The 100 season 2 episode 7 review: Long Into The Abyss

This review contains spoilers.

2.7 Long Into The Abyss

One of the most enthralling things about The 100 has always been the overwhelming presence of characters who are all just trying to get stuff done. Whatever side they’re on or whatever their motives, each and every one of these characters is fighting for something, and believes wholeheartedly that their goal is a worthy one.

And in this penultimate episode before the holiday break, that idea comes to the forefront of the show. A throughline of the show’s second season has been how incompetent and meddlesome the adults of The 100 really can be, but even they are acting on what they perceive is logic, reason and experience. Throughout the show, we’ve seen that it’s the teenagers who actually know what they’re doing, and the fight over leadership is a fruitless one.

That’s especially apparent whenever we see Abby, Kane and Jaha try to carve out control and, with Kane MIA this week, it was down to the others to butt heads about the big issues the camp are currently facing. Abby strikes me as more logical than Jaha, who just chooses the most noble path over something smarter, but Jaha is much more charismatic. He was elected, after all.

But in the end it’s Clarke who goes to the Grounders and hashes out a truce, and Bellamy and Octavia who save Lincoln. Now that we have a new enemy in Mount Weather, it’s good to see an alliance form between the Sky People and the Grounders, and having Finn as the guy standing between them and peace is an interesting little wrinkle.

The way The 100 has handled Finn’s storyline this year has been a source of contention for fans, and the other characters’ seeming forgiveness for his actions feels a little wonky to me. It’s one of those instances where the Grounders seem to have a point, and I have a hard time believing that people like Bellamy and even Clarke would sacrifice so many lives on account of someone like him.

Yeah, he used to be sweet and he feels sorry for what happened, but he still massacred a village. That’s a problem that’s going to define how next week’s climax plays out.

But it’s not just those on the ground who are being proactive, Jasper, Monty and the red shirts they’re hanging around with also decided to take steps to get the upper hand this week. It’s a good job too as, finding out that bone marrow is what it’ll take to provide a permanent cure for the residents of Mount Weather, the plan has changed from using the 47 kids as human blood bags to sacrificing them for ‘the greater good’.

So we have two legitimate threats coming from one camp – the imminent murder of members of the hundred in their care, and the revelation that they are in fact creating Reapers. With Lincoln now back to normal, or as normal as can be, they have inside knowledge and gratitude from the Grounders, so it’s almost certain that we’ll be seeing a rescue mission very, very soon.

The problem with Lincoln’s storyline, as with Octavia’s, has always been the fact that he’s been tied up with a love story and not developed as a character on his own, but making him a Reaper for a couple of weeks did wonders for both of them. Seeing Octavia not holding back against him just because he’s her boyfriend surpassed expectations for the character, and hopefully the lasting effects of his actions will make Lincoln into a something more compelling.

Next week’s mid-season finale will hopefully pay off everything season two has set up so far, which is a lot, and – being ominously called Spacewalker – provide us with a neat (or messy) resolution to Finn’s storyline.

Read Caroline’s review of the previous episode, Fog Of War, here.

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