The 100 Season 5: The Questions We Need Answered

Warning: This article contains MAJOR spoilers for The 100 Season 4 finale.

At the end of The 100‘s Season 4 finale, we jumped ahead six years and 7 days to find Clarke and a young Nightblood woman surprised by the arrival of a mysterious spaceship. While it’s not unusual for The 100 to create a brand new paradigm for the coming season with each finale, this is our first time jump within a finale, and it raised more questions than it answered.

Here are some of those questions, which The 100 season 5 is going to have to answer…

What happened to everyone in the bunker?

When we last saw them, Octavia had become a leader, though not a commander, of a unified clan of 1,200 people within the bunker. While they knew a small group was heading into space due to Bellamy’s call over the radio with Octavia, they never found out if that group survived, making them essentially the last and best hope for humanity.

When we check back in after the time jump, Clarke mentions over the radio that she hasn’t heard from anyone in the bunker, and it’s been too difficult to dig them out from the rubble. Did all of that destruction just come from the death wave, or was there more?

How is Octavia’s leadership going? Gaia looked concerned when her mother brought Octavia out with the spinning wheel symbol on her forehead — will the grounder religion survive without the flame?

Furthermore: What will become of its most devout followers like Gaia? Has Abby killed Kane yet for saving her life against her wishes? Are the clans working together to keep one another alive, or has infighting, disease, or equipment failure lowered their numbers? Are they back to a harsh life of strict rationing and capital punishment like on the Ark, like Jasper and his followers feared? So many questions!

What happened to everyone in space?

We saw that Clarke’s sacrifice worked, and Bellamy and Monty managed to get the oxygen turned on. It seemed like Bellamy and Raven may be the logical leaders of the seven people back on the Ark, but are they? How will Echo handle falling in line behind someone who not only isn’t Azgeda, but isn’t a Grounder? While Murphy and Emori do what’s best for the group, or will their paranoia about their treatment continue to undercut unity, like it did several times this season?

Of the seven who went back to the Ark, there were two couples and three single people. Will Harper & Monty and Murphy & Emori still be together? With Clarke presumed dead and few other options, will Bellamy fall back into old ways and start hooking up with Raven again? Or will he get together with Echo, in a move that is sure to piss off both Clarke and Octavia? Will this show ever mention how everyone is managing their birth control?

What is the deal with the spaceship Clark saw?

All the teases we’ve gotten about the next season of The 100 seem to point towards a new enemy for Clarke to try to survive against: the people on that prison tansport ship. But who can we expect to find on board the mysterious spacecraft that was coming to land on Earth in the final moments of Season 4?

If we’ve learned anything from past seasons of The 100, it’s not so much about good guys vs. bad guys, but the characters we know and the people who have different goals, priorities, and allegiances from our protagonists. What will that theme look like in Season 5? Something tells me, it will have everything to do with the prison transport ship.

Who’s the Nightblood hanging out with Clarke?

I think we all did a double-take when Clarke mentioned that “we” couldn’t dig out the bunker. I’m glad to see that Clarke didn’t spend six years alone, and it makes sense that it would be a fellow Nightblood who survived. But who is this Grounder? What kru does she come from?

Throughout Season 4, there were repeated searches for any possible nightblood who could unite the clans and prevent bloodshed in the face of the apocalypse — where was this little girl then?

The Nightblood playfully mentioned, “no more lessons!” Has Clarke been carrying on Lexa’s legacy and teaching the Nightblood what she would have learned from a commander? How much did Clarke retain, both from her time with Lexa and from her time with the flame inside of her?

Are we coming full circle?

Clarke looked almost as Grounder as she did when she was hiding from her identity of Wanheda. She also spoke Trigedaslang more fluently than we’ve ever heard before. The spaceship that landed notably said “prison transport” on the side, and Clarke, sensing something was wrong, sent the Nightblood to grab her rifle.

Will Season 5 reintroduce the themes of Season 1, but with our protagonist Clarke the one whose home is being colonized by outsiders? Will these new people bring war and take up what few resources are left in the “only patch of green” on the planet?

Only Season 5 can bring us these answers, and it can’t come soon enough.