Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-27794543-20180801010831/@comment-7971816-20180801230102

I liked the episode. I think Clarke has been in a "mommabear" role all this season and that arc sort of came to conclusion when she finally let Madi go. And I think in that decision both Echo and Madi, or Bellamy and Lexa respectively, played a role. Clarke finding out Bellamy wasn't that, and having to defend herself of caring about him... And then in comes Madi, talking to Clarke about how the commander is a strength, not a weakness (like Clarke sees it due to Lexa dying). I think Madi gets through to Clarke with the whole reminder of how Clarke has always done everything to protect her people, but in the end there are certain things she can't protect them from. And sometimes you can come to regret the choices made to achieve that. So yeah, I love the whole church thing and Clarke turning around at that.

Do I hope Clarke manages to get on the same page with her friends again? Of course. But I don't see it happen this season. I think next season will (hopefully) be about healing, the way this season has been about breaking apart. And it's that fracturing that has made people upset, but all in all I don't think it's bad storytelling.

I think it's a bit of a shame that they're trying to base all of this fracturing in the timejump though. Bellamy's sister became unrecognizable due to what she experienced in the bunker (ref Dark Year), Clarke had to betray Bellamy because in the timejump she got a daughter who took first priority. The people that have worked together for 4 seasons are now on opposite ends of the board and I think they may have played too much on the "it's been 6 years" and forget somewhere along the line that for the fans "it's been 5 seasons". We're invested in these characters and don't like to see them at odds. People also don't like to see the lives of these characters threatened over something that developed off-screen, which might have been the biggest flaw from this season, the lack of actually SHOWING what happened during the timejump. We got a total of what, 40 minutes, between 5x01 and the Dark Year shared?

Anyways. I'm rambling here. Octavia 'seeing the light' parallelled Clarke, the two people who have been at odds with Bellamy and the SpaceKru gang. I just hope that the finale continues on the path towards recovery and isn't just one big battle sequence or whatever.

I didn't proof-read this comment so you're all warned. I'm just pressing reply :p