User blog:Skyzy/Thirteen Review

I was debating whether or not to do a review on this episode (or any future episodes) but after reading all the JR Apologist reviews online, I feel as if it's my duty to present the other side of the Lexa death equation and say that it was not right, it was not necessary, and it was not well-done at all.

Highlights

 * ALIE - Becca - Polaris - ALIE 2.0 - Nightblood - Commander connection. I/we (the wikia) already figured it out over the last few weeks but I still loved it and am still really enjoying this plot.
 * How did Becca pass on her "Nightblood"? By injecting random people? How does it "appear" in people like Lexa, Aden, and Ontari? Genetically passed on? How does this work?
 * I love Erica Cerra. I loved her on Eureka and I love her on The 100 as both ALIE and Becca.
 * Neil Sandilands was amazing in this episode
 * Octavia telling Clarke how useless she's been
 * Clarke and Lexa scenes
 * Lexa's death scene was particularly poignant between both her and Clarke and her and Titus (and even a little of Murphy)
 * Octavia and Indra power-walk through Polis

Lowlights

 * Poor Semet and poor Indra, stuck with a leader who refuses to protect them because that's exactly what "blood must NOT have blood" means when you don't do anything at all (like ask for the interned Grounders back or for the perpetrators to be punished).
 * Octavia seems to half-worship Clarke and it doesn't make any sense! Clarke left Octavia to die in Tondisi! Why is Octavia suddenly eager for Clarke's leadership again?
 * Octavia and Indra reunion (gets its own discussion point)
 * Murphy and Clarke's sudden friendship seemed just...weird and out-of-place. I was jarred out of the story for a moment when Clarke called him her "friend."
 * Lexa's death gets its own discussion point
 * Her death did not need to happen from a literary point of view. It would have been more original and more challenging writing to find a way to keep her alive and disappear her than taking the easy way out.
 * Even if Lexa's death did need to happen, it did not need to happen in that manner

Indra and Octavia reunion
Reminiscent of the beat-down Octavia gave Lincoln back in Rubicon (difference is, he was actively high on drugs and kidnapping someone), Octavia did the same thing to Indra to motivate her into caring again. Just as I found it distasteful when she did it to Lincoln (both in Rubicon and Wanheda (Part 1)), I also find it distasteful she is now doing it to Indra. I can't excuse this behavior any longer and will now write this off with Bellamy's OOC arc and Abby's incompetence: bad storytelling.

Lexa's Death
As most of you know I ship neither Clexa nor Bellarke (only Linctavia). I also thought Lexa was a candidate for death at the beginning of summer. But something changed over the last few months as I watched the fandom growing over hiatus and filling with young LGBTQ viewers who finally had good representation on TV. I watched JR and the writers giving hope to the fandom that this time it might be different. I watched the first 6 episodes thinking this show really might be as progressive as it claimed to be. I changed my tune and thought there was no way a show this "progressive" would go the dead lesbian trope and might write Lexa off instead. I was literally dead wrong.

I have not enjoyed Clexa this season from a storytelling point of view because they haven't done anything really that productive since Episode 3; basically nothing changed regardless of any of the decisions they were making. From a romantic point of view, I half-enjoyed it. It felt disjointed and rushed and there wasn't a clear path of forgiveness and reconciliation (the bowing scenes TOLD us but there was nothing prior to SHOW us what was occurring between them).

Then this episode happened. To all the Clexa fans out there, to all the LGBTQ fans, to anyone who finally started to hope that this time it would be different, I am so, so sorry. I see you, I hear you, I feel your pain, and I love you.

I'm going to copy/paste some of what I have said earlier: What has people upset is that they queer-baited the Clexa fans before fulfilling one of the most obvious and cliched tropes of all-time, Bury your gays, while also fulfilling a few other common tropes (pretty much every other trope linked on that page).

"However. Regardless of the overall death toll of a show, the death of a gay character nevertheless has different cultural context & emotional weight, as there are unlikely to be many other gay characters in the piece of media. Gay audience members are generally left with no one else to relate to, or only the grieving partner of the dead gay."

It's not that anyone didn't see it coming, it's that they gave everyone false hope that this time it might finally be different before killing her. They did not even give her the decency of an original death and it made it very specifically about Lexa's sexuality the moment they killed her in the exact same way as Tara Maclay.

Final Thoughts
The way most of the cast and crew have embraced the fans and offered them comfort and solace and understanding has been thoughtful and appreciated. The way the writer of this episode, Javier Grillo-Marxauch, has responded to and listened to the fans has been brave, considerate, and compassionate. Remember: these people are paid to do a job and are under contract. This includes the writers. They did the best they could do with what they were given. They should be commended for their effort.

Partially ignoring yet another racist stereotype (the Indra/Octavia beat-down scene where Octavia is once again the white savior of the downtrodden POC) and partially ignoring Lexa's death, this episode was a solid 8/10 (minus 2 points because I can't entirely ignore those two issue).