‘The 100’: Everything Goes Up in Flames in ‘The Blood of Sanctum’ (RECAP)
Spoiler Alert
[WARNING: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for The 100 Season 6 finale, “The Blood of Sanctum.”]
Pull the lever, Clarke! It’s season finale time!
As amusing as it is to see how the writers include Clarke (Eliza Taylor) pulling levers in every finale, be assured that this season’s lever-pull is all kinds of heartbreaking. In an intense episode, the conflict between the Primes and the rest of Clarke’s people (and their own people) comes to a head, Clarke’s ruse wears off, Madi (Lola Flanery) fights a deadly battle with Sheidheda and the anomaly claims an unexpected life… or does it?
Prime Explorers
As the episode opens, the Primes and Indra (Adina Porter)’s people have a standoff at the airlock, but when they threaten Gaia, Indra relents. They all head to the mess hall, where Madi orders her people to fire on the Sanctum soldiers. That behavior doesn’t fly with Russell (J.R. Bourne) and Simone-Abby (Paige Turco), who ask if there’s anyone else hidden on the ship. Indra insists there isn’t, but Simone tells her that for anyone else they find, they’ll not only kill that person, but one of the people in the mess hall, too.
As all of this is unfolding, Clarke secures Madi’s safety. She then leaves with her “mom” and “dad,” and they discuss heading to another planet. “We were explorers once, weren’t we?” Russell says. They also discuss wiping the minds of all the sleeping Eligius crew, based on Simone’s suggestion, and dealing with Madi, who they perceive as a threat. Clarke talks them out of doing anything rash to the child, and gradually, they all agree to the other parts of the plan.
What’s My Father’s Name?
From there, the Primes go to wipe the minds of those still in cryosleep. Clarke, trying to determine whether there’s any hope for her mom, asks Simone if she’s been having headaches or memories she doesn’t recognize. Simone says she hasn’t been, and Russell chimes in to say he made sure Abby’s mind was neural mesh-free: She’s really gone. This shatters Clarke’s ruse, and she not only prevents the Lightbournes from killing the people—she reveals her true identity. “I am sorry for your loss,” she says as Russell breaks down, then turns to evade their soldiers.
Simone and the rest of Sanctum’s forces, minus Russell, catch up with her inside an airlock. They find Clarke tying a strap connected to the wall around her waist, and it’s pretty obvious where things are headed. For a brief moment, it seems there’s a flicker of hope; Simone tells her people to drop their weapons and pretends to be Abby, telling her daughter they need to go find Madi. Clarke seems to believe it for a moment, but Simone doesn’t pass Clarke’s final test: “What’s my father’s name?” When her “mom” is unable to answer, Clarke pulls the lever.
The soldiers go out the airlock but Simone grabs her, and Clarke is forced to shove her mother’s possessed body out into space. With tears in her eyes, she closes the door and drops to the ground.
He Didn’t Remember Me
In Sanctum, things aren’t going much better. Bellamy (Bob Morley), Gabriel (Chuku Modu), Octavia (Marie Avgeropoulos) and Echo (Tasya Teles) are trapped in a storage container where the angry residents of Sanctum eventually overpower them by knocking them out with sleeping gas. When they come to, they’re part of some kind of religious ritual: A woman gives them a choice between drinking “the blood of Sanctum” (slow-acting poison) or dying. Miller’s forced to drink, but thankfully, Murphy and Emori arrive before any others of the main crew are hurt.
The “Primes” are able to get their friends to safety in the palace and even save Jordan Green, who seems to have been undergoing a Sanctum-believers ritual, but it doesn’t go seamlessly. On his way to safety, Murphy’s grabbed and kissed by a man who seems to have been Daniel Lee’s boyfriend. When Murphy doesn’t react with joy or even recognition to this, the woman gets suspicious.
Anomaly Abnormality
In the palace, Gabriel saves Miller but he’s not happy Bellamy and his pals left the rest of his people to die. That doesn’t sit right with Octavia, who volunteers to come with him to make things right. Bellamy can’t let his little sister go alone, so he opts in, and so do Echo and Murphy. They all head back to the place where they were being kept, where, of course, nothing goes as planned.
While Octavia, Gabriel and Echo fight on the outside, Murphy and Bellamy fight on the inside. The woman, realizing Murphy is not one of her gods, tries to burn down the dwelling by setting herself on fire, but Octavia stops her from reaching it before she burns to death. In the process, O loses her coat, and it’s revealed that she has a ton of unfamiliar, symbolic markings on her back; symbols that came from the anomaly. “Still think you were only in there for a few minutes?” Gabriel asks.
Up in Flame-s
Raven and Gaia try to break Madi free from Sheidheda’s clutches, but they realize the only way to do so is to destroy the chip. The flamekeeper gives her okay to do so, but Russell, knowing his daughter is dead and having seen his wife go out an airlock, bursts into the room in a vengeful rage. He’s determined to kill Madi for what Clarke did to him, but the Commander, in full Sheidheda mode, says the revenge she can offer will be “so much sweeter.” Realizing he’s not talking to a child, Russell relents.
Clarke meets Russell and Madi, who have awoken the sleeping army. Madi orders her, and everyone else, to kneel or be killed. Surprisingly, Clarke does so. Pointing a gun to her own head, she gives her daughter a heartfelt speech about how she lost her mother today and how she believes Madi’s still in there, somewhere. She says she’ll count to three before she pulls the trigger, and she makes it past two before Madi overpowers Sheidheda and leaps into her arms. It’s a sweet moment until Madi starts having a seizure, and they take her back to the same room where they started operating on her before. This time they really do extract the chip, but a mysterious message appears saying the contents have been uploaded… somewhere. “Where did he go?” Raven muses. A question for Season 7, probably.
Tell Me We Did Better
Night ends in Sanctum, Clarke and her people return from space, and Bellamy finds a distraught-looking Jordan standing with a group of Sanctumites. He tries to get Monty’s son to go greet their friends, but Jordan’s none too pleased with the way things went down. He says he’s going to stay and help clean up their mess, and as Bellamy walks away, Jordan opens his hand to reveal a mind drive.
Various happy reunions occur, but the most emotional—and bittersweet—is that of Bellamy and Clarke. She cries and asks him to tell her it was all worth it; that even though she lost her mom, they “did better.” Bellamy reassures her that they did, and they hug.
A Noble Sacrifice?
Gabriel, Echo, Bellamy and Octavia head for the anomaly to figure out what O’s tattoo is all about. Using the symbols on her back as a guide, Gabriel enters a code into a mysterious formation under his cabin. At first it seems not much is happening, but then the anomaly grows, swirling green outside Gabriel’s door. Out of it emerges a woman with dark hair, tattooed with the same symbols as Octavia. “Diyoza?” O says, then amends her statement and says, “Hope!”
Octavia runs into the girl’s arms, but it’s clear something’s wrong: Hope had pulled out a knife. Holding Octavia close, she tells Bell’s little sister that she’s sorry, but “he” has Diyoza. Octavia seems at peace with being stabbed, telling Hope to tell someone “it is done.” Then, as suddenly as it all started, the anomaly retracts, Hope loses consciousness and Octavia, mortally wounded, evaporates in a puff of green smoke.
Distraught, Bellamy sprints outside and yells for his sister. “Octavia!” he shouts. “Octavia!”
Other Observations:
- Octavia isn’t dead. There’s just no way. This is just another time she’s been stabbed and will survive. I’m interested to see where Season 7 goes, though, regarding time travel. It’s clear Hope wasn’t really supposed to be in the past, but Octavia seemed like she’d at least met her before or knew she’d been born.
- Abby Griffin deserved a better death. Jaha’s death was better, Kane’s death was better, even Finn’s death was better! I do wish they’d treated her character with a little more respect than mind-wiping her and then forcing her daughter to shove her body out an airlock. Maybe Abby will have a funeral in 7×01?
- Why, oh why, oh why, oh why is Jordan determined to become a Prime now? Does he see this as some kind of vengeance for Priya’s death? Sometimes I’m not sure whether he and Monty are really related, because yikes. (Granted, there is the possibility that he’s possessed in some weird way, since the guy who was performing that ritual on him was staring at him when he talked to Bellamy. It’s all so odd.)
- Even when the Flame’s gone, it’s not really gone.
- If Season 7’s really doing time travel, who do we think is coming back for cameo appearances? If there’s time travel, you know there’ll be cameos. There just have to be.
The 100, Final Season, 2020, The CW
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