The 100 Season 5 Episode 3 Review: Sleeping Giants

This The 100 review contains spoilers.

The 100 Season 5 Episode 3

Sleeping Giants is a good ol’ fashioned episode of The 100, complete with all the ingredients that make it great. There’s some space stuff, great fights, and serious moral quandaries balanced out by humor, and it all hinges on the rich relationships that make up the fabric of the show.

Clarke is not messing around. She took a page out of the Grounders’ book from way back in season 1 when they used Jasper as bait, this time tying up one of the prisoners from the transport ship.

Everything about the way that Diyoza approaches the negotiation with Clarke reminds me of how Clarke used to be with the grounders. She relies on a bit of a lie that’s grounded in truth, like how they, “never meant any harm,” and didn’t know anyone was in the valley. She’s smart enough to figure out within minutes what Lincoln kept them guessing about for days: that Clarke speaks English and only wants them to think she doesn’t, in another throwback tactic.

Her strategy is so good that the prisoners assume it’s multiple people. She’s brutal in a way we’ve never seen from her before – she doesn’t hesitate, and if there’s any real remorse, we don’t see it. This is all meant to be for her daughter, but has she really thought that through? How will she feel when she finds out Madi has killed? What if something ever happens to Madi as a domino effect from Clarke’s violence?

I still have a lot of questions about these prisoners. Some, I’m meant to – like where they came from, their plan beyond taking down Clarke and Madi, and who she’s referring to when she mentions fighting fascists. But others, like where are the other women, may never see an answer. Very interesting: these folks seem to come from our own timeline, based on Shaw’s comment about Harleys and churches in Detroit. Even more mysterious: there’s another ship out there somewhere.

Meanwhile, SpaceKru has their own worries. Everyone has a different, though somewhat predictable, idea of what to do with the criminals in cryo sleep. The space plot line is rather predictable, but it’s so fun to see these guys back at it that I almost don’t care. It also shakes things up a bit in that the writers allow Bellamy and Raven to come up with a clever solution that lets them off the hook from murder while also freeing Clarke. Maybe it’s because it’s still early in the season so they’re allowed a win, or perhaps the big, inevitable thing they’re facing this season isn’t the prisoners, but their own fractured loyalties and philosophies for how to survive. 

The Murphy and Raven reconciliation tour continues when he stays with her for backup. He seems to have had no idea that she was lying about the existence of an escape pod, but I don’t believe it for a second. I’ve enjoyed watching how he handles the fact that Raven is the human embodiment of his guilt – every time he sees her struggle with her disability, he’s reminded that he gave it to her. Still, they have great chemistry and I sense those two are headed for something more.

Murphy doesn’t even say goodbye to Emori, other than to mock her flight skills. His heart isn’t in it, and he and Emori are obviously exercising their respective insecurities on each other. Murphy tries throughout to hangk around Emori, but she sees barely able to stand him. He’s so obviously still in love with her, and they’re both obviously still hurting. How separate could he have been during this time period? On the plus side, wee’ll learn more about what’s really going on while he’s with Raven.

It’s fascinating to think about how the Murphy/Bellamy dynamic has changed over the years, from the “whatever the hell we want,” days when Murphy was his right hand, willing to do his dirty work, to getting out of hand. He survived an attempted hanging, was cast out, survived thanks to Emori and some luck, worked his way back to some sort of begrudging trust, only to have a new rift with the rest of the Space Kru. But in spite of all that, Bellamy, who has grown exceptionally well into the leader Clarke always knew he could be, still consults Murphy. He’s still one of the most cunning among them, and ultimately Bellamy knows he is a good guy.

On the other hand, it seems like Bel and Clarke have reversed roles, which should make for a very interesting season indeed. They’ve been separated and on opposite sides before, but it’s been a while. How will Bellamy handle bringing Clarke back from the brink, back from heartless violence?

Regardless of whether you ship Bellarke, if you were unmoved by their very badass, very them reunion then you don’t have a soul. The look on his face when he realized she was alive was great, as was the look on her face when she heard his voice. On a show where a lot goes wrong, it’s always great to see the kru get a win, especially a much-deserved one like this.