The 100 season 2 episode 14 review: Bodyguard Of Lies

This review contains spoilers.

2.14 Bodyguard Of Lies

Most shows would be tempted to opt for the ‘calm before the storm’ approach in the week before a big, epic two-part finale to a big, epic second season, but The 100 doesn’t really do calm. Instead, Bodyguard Of Lies is just another hour spent within the swirling vortex that has been building around Clarke since she landed on earth, and the only way out is to lead her people, Lexa’s people, and herself into a battle that will surely mean death for many of them.

After focusing a great deal on Jasper’s slow decline into mad vengeance over the last couple of weeks, we take a break from Mount Weather’s 44 remaining kids, instead following Bellamy as he attempts to eliminate the threat of the acid fog before Clarke, Octavia and the rest descend. It’s kind of weird to have Jasper and Monty hurried off into a secret hiding place after spending so much time with them recently, but I can assume that the two-parter will feature all groups coming together, so I can wait.

As for Bellamy, there’s a complaint to be made that he hasn’t featured in season two enough, but he really is a vital cog in the machine. He benefits from for once not having to deal with any of the murky moral dilemmas the rest have been wrestling with all year, and his clear mission stops this episode in particular from just being about people sitting around talking about what they’re going to do next week.

I’m still not sure about Octavia but, as she appears to have gone full Grounder at this point, she provides a useful point of conflict for Clarke. She knows about her and Lexa’s role in the attack, but also understands that blabbing about it would be detrimental to everyone. She wants so desperately to be the warrior that Clarke so effortlessly is, and that people treat her as, and I sense a long-game plan from her in that regard.

How it plays out depends very much on who might survive the upcoming battle and, as much as keeping Lexa around would be good for the show, it’s potentially spoilery but important to note that Alycia Debnam Carey has been cast in Fear The Walking Dead.

That puts a target on her back, as does her connection to Clarke, and it’s probably better to view their romantic interactions in this episode as something helping Clarke’s character development, rather than the start of a brand new romance. As also proven by Raven and Wick, these things happen all the time amidst war, with no subsequent discussion really needed.

As a side note, I loved everything about how that kiss was played. This wasn’t brand new information for Clarke, clear from her reaction, and it was treated just as it would have been if she had kissed Finn, Bellamy or a random Grounder guy. This low-key handling shouldn’t be noteworthy, but it is, and so credit where it’s due.

Despite all of this, though, I somehow found myself enjoying Murphy and Jaha’s journey to the mythical City of Light the most entertaining moments of the hour. Jaha’s madness is endlessly amusing, in no small part because of Murphy’s deadpan reaction to his increasingly deranged proclamations, and its a part of the show that has benefitted from its limited screen time so far.

Plus we can now add drones to the show’s list of mysterious objects, so who knows what they’re going to find if and when they get across the water to wherever it flew off to. It’s a mystery that nicely balances out the intensity of the rest of the show, and the Murphy/Bellamy dynamic is an unexpected joy.

But there probably won’t be time for it next week, as the moment for the Sky People, the Grounders and the Mountain Men to battle for Earth has arrived. It’s unfathomable how we got here from the innocent CW teen drama in space we started with, but I’m so glad it’s happened this way.

Read Caroline’s review of the previous episode, Resurrection, here.

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