The 100 Season 2 Review

Check out my season 1 review.

In season 2 the 100 started coming into its own in a lot of ways, both good and bad. Some of the nagging little things in season 1 that I was a bit annoyed about, but willing to overlook became bigger issues while at the same time some of the potential was a little better developed. Overall, in season 2 it started to become a show that I both loved and hated at the same time. So many frustrating things character-wise would happen that I would be both intrigued by and frustrated by. But this isn't making sense so let me dive into the specifics a little bit.

The season 1 finale brought some mysterious new players into the mix - people who seemed to have science and technology came in with gas that knocked the survivors of the explosion and kidnapped them, with Clarke waking up at the end in a white room. I liked the addition of this new location and new people. It made for a lot of interesting stories with various characters, allowing Jasper and Monty to shine a little bit more and showing us others like Harper and Miller. It also helped explain and flesh out a lot of things we knew about already through the brief interactions with the grounders. I also really appreciated the way we got to see how the Mountain Men looked down on the Grounders and called them savages while at the same time being much more savage in their actions than the grounders ever were. It was well done to a certain extent (though the show itself played into the Mt. Weather hypocrisy in the way it handled Dante's story-line and characterization).

Some of the colonialist parallels with the people from the Ark were explored or highlighted a little bit further, which was also interesting, but again the show didn't really follow through on this idea properly and kind of, in my opinion, chickened out from facing the true consequences of this parallel. at the same time they continued to up the whole war and conflict and leadership/hard decisions themes, but again they really botched those, especially by having one of the characters commit an unspeakable atrocity that was completely out of character and then everyone he knows just lets him off the hook.

At the same time the science on the show became much more ridiculous and laughable. From the ridiculous idea of "metabolizing radiation" on it came to a point where you just had to stop yourself from thinking about the "sciency" things they were saying if you wanted to continue to suspend disbelief.

But it wasn't all bad. In a crazy turn of events I started to really appreciate Octavia's character - I think she's the only character that has been developed consistently throughout the show and it works so well. And with her story I also started to love Indra which was such a pleasant surprise and, again very unexpectedly, to also appreciate Kane a little bit. I was also glad to see the Grounders get more layers and a more sympathetic portrayal throughout the season.

WARNING, SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

SPOILERS!

Some issues I wanted to comment on this season: 

- Finn. WHAT? So they wanted to have a character destroy the possibility of making peace with the Grounders and they wanted to talk about issues like war crimes because they thought they could say deep things about it... mmmhmmm... whatever, fine. But remember, Finn spent the entire first season trying to tell everyone that it was better to make peace with the grounders. It was so unbelievable. And then, fine. He did it. He became a mass murderer. But to have all the Ark leaders decide to put all their people at risk to protect this mass murderer? Seriously? Even Raven wasn't disappointed in him. None of the characters even called him out on it. And they... they didn't even like arrest him or anything. WHAT? Honestly, my fav Clarke moment so far in all the seasons was when she decided to just kill him herself.

- Leadership. This is one of the biggest recurring themes in the show so it's kind of ridiculous how badly they botched it. By putting Jaha out of the picture (even though he turned out to actually be alive) they let Kane lead for a while since he was the second in command. This was fine, but then he GAVE the pin to Abby for some reason - let's forget that these people are supposed to have elections and stuff - but man was she incompetent as a leader. And then when Jaha came back and told them the smart thing to do (leave and respect the Grounders' ultimatum because it actually WAS the Grounders' land) they made him out to be in the wrong. And then somehow, through Abby's incompetence they end up with a teenage White girl as their leader somehow. Not only that, but then the grounders for some reason also have a teenage white girl leading them even though other adults that are competent exist. This brings me to another gripe I had with the show...

- Being Tough vs. Being Evil and the racist undertones in how that was handled. I mentioned in my season 1 review that I was a initially a bit worried about them putting a Black man, Jaha, as the leader of this ruthless society that will do pretty horrible things like float people and kill people to conserve oxygen and stuff, but in Season 1 they gave Jaha layers and they showed that he had a good heart and was genuinely trying to do the right thing with what resources he had so it was fine. In this season I began to see a very obvious pattern in the way they chose which characters would make which decisions and which ideas were dismissed by the show, which ones were shown as evil, and which characters were just making the "correct" and "tough" choice.

The show had several bad guy characters from various different backgrounds, but for some reason it always ended up being Clarke and her Mom and Lexa who made the "nice" or "correct but tough choices" and the Black characters like Jaha and Indra who promoted courses of action that were either dismissed or seen as excessively aggressive or evil. Even in Mount Weather this dichotomy existed. Dante and Dr. Tsing were both evil and were both in charge in a way. They all knew what Mount Weather was doing to the grounders and reapers and stuff, but in the end Dr. Tsing was the one who was actually preforming the horrific bleeding and bone marrow extraction (for some reason without any type of anesthetics) and without any sense of remorse while the show did its absolute best to show Dante in a sympathetic light and try to give him some kind of redemption even though he was IN CHARGE and allowed all that stuff to happen for years!

And then writers create a ridiculous set up to "force" Clarke into murdering all the people in Mt. Weather, including the innocent kids and the people who helped Bellamy, Jasper and co. But when she does this it's seen as somehow a necessity. She's seen as having made the difficult, tough choice and is still one of the "good guys" throughout the series because she feels bad for it. Sorry guys, but I'm with Jasper on this one. She should have found some other solution. One that involved saving people. Or maybe, like, donating the bone marrow in a normal non-deadly way so they could survive without having to drill you... but whatever, sure, Clarke is the good one.

- Lincoln's reaper story. I liked that they gave us insight into the reapers, but why did it have to be Lincoln and why did he have to betray Bellamy for the drugs in the end?


Some things I enjoyed this season: 
- Murphy's snide comments to Jaha as they search for the city of light.
- The glimpse of outsiders in Grounder society with those people that rescued Jaha and the girl that tricks them and steals from them, etc.
- The back-story of the reapers and their attempts to bring them back.
- Bellamy, Jasper and Monty in Mount Weather being awesome and saving the day - almost.


Ok, I'm running out of things to say about this season.

Check out my season 3 review.