The 100 season 2 episode 6 review: Fog Of War

This review contains spoilers.

2.6 Fog Of War

Finn’s storyline on The 100, which probably felt like a swell idea when it was conceived in the writers’ room, has now become a bit of a problem for the show. Fans have pushed back against what they perceive as character assassination, so stark is the contrast between Finn now and Finn in season one and, given that the believability of a huge part of the narrative now rests on our ability to reconcile that the show’s good guy is now a mass murderer, it could be an issue.

Me? I totally buy that Finn might do that if pushed as psychologically far as he was, and that he and Clarke’s infatuation with each other may manifest itself in some slightly unhealthy behaviour. Mix teen love with war and factor in that these guys are all convicted criminals who’ve been sent down to die by the adults meant to protect them, and we’re dealing with some seriously damaged people.

With this, the writers are trying to make a specific point about what conflict does to people when they’re faced with losing everything, and Clarke and Finn’s visit to the same bunker they were previously together in, only to find a rotting corpse and an awkward silence, underscored that brilliantly.

It matters how The 100 sticks the landing, of course, but right now it’s just nice to see Finn be a little more interesting. In general the show seems a lot more interested in how what the group saw in the previous episode effects their relationships with each other, rather than any punishment Finn should or could be subjected to, and that’s a little iffy, but it’s just a symptom of the series’ DNA. People are forgetting that this is still a CW teen drama and, as great as it is, is being written as such.

But even though Finn, Bellamy and Clarke are now reunited, that doesn’t mean we’re still based in a single camp. Kane and Jaha are (were) now with the grounders and Jasper and Monty still down in Mount Weather, so a rescue mission or two is still in order. The Kane and Jaha plot felt a lot like filling time, given that the outcome was kind of obvious as soon as the grounders threw down the knife and demanded they fight to the death, but it was a nice parallel to see how Jaha and Kane have kind of switched moral places much like Finn and Bellamy.

But Jaha was released to the rest of the Sky People in order to deliver a message – leave or die. After losing so many of their people, you can’t really blame them for retaliating. Heck, giving them two days is extremely generous.

Up (down?) in Mount Weather, things also took a morally ambiguous turn. It turns out that President Dante isn’t actually the devious cad we’d all painted him as, and he’s very much against caging innocent children for the benefit of his own people.

Jasper’s blood was eight times more effective at treating the effects of the radiation in Maya than the grounders in the basement, and thus the team are very enthusiastic about basically harvesting the rest of the kids. Dante, to his credit, would rather get their consent before stealing their blood, but his son and chief physician aren’t so sure that asking them to volunteer is going to work for long.

At least Monty and Jasper know what’s going on now, and that they’re willing to play nice just long enough to either be rescued or escape. Getting near-50 of them out safely is a tall order, but I guess that’s where Clarke and her rescue team come in. I also wonder if Dante is going to be a character that sticks around beyond his involvement with one of the villainous groups, but I hope he does.

Finn’s plot has definitely got people talking about the show, whether that’s in a negative or positive way, and I’m just viewing it as a way to quickly rehabilitate a previously terrible character while also making the point the writers wanted to.

They couldn’t exactly do this with Bellamy, who was always going to be the eventual hero of the story alongside Clarke (shippers pegged that from the beginning), and Finn was such a blank slate before that the adjustment isn’t so hard to swallow. The 100 is still taking great care of its characters, and dealing with the ramifications of their actions.

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

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