The 100 Season 7 Episode 5 Review: Welcome to Bardo

This THE 100 review contains spoilers

The 100 Season 7 Episode 5

This episode provided some much-needed answers about Octavia, Hope, and Diyoza’s travels and the mechanics of time dilation and travel through the stones. I can’t imagine we would have guessed that helmets are only necessary for travel when going to a planet with slower time dilation – sometimes exposition is just where it’s at. But there also just might be too much mythology in this mythology, even for me. We learned there was no Eligius ship; the Disciples came from Earth through a stone. And the original Bardoans are gone – or did they maybe come on an Eligius ship? See what I mean?!

Leavitt is a great new character, and I hope we see more of him in future episodes. The way he rooted for Octavia to kill Pike, his admiration for her, and understanding of her pure warrior’s heart made it easy to connect with him quickly. After all, that’s how we’ve felt watching her, too. So far, other than Anders, the named Disciples we’ve met have all been good people, willing to step out of line or outright betray their people. It helped that this episode finally showed us some of the creepy groupthink, but we’ll need a bit more of that – and a better look at their society overall – to understand the foe we’re up against, other than the logistical realities of space and time that’ve dominated the season so far.

Checking back in on our heist squad, now that she’s broken the seal, Hope seems a little too comfortable with murder, at least to Gabriel. Will Diyoza recognize her daughter when they’re reunited? Will She want to? It was good to hear the script acknowledge through Gabriel that leaving Orlando was a bigger risk than taking him, even if other characters disagree.

This show has been playing with time a lot, which always risks losing some of your audience that has more trouble with nonlinear storytelling, and the necessity of having to spend more time with chronological signposts. While this episode literally wrote the days on the screen, that isn’t always enough, and wasn’t here. The text went with the timetable for Sanctum, and we don’t know how Bardo’s time dilation works yet. That meant a bit of confusion as to whether we were watching Octavia’s first or second rendition to Bardo, since Diyoza was presumably in custody both times.

Once we had our feet under ourselves, the moment when O’s rescuer turned out to be Hope and not Octavia was an excellent fake-out. The writers used the world they had created (time dilation) and the slow, deliberate reveal of events (we still didn’t know where Hope went after Sky Ring and how O got back to Sanctum) to create a great moment that was as disorienting for the audience as it was for the character of Octavia. There’s still more we don’t know, namely what happened to Hope, Diyoza and Leavitt, but after that great reveal, I’m content to wait.

So much of this episode, like half the episodes this season and her arc last season, has been about Octavia’s internal strength. She landed in a brand new, technologically advanced world and, knowing absolutely nothing, still came pretty damn close to escaping. She held up under 11 days of neurological torture giving them practically nothing. When she cracks, she makes a deal to keep her child safe (and later makes one to keep her brother safe), the same kind of deal Bellamy would’ve made for her. That’s why it’s so hard to see her heartbroken and practically catatonic, thinking Bell is dead and holding onto her mother’s mantra.

Do I believe Bellamy’s dead? Not even for a second. I had to rewatch to be sure that’s even what the show wanted me to think. Our boy’s for sure on some kind of time adventure with a manly (but ultimately survivable) wound. But Echo doesn’t know that, and she loses her mind, quickly answering my question last week as to whether she would ever betray Gabriel and Hope. This isn’t exactly an active betrayal – she doesn’t shoot them or give them up or anything. But as Hope points out, killing their hostage means finding Diyoza in the remaining time is near-impossible. Echo picked a helluva time to no longer be able to tap into her ice-cold Azgeda veins and do her job.

As usual, Clarke is the key to life, the universe, and everything, in a way that feels frankly tired and predictable after seven seasons. But Hope and Octavia are both set up here as far more meaningful foils to him, in a way that suggests that Hope will be the one to kill him in the end, with Auntie O’s help. That possibility already feels more alive than going back to Clarke again.

Nelson’s move to save one of the self-immolating faithful speaks volumes about who he is as a person, and tells me he’s a better successor to Gabriel than I first realized. As he said, “they may hate us, but they’re still our people.” It was interesting that Emori, who was an outcast/was meant to have been killed for her hand back on Earth among her own people, was the one to question him on this. Meanwhile, it was Indra who pushed back on scientist Jackson when he knocked faith. “Faith isn’t the problem, blind faith is.” These Sanctum scenes are packing an emotional and ideological punch.

SheidHeda made some moves here, while giving quite the performance – he and Murphy would lowkey love each other. I presume he strategically chose to help Wonkru rescue Murphy under threat from Indra, since it was all off-camera. I absolutely love that she figured out who was really at the wheel in Russell’s mind, and used Trigadeslang to do it. It was good to finally ground Sheidheda in time – Indra was a child when he came to power, her father dying in battle and her mother kneeling before him. Jesus, of course Indra thought her mother was weak for complying rather than dying. This explains Gaia’s upbringing. But back to Indra and ol’ Sheidy, there’s something brilliant about his true identity being a secret between only the two of them, at least for now. I’m not as sold on why Indra has to keep silent, but the tension is appealing.

Other notes…

• Gabriel doesn’t know about Leavitt, the man who helped before, but Echo does – rise, Hope/Echo hive, rise! (And @ me when you figure out your ship name!)
• I’m curious how and why Anders thinks Hope and Diyoza are so clearly dangerous. Is there mere presence on Penance evidence enough?
• “OK, you’re not gonna like what you’re gonna see” Octavia’s sense of humor is one of her best qualities
• I’m so glad we saw Lincoln a few times in Octavia’s memories. It looked like Jaha, Pike, and maybe Lexa in there too. Any other fallen friends I missed?
• “What took you so long?” “Sorry I needed to find the right dress” “You did.” Even in peril, Murphy and Emori can’t stop flirting and I love it. And we all know this is Murphyspeak for “I’m glad your radiation poisoning is gone.”
• Sheidheda was very into the pain of having his mind drive removed. Consider me creeped out.