different from the way she left it. As she comforts Bellamy telling her that Octavia is still alive, he walks out. She continues to walk, but then stops, and goes back for her sword. Her sword is something that keeps her, herself. It's a small detail, and I don't think the writers even recognized it, but the episode itself would have been slightly different if the scene ended with her leaving without her sword.

Until Next Time,

Master of Angels out