The Red Sun Brings a Dark Dawn for ‘The 100’ (RECAP)
Spoiler Alert
[WARNING: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for The 100 Season 6 Episode 2, “Red Sun Rising.”]
Sung to the tune of “Bad Moon Rising”: I see a red sun rising… I see trouble on the way… I see earthquakes and lightnin’… I see bad times today…
Lyrical parallels aside, that creepy children’s book was right about one thing: in this episode of The 100, titled “Red Sun Rising,” friends are foes. After dealing with an awful death in the premiere, Clarke’s group is coping with another loss: the loss of their minds. Sanctum’s plants are emitting psychosis-inducing gas that forces them to re-live their worst nightmares and turn against each other. In space, the group that stole the expedition party’s ship has arrived, forcing Raven and an unexpected companion to take drastic measures to ensure their survival.
Sanctum is Mine!
The episode opens with a flashback revealing the first group of scientists to colonize the new planet, who the inhabitants of Sanctum refer to as “The Primes.” The leader’s daughter, Josie, seduces Gabriel, the group’s geneticist, and they notice the bugs behaving oddly. When they get back to their camp, her father goes on an eclipse-induced violent rampage. He hits Josie in the head with a hammer, proclaiming “Sanctum is mine!” It appears Gabriel manages to escape.
In the present, Clarke’s group restrains Emori and figures out what’s happening to them: the plants are releasing a toxin, and when they breathe it in, they lose their minds. They decide to separate and use the restraints they found to keep them from harming each other. Echo stays with Emori, Jackson and Miller stay together and Clarke, Murphy and Bellamy stay chained up together in the school. Bellamy keeps everyone’s keys, and Clarke keeps his.
I’m The Bad Guy
Trapping Clarke and Murphy in the same place might not have been the best idea. There’s no shortage of bad blood there, and Murphy makes it clear he blames Clarke for many of the bad things that happened to him. Eventually, Clarke snaps: “Fine. I’ll be the bad guy. When I’m in charge, people die.” Their arguing is interrupted by screaming. Clarke and Bellamy rush in to find Miller whacking himself against the wall and Jackson claiming, “the bugs are inside him.”
That’s not actually the case — it’s a hallucination caused by the toxin. They tranquilize Jackson and Miller, but when they go back downstairs, they find Murphy — and the guns — missing. Bellamy and Clarke go to Emori and Echo for their tranquilizer dose, so they can use it on Murphy. Unfortunately, they’re all losing their minds; Emori’s taunting Echo, Echo has flashbacks to her time in Azgeda (which causes her to use the tranquilizer on herself), Bellamy tells Clarke he doesn’t need her anymore.
Murphy to the Rescue
Murphy starts shooting at Bellamy and Clarke, and she takes shelter in the school. Her hallucinations make her believe her mom is communicating with her via radio and telling her some pretty horrible stuff, ending with an encouragement for her to kill herself. She almost goes through with it, but Murphy interrupts. “Not you, too,” he says. He gets her to lower her knife from her throat, and they go to help Bellamy, who seems to believe the only way to save everyone is to kill Murphy and Clarke.
Murphy succeeds in helping, for the most part. When it comes time for Clarke to tranquilize Bell, she’s succumbed to hallucinations again. Murphy and Bellamy end up in the pond in the middle of the town square, and Bellamy almost drowns Murphy. Clarke pulls herself back to reality, stabs Bellamy in the leg and pulls Murphy from the pond. She, Bellamy and Murphy fight, then Clarke knocks them all unconscious with a gas grenade.
A Fate Worse Than Death
In space, the arrival of the people from Sanctum divides the group; some end up locked inside the mess hall, while Raven remains on the outside. The cafeteria group’s story is mostly about Octavia. She and Abby have another argument, and the former leader displays a nearly suicidal destructive streak. She picks a fight with the former members of Wonkru, and in doing so, she ends up with a knife to her throat. At that, Abby steps in and tells them to “let her live with what she’s become.” A despondent, sobbing Octavia begs them to kill her, but no one steps forward.
Raven wakes up Diyoza so they can free their friends. After striking back against two of the four Sanctumites and killing them both, Diyoza uses one of the attacker’s radios to leverage Sanctum’s people for those trapped in the cafeteria (because the other team doesn’t know they’re dead, she figures it’ll work). That plan gets complicated when the woman on the other line reveals one of the dead attackers is her husband. They’re forced to set up an exchange — her husband or the people in the mess hall die — and Diyoza tells Raven to put on one of the Sanctumites’ uniforms.
Deux Ex Madi-na
The exchange goes horribly. Thankfully, Raven and Diyoza, and everyone in the mess hall, are saved by Madi. The young commander drops from the ceiling and kills one of the two Sanctumites, then notices as the remaining attacker holds her dead comrade that they’re Nightbloods.
Jordan, Abby, Madi, Gaia and Raven take the Sanctumites’ ship down to the new planet. Diyoza’s there, but she stays behind (“If we get jacked again, we’re screwed”). Madi and Gaia also stay. There’s one more person on the expedition, a stowaway: Octavia! She’s instantly able to tell which way Clarke and her friends went, and Jordan tells a displeased Abby, “We do need a tracker.” With the help of their prisoner, they make it to the force field. The Sanctum woman notes there’s a grave for Shaw on the opposite side, then turns the power off so the non-Nightbloods can pass through. Raven cries, again having suffered a horrible loss.
Isn’t This Your Home?
The two groups meet in the city, where they find an unconscious Bellamy, Clarke and Murphy. Bellamy and Clarke wake up right away, but Murphy seems to be infected with something and can’t awaken. A group of laughing, happy children interrupt the suspense as they walk over to the group. “Are you here to take us home?” one of them asks Clarke, to which she responds, “Isn’t this your home?”
Other Observations
- Interesting stuff with Sean Maguire’s character at the beginning. Are the people of Sanctum descended from him, or Gabriel, or both, somehow? Are there two groups on the planet: one descended from Sean Maguire and one descended from Gabriel? We haven’t yet seen the forest people from the trailer, and they might be a totally different group with different ancestors. Gabriel got too much of a focus in this opening to be gone for good, as did Sean Maguire.
- We know Murphy’s going to be okay, since there were plenty of clips with him in the trailer that we haven’t seen yet. But considering the toxin didn’t seem to affect him as badly as it did the others… what happened to him? Did it affect him on a physical level, rather than a mental one?
- Every season Octavia does something bonkers, and every season I continue to love her in spite of it. Here’s hoping she figures out a way to redemption this season that doesn’t involve her death (if she was going to die, I think last season in the gorge would’ve been a fitting end for her character).
- Two things I noticed about Sanctum: their focus on Octavia’s red blood and their fixation on doing something with the bodies. Can’t help but wonder if they’ll experiment on the red-blooded folks for some reason, considering even the Primes had Nightblood. And if this show does cannibalism for the third time, I swear…
The 100, Tuesdays, 9/8c, The CW
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