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The 100 is back with a brand new episode after a week-long hiatus. And what a wonderful hiatus it was. In case you somehow missed it, Friday night series stars Eliza Taylor and Bob Morley, our very own Bellamy Blake and Clarke Griffin/Josephine Lightboure announced that they secretly said, “I do.” From everyone at TV Source Magazine, we couldn’t be happier for the pair and wish them the biggest congratulations!
Moving on to the episode itself, there’s a lot to unpack in 6×06, Memento Mori. A lot of different storylines began to play out, arguably, even too much was going on in this episode. With the reveal of Clarke’s “death” in The Gospel of Josephine, I had hoped to see more emotionally impactful storyline beats play out between all the characters. However, it would appear in an effort to combat that mid-season slump that I so often have pointed out, the story didn’t slow down enough to allow the characters that time leading to an episode that should have been so powerful being only okay.
Despite this, there were of course things I loved, the meh things, and we see the return of the things I didn’t like section. Honorable Mention will actually only by the one, and it’s significant, and of course, theories.
[This review contains spoilers for the “Memento Mori” episode of The 100.]
The 100 Review: “Memento Mori”
Season 6, Episode 6 | Airdate: June 11, 2019
Directed by: PJ Pesce | Written by: Alyssa Clark
Things I Loved
Bellamy: This was honestly Bob Morley’s time to shine. We see the return of heart!Bellamy and he’s beautiful and he’s been so very much missed. At the end of 6×05, Bellamy learns that Clarke is dead. For some reason he just doesn’t seem to have the same faith as I do that she’ll return at some point. Ah well. Regardless, the man is Not Okay. Capital N. Capital O.
When we first come across Bellamy he is in the destroyed remnants of Clarke’s room, paintings torn to pieces, shards of glass on the floor, sitting still, tied to the floor. Murphy, being the shady cockroach that he is, tries to get Bellamy to see that taking a deal with Josephine and the Primes is in their best interest and what Clarke would have wanted. Tearfully and brokenly, Bellamy chokes out, “I don’t know what Clarke would want. It’s too bad we can’t ask her.”
Lurking beneath the tears and the palpable grief, Bellamy wants revenge. His blood-lust has been reignited. He wants to kill everyone in Sanctum and take it for themselves. We love one (1) genocide king. Proving that he hasn’t fallen so deep in to the pit of his despair, he realizes pretty quickly that Murphy is playing him to further his own agenda. The two get in to it and Bellamy kicks him out. Poor guy loses his soulmate and his best guy friend all within a twelve hour span. That’s gotta be a bitch.
Murphy tells Bellamy that if he doesn’t get on board with the plan to turn the people of Sanctum in to Nightbloods, she’ll kill him. Bellamy doesn’t care and dares her to try and Murphy did everything but basically ask him if Clarke was dead did that mean he wanted to die too. Which brings us to our next point. Josephine came in wearing Clarke’s face just to do that: kill Bellamy. Murphy had warned him about it and because he couldn’t even stand to look at her, he turned his back to her….knowing that she was more than likely there to kill him. He. Turned. His. Back. To. Her. She was just getting ready to take the plunge when they both heard Russell and Murphy enter the room and turned around. The unclear question is: was he just so grief addled and turned his back because he couldn’t stand to look at Clarke knowing she wasn’t in there or did he turn his back because he knew she was going to kill him and just didn’t care? I may never have the answer to this question.
Josephine cuts Bellamy free so that he can attack Russell in his grief and rage and even almost taunts him with it. “An eye for an eye.” she called it as he was choking out her father and looking dead at her. Something about the way she was speaking obviously got to Bellamy because again, she’s wearing Clarke but she isn’t actually her and the difference seemed to jar him out of his blind rage. He dropped Russell and exited the room. Next we see him in the tavern surrounded by the rest of his friends/family where he tells them that they aren’t going to get revenge. They’re going to honor Clarke and survive.
The two moments that really hit the most? Bellamy telling Madi that her mom was dead and the shot right after of him alone at the poisonous lake and crying, swallowed whole by his grief once more. I’m not going to pretend that it didn’t seem like he might have been considering throwing himself in because it did. Murphy had a point. It actually hurt to watch those scenes and maybe I shed a tear or two.
All of that being said, I like that the writers gave us this. A main gripe of season five-including one of mine-is that we never got to see Bellamy grieve Clarke because of the time jump. They can’t go back and give that to us but they showed it to us now. It was everything I could have wanted. Kudos.
Diyoza and Xavier: I particularly enjoyed watching this exposition duo. We learn that Diyoza doesn’t want Octavia on the same pages of the history books as her, the original Gabriel is the “old man” (duh), that there’s some word tree sap that can slow aging and speed healing. A lot of story was unfolded with these two in just a short amount of time. What I’m not convinced of is that Xavier isn’t some form of Gabriel. We know that he himself has been “called in to the anomaly” at least once in his life, just like it’s now calling to Octavia and Diyoza. Sidenote: Diyoza doodles very prettily.
Raven* and Ryker: It seems as if my theory about Ryker is at least partially playing out. He resents having been resurrected in the first place and wouldn’t have chosen this life. However, it’s not exactly stopping him from doing it over and over so what do I know? Raven’s anger is finally directed away from Clarke for .2 seconds and is on somebody a bit more deserving. After all, say what you will about Clarke but she’s never made it so that she can live forever. If anything, the woman is way to self-sacrificial for her own good. Regardless, Raven now knows what Sanctum has been up to and she’s not happy with it and she’s definitely not hiding her feelings about it. She goes as far as asking Ryker if he plans on resurrecting again and seems disappointed-and angry-at his lack of a response. I actually can’t blame her on this front. I can understand her need to learn what she needs and to get the hell out of dodge.
Josephine: I have to give my props to Eliza Taylor (Morley) here. She plays Josephine so well and plays Josephine attempting be Clarke so bad because let’s face it, Josephine isn’t much of an actress despite what she might think. She enlists Murphy’s help in trying to fool Abby in to believing she’s Clarke so that she can convince her to make people in to Nightbloods. She tries so hard to come off as wide eyed and innocent and sincere and it falls just a little flat because she doesn’t have Clarke’s mannerisms down pat. However, shoutout to Josephine for realizing just how awesome Clarke actually was (is) because sometimes the people around her tend to forget and it’s just not acceptable.
Also, let’s just talk about the fact that Josephine is actually insane. Whatever traces of the pure and lovable one we saw in 6×02 have long gone and something tells me that it disappeared around the time Gabriel did. Also, the whole living forever thing. Then again, Russell doesn’t seem to have that problem, something Josie notices. She mentions to her mother while trying to convince her to delete the Lee’s memories from the Flames to allow some members of Earth have them that Russell leads with his heart. Does that make Simone the head? Interesting.
Also, can I just say that I really enjoyed them playing Alone by Haelos as Josephine finally goes to sleep and Clarke slips back in to her consciousness?
Lyrics?
I don’t belong
Slowly slip back inside of my mind
Amazing choice.
The Meh Things
Echo: Like I mentioned before, I don’t hate Echo. I don’t like her relationship with Bellamy but outside of it, I don’t hate her. Why? Because outside of her relationship with Bellamy….who is she? She was never an established character before she was lumped in to a relationship with the male lead (unless you count always trying to murder our faves as being established) and she’s not really an established character now. That being said, she was away from him for almost an entire episode and there still wasn’t much done to make her her own person.
But that’s not why she’s on this list. She’s on this list because she literally figured out that Clarke wasn’t Clarke anymore, she went back to the tavern, saw her boyfriend and her friends all upset and the first thing she asks is, “What’s going on?”
You….know what’s going on? You literally just had the epiphany not five minutes ago?
That was….a choice.
Missed Emotional Beats: Believe me, I am incredibly grateful that we got to see Bellamy reacting so strongly to Clarke being gone. I just wish we could have seen more from the others who knew her too. We deserved to see Madi’s face at finding out her mom is dead. We deserved to see Gaia and Emori finding out too. They didn’t know Clarke as well as the others but knowing that they missed all the signs, the guilt that comes with that? I would have liked to see it.
Things I Didn’t Like aka Will These Two Ever Be Off Of It?
Abby: That’s right. Abby went from ‘meh’ last week right back to on my bad list. Why? Because she is still putting Kane above the weird behavior of her ‘daughter.’ It’s just….being a bad mom. I hate that this is who she has been reduced to.
That being said: Josephine literally told Abby what Sanctum could do with Nightbloods. She knows that Clarke is a Nightblood. She knows that Clarke has been acting incredibly strangely. I am hoping against hope that Bellamy telling Russell that he’ll have to kill both him and Abby because Abby would be out for revenge as soon as she realized Clarke was dead was foreshadowing and that Abby is actually on her way up to the ship to not make more Nightblood but to awaken the soldiers.
Come on, show. Don’t let me down on this. I’d really like to take Abby off this list.
Raven:
“We’ve all done things we regret to survive that we regret.”
“I haven’t.”
Oh, word?
Okay.
1) Was going to give Murphy to the grounders to save Finn.
2)Blew up the bridge killing lots of people.
3)Made Clarke make a list of 100 people who were “worthy” of saving.
4)Was going to kill everyone in cryo.
5)Refused to give medicine to Luna’s sister for radiation poisoning.
The list is longer but I figure I’ve made my point. Stop acting so high and mighty all the damn time. It’s getting very old. Not even getting, is old.
Honorable Mentions:
Ahhhhh, time for my yearly Bellarke rant. I’m sure you’re all very excited. Let’s put aside the last five seasons of missed opportunities and just focus on this episode, shall we. As I mentioned above-and in detail-Bellamy is devastated at losing Clarke again. It’s in every single one of his actions, facial expressions, his eyes. Every movement he makes speaks of a profound and deep grief.
Murphy tells Josephine at the beginning of the episode that if Bellamy knows Clarke is dead then he might as well just kill himself now. Screw his sister, his girlfriend, all the rest of his friends, and himself too. Russell calls Josephine out on her callousness asking, “Have you forgotten what it’s like to lose somebody you love?” making a clear comparison of Bellamy’s feelings to Clarke being the same as her feelings for Gabriel.
When Clarke wakes up on the Arc inside of her mind she is surrounded by her own drawing, memories of important people and moments of her life: who are the two that get the main focus?
Lexa. Bellamy. This is not for nothing. This is not a coincidence. These are the two great loves of Clarke’s life. And despite what some people might want to claim, Bellamy and Clarke are a love story. For some reason, the writers and producers just seem to be too hesitant to take that final step. But as of this episode, we have now officially reached the point of no return. There is no more claiming, “Oh, they’re platonic.” or “That’s not the story we’re telling.”
Because it is. It has been for the last five seasons, actually. But after tonight, there is no more denying it. Bellamy is in love with Clarke. Clarke is in love with Bellamy. Everyone around them knows it and picks up on it, even Russell who knows Bellamy has a girlfriend and who has known him for an entire three days has picked up on it. This is it.
If at the end of the season with Clarke being back and a confession of feelings still isn’t made this will have been the greatest disappointment on any show ever. It would also be a disservice to the show, its fans, and the writers themselves. Tell the story that is already being told. Be brave. Take that step. It’s time. Because if you don’t, then honestly. What was the point?
Theories
My main theory is that somehow, some-way Clarke is going to gain control of her body, if only briefly. With she and Josephine fighting inside her sub-consciousness, it would appear that her body is beginning to reject the flame if the nose-bleed in the promo is anything to go by. Fans on twitter have noticed that the pictures on the wall seem to be disappearing behind Clarke. Partnered with that, “You called me everyday for six years and left me in the pits to die.” Reminder of their history, anyone?
My Clarke loses her memory theory gains traction every day.
Next episode, Nevermind, looks like it is going to be a doozy and frankly, I’m kinda excited about it. What do you think? Sound off below in the comments or hit us up on twitter @TVSource.
Watch The 100 Tuesday at 9/8c on The CW.
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