The 100 Recap: “Pandora’s Box”

Another day, another recap. Let me start off by saying that overall, I really enjoyed the “Pandora’s Box” episode of The 100. Reunions! Sabotage! Betrayal! Confessions of love! It had everything that my soap loving heart could ever want or need.

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Bellameme!

Down on the ground Bellamy Blake is living his best life as the leader he has always had the potential to be. He negotiates with Diyoza in a way that only someone who knows they have the upper-hand can do. Telling Diyoza that if she’s unhappy with the deal is on her was a BOSS move. Plus, let’s be real. Splitting the land 50/50 is more than generous considering that between Clarke, Madi, SpaceKru, and Wonkru, they clearly have more people and should probably be allotted more space. Alas, 50/50 is the deal that was reached and he was ready to honor it. With some stipulations, of course. Not only is Eligius going to help them open the bunker, they’re going to release Clarke, and if they try any funny business, Raven and Murphy will pull the plug on the 283 Eligius prisoners that remain in space.

After Diyoza (reluctantly) agreed to the deal, Bellamy went to find Clarke who was just chilling on a cot, staring at a wall, thinking she was going crazy. Eliza Taylor absolutely rocked Clarke’s disbelief and confusion as Clarke turned around, looked at Bellamy, and then faced the wall again, thinking she was seeing something that wasn’t there. As Bellamy helped her up, her face was a mask of confusion before she finally looked at him fully and uttered the words that made fangirl hearts all over explode, “You’re really here.”

And he really was.

After two intimate embraces, the head and the heart of the delinquents did a quick rundown of the plan. Why did Diyoza let Clarke go? Where was Madi? They all survived? And now you’re home. It;s fine. We’re all fine, here. It’s just our two leads back together so that the season can finally take off like Michael Phelps at any given Olympics. These two fell back in to step very quickly and very easily. A look here, a touch there. They’re reunited and a force to be reckoned with again. Together. Will that last throughout the season? Well…we’ll see.

Per their agreement, Diyoza, McCreary, and the rest of Eligius opened up the bunker-just in time, might I add- and Bellamy (or as we know him, Bellameme) came down the rope from a halo of light like forking James Bond. Clarke followed shortly after, took in her surroundings, and became immediately unnerved because….

The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions

Things in the bunker have clearly gone from bad to worse. Octavia changed a lot from season one to four and now in the six years later, she’s gone even more dark and twisted. While Blodreina may have started out with the most nobel and fair of intentions, what we see now is dark. It’s twisted, angry, blood-thirsty. Wonkru is surrounding a fighting pit, just like the end of 5×02. And who should mosey on in but Kane. What has he done? Well…nothing. He’s taking the rap for Abby who stole pills which of course, brings WonKru closer to death thus making her the enemy. Abby is now and addict. She needs pain pills to function. Kane loves Abby. There’s no doubt there. He takes the fall for her, goes to the fighting ring, and kills to live. But it wasn’t enough for Octavia. Why? Because it wasn’t enough for Wonkru. He lost the crowd because he felt badly for murdering people for his own freedom. Heaven forbid he makes them question their own morality.

Octavia demanded that Kane fight again the next day before meeting with him privately and imploring that he tell her who really stole the pills. She knows it was Abby, he know s it was Abby, Indra knows it was Abby…basically everyone knows it was Abby. Abby even attempted to confess to Indra after Kane’s first fight. Indra turned to Kane and told him, “You were right to lock her up.” Everyone knows and everyone is letting Kane fight on the behalf of the woman he loves, much to Octavia’s displeasure.

Kane tells Octavia that he will go to the ring but he won’t fight. This is his last act to save the people in the bunker from completely losing themselves, a fight for humanity. “Surviving is about more than just saving our people.” In the ring, he sticks to his gun, refusing to draw a weapon, refusing to fight back. Frustrated, Octavia takes to the ring and knocks him down, leaving him with a choice. Kane had already made his and wasn’t going back on it. Raising her sword, Octavia made to swing….before the sky opened up and the avenging angels descended.

The reunion between the Blake sibling s was beautiful. Octavia morphed from a warrior queen back in to a sixteen year old girl, once again so relieved to see her brother. “I knew you’d come.” It was unfortunately short lived, as she went to greet Clarke who gave her a small smile and what can only amount to an awkward handshake as Clarke continued to look around at the darkness that surrounded them before making eye contact with Bellamy, knocking him out of his Octavia haze and causing him to look around.

Let’s be real. The looks exchanged between Bellamy, McCreary and Diyoza once they were down in the bunker were EVERYTHING. It was full of, “What the fuuuuccccckkk?” and it happened repeatedly.

1200 people to 813?

Look.

Wonkru chanting the Trig version of, “From the ashes we will rise.”

Look.

“Nice war paint.” (It’s blood, bish)

Look.

It gave me life.

Regardless, Octavia is the first one out of the bunker once again making her the first one on the ground. Maybe not exactly, but the parallel was there.

Meanwhile, Up In Space

Raven and Murphy have been left behind to be able to pull the plug should any shady dealings come from Eligius. To kill the time, they started going through the prisoner records and discover that Diyoza was a war criminal, Navy Seal, and at the time of her arrest the most wanted criminal in the world. What could possibly go wrong?

Bellamy radios in and informs them of the deal and the terms are explicit. Anything happens, they tell him,  and they pull the plug, no hesitation. After a brief radio reunion between Clarke and Murven, (which the zoom in one Raven’s face when she first hears Clarke’s voice was a PHENOMENAL directional choice), Raven shows some self doubt. Will she actually be able to pull the plug on 300 people? She doesn’t know. Luckily for her, Murphy is on her side. He doesn’t want her to have that decision her on her soul. “After all, why should you always be the one to sacrifice?” So, if and when the time comes…he’ll pull the plug.

After a fun-and super needed stress relief-round of soccer, that time came. Technically, the time came before Raven’s moment of doubt and Murphy’s character development when Eligius  ala Shaw tried to hack in to the system from the ground and they didn’t radio Bellamy immediately to inform him. Either way, it was too late. Eligius had begun opening the doors, planning on suffocating Raven and Murphy before Murphy decided that they weren’t going to pull the plug. Instead, they were going to awaken the rest of Eligius prisoners. If they were going to die, they were taking the Sleeping Giants with them. Seeing that, Diyoza had Shaw close the doors, letting Raven and Murphy live to see another day….for now. After all, they did just wake up 300 criminals who liked to get a little stabby.

So, Basically…

Back down on the ground Diyoza made her shady intentions clear: she wants Abby and all of the survival land on Earth. Honestly, Bellamy’s deal was much more fair. So much for a truce guys. Unfortunately, Diyoza is now the one holding all of the cards since Bellamy can’t reach Raven. She takes Abby-who insists on bringing Kane-gets on the Eligius ship and demands that Shaw bring them back up in to space where they can save the rest of their people. Of course, this was after one of the Eligius people decided to shoot their huge blaster at Octavia because she gave him a dirty look.

Honestly, guys. Can’t we all just get along.

Apparently not since Octavia instantly decides that everything bad that has happened in the history of ever is all Bellamy’s fault and they are going to war with Eligius.

Sorry, Bell. You tried.

How We Did:

The 100 made it to number five on the Nielsen Daily Top Five, again. Ratings landed at a firm 0.3 (after a wobbly 0.4 in the preliminaries).  Make sure when you’re watching live, and live tweeting to use the hashtag. Yes, we have a season six (WE HAVE A SEASON SIX!) but it’s a matter of pride…but maybe that’s just my competitive nature.

For Your Viewing Pleasure:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnkKlVHQo2o&w=560&h=315]

Make sure to head over to PostApocalytpicMedia.com to hear a further in depth podcast with myself and Kolista Orson! If you like cursing, ranting, and a lot of talking, we’re the ones for you.

Watch The 100 Tuesday’s at 9/8c on The CW