By Here we are: second episode of the final season has come and gone and you know what? It was good. And because I found this episode to be overall enjoyable (with the exception being some truly cringe worthy lines, I’m looking at you “My mother, my responsibility”) we will only do the Things I Loved and Honorable Mentions for this review. Will there be some sarcasm? Well, yes, because that’s just who I am as a person. But for the most part, ‘The Garden’ was a lovely example of world-building, hint dropping, nostalgia induced feelings and since that’s all I really want from a final season of a series, I’m pleased.
[This review contains spoilers for the ‘The Garden’ episode of The 100.]
The 100 Review: ‘The Garden’
Season 7, Episode 2 | Airdate: May 27, 2020
Directed by: Dean White | Written by: Jeff Vlaming
Things I Loved
Octavia/Diyoza/Hope: Yes, yes, I know. Octavia practically lived on my ‘Did Not Like’ and ‘Meh’ lists last season. That being said there’s just something about Diyoza and Octavia playing off of each other that has always just worked since their first interactions in season five. I’m happy to announce that it still works.
We open the episode with Octavia coming out of the anomaly at the bottom of a lake, the same anomaly she walked through in season six following after Diyoza who was chasing a vision of Hope. We’re finally getting so see what happened in those ten seconds she was gone! She comes up from the “pretty lights at the bottom of the lake” and sees that her arm is healed. That’s not really explained and I’m not sure if it ever will be but it’s fine, we’ll just accept it.
Octavia hears screaming coming from a distance and rushes to get to Diyoza. Upon hurrying in to a quaint little cabin with a garden out front we see Diyoza right in the middle of giving birth. This prompts the absolute most hilarious line from the series to date as Octavia tells her that it’s too soon for her to give birth. When I say I laughed. How are you going to tell a woman who has been pregnant for two seasons and 5458485455 years that it’s too soon for her to be giving birth? I very much hope the joke was intentional.
We learn from Diyoza that even though Octavia followed her in to the anomaly seconds later while on Sanctum, those seconds translated in to three months on this new planet. After Diyoza gives birth to one of the biggest newborns ever she passes out plunging the audience in to a wave of nostalgia as the show parallels Octavia’s own birth. In case that wasn’t obvious enough for the more casual viewers after putting her pinkie in to a crying Hope’s mouth Octavia mutters, “Just like me. Thank you, Bell.”
A little later we see Octavia outside of the cabin still trying to keep a fussy Hope calm. Diyoza has awakened and stumbled out to see her daughter and nurse her. There was a lot of dialogue here that I’m sure was important but the only thing I could focus on was the fact that poor Ivana was pretty exposed and it was so cold that their breath was showing when they spoke. Mostly, I was thinking that I hope they didn’t make them do too many retakes because it looked so cold and I felt badly for them. Regardless, Diyoza tells Octavia that this is the perfect place for them: nobody else is there, it’s safe, they have food, a lot of space, and a roof over their heads. Octavia makes it known that while this may be paradise for Diyoza she still has to figure out how to get back to Sanctum and to Bellamy.
The next time we pick up with the three ladies three years has passed and Octavia has been trying every day to get the anomaly at the bottom of the lake. She can now hold her breath for 120 seconds (two minutes) and just needs to get to that third minute. Diyoza warns her that even if she trains herself to be able to hold her breath that long that she’s an untrained diver and that there is a myriad of dangers that could still kill her trying to get down that deep and that even if she somehow manages to get back to Sanctum she might be not ever know because she’ll be dead. Diyoza also uses some of that newly learned mom guilt and informs O that Hope had decided on a name for their new home: Skyring. Maybe it’s a stretch but there is a possible parallel between Skyring being a prison planet when the Skybox was the prison on the Ark back in season one. A stretch? Maybe. But more on that later.
One mini time jump later brings us to three years in the Skyring future with Octavia and six year old Hope gardening. The second funniest line ever is inserted here when Octavia states that they’re going vegan again. HILARIOUS coming from the former cannibal queen. Seriously, I hope these jokes are on purpose. They’re just too funny.
Diyoza tells hope that she has to do Earth Skills before dinner but Hope tells her that she wants to help Octavia, a ruse to get her mom to go back in to the house so that she can tackle O and beg her to train her to be a warrior like she was. She clearly wants to be a mini-O. Octavia declines and when Hope playfully tackles her again, she tumbles over, hitting her head on something hard in the ground. Dusting the dirt off of whatever it was that hurt her, she and little miss see a helmet. We’re apparently not supposed to question how they had tilled all those rows of dirt without discovering this before but I digress. Upon opening the helmet we discover that it’s not just a helmet but a full on body suit with a full on rotting corpse inside of it. Probably past its expiration date for even Octavia.
Hearing Hope’s scream Diyoza runs out and sends her inside telling O that they need to move and bury the body so that Hope doesn’t see it anymore. Octavia stops her telling her that this suit is exactly what she needs to get back to Sanctum. It’s heavy enough to add on the extra minute of time she needs to get to the bottom of the lake and to the anomaly. Diyoza points out that while that may be true the tech is likely bio meaning that as soon as she puts it on it’ll alert whoever that person’s people are (say that five times fast) that they’re there. O says that even if there is tech in the suit that it’s likely deader than the person inside of it, and even if it’s not, let them come. She can get back to Sanctum and bring their own army to Skyring. Diyoza is horrified by the notion given the risk to her daughter and asks O if she even hears herself and why would she want to expose Hope to the life they left behind. O accuses her bff of trying to guilt her in to staying which D owns up to because it’s the only thing she hasn’t tried.
Later, Octavia attempts to sneak out decked in her full body suit armor but can’t resist giving sleeping Hope a little goodbye kiss on the forehead. Hope wakes up and begs Octavia to not go, she doesn’t want to grow up without her. In an effort to make Hope feel better she tells her that they don’t know how the anomaly works and she’ll be back before she knows it with Bellamy, Clarke, and Madi. We love Bellarke family crumbs in an episode that doesn’t feature either of them. In a long tradition of children adoring Murphy she requests that Octavia bring him back as well which Octavia promises she will.
On her way to the lake Diyoza stops her and gives her the helmet that she busted to keep Octavia on Skyring ending in a physical fight. As Diyoza forces Octavia to the ground and wraps her in her arms as O struggles she asks Octavia why she and Hope aren’t enough, why she has to get back to Bellamy when Bellamy left her to die. Sobbing, Octavia tells her that she has to tell him that she understands now, that she gets it. Which leads us to the sobbing portion of the episode.
Octavia writes Bellamy a letter that to some may be too little too late but for others will hit them right in the gut. All of her life a part of Octavia has resented Bellamy and everything he’s done in regards to her. She tells him that she gets it now: she understands the sacrifices, the decisions, everything that he had ever done for her and her safety and happiness. She tells him that he was right to cut her off because of the darkness inside of her but that it’s gone now, she’s found peace in her found family of Diyoza and Hope who she loves. She asks him to not worry about her, she’s happy, and he deserves to be happy too. She tells him that if/when he gets the letter she will be an old lady or maybe even long gone since time works so differently and signs it, “Forever yours, Octavia.” Weighing the bottle down with rocks (smart tbh), she throws it in to the lake so it can go through the anomaly and back to Sanctum.
In a comforting moment of domesticity where we learn that Diyoza/Octavia/Hope’s version of a swear jar is doing dishes, before their perfect peaceful life is shattered. The anomaly opens and Diyoza rushes off in to the woods to see a group of soldiers in those sci-fi suits from 7×01 coming through it. They catch up and given the wording of Octavia’s letter they are under the impression that they are the only two on the planet. We learn that Octavia’s letter did not, in fact, make it to back to Sanctum but to what we learn in this episode (which we will touch on further down) is Bardo. Diyoza yells out a warning phrase that they ladies were clearly keeping in their back-pocket in case the worst was to happen. The worst is here.
Hearing the warning Octavia hides Hope in her version of “under the floor” aka in a wall hidden within the wall with a warning to stay quiet no matter what she hears. She promises “Mommy and Auntie O will come back for you.” After Hope is safely hidden she fights with the people in the suit and Hope gets to witness just what a fighter Octavia is that she’d been hiding from her. When Octavia is forced to her knees next to Diyoza we see them exchange communicative glances about Hope being safe. One of the suited men tell the others to put the helmets on them because “Anders will want them to remember everything.” before they’re dragged off. We’ll discuss that in honorable mentions because I have QUESTIONS. Hearing silence, Hope leaves her hiding place and runs outside screaming for her mom and Octavia. The final shot of the episode is little Hope all alone on the river bank screaming for her family and it’s heartbreaking. In fact, my exact note was “Poor Hope :(“
Gabriel/Hope/Echo: Now that we’ve recapped with some snark all of the flashbacks let’s move on to present time, shall we? The anomaly trio walked hand in hand through the anomaly at the end of 7×01 and we see them rise up from the same lake that Octavia did at the beginning of the episode. Being back on Skyring has given Hope her memories back and she rushes to the cabin with Gabriel and Echo hot on her heels. We learn as Hope is rushing around the cabin that one day on Sanctum means she’s been gone from Skyring for hundreds of years.
Echo in her impatience demands to know where Bellamy is which is such an audience mood. Hope answers her (and us) that the Disciples (we now have a name for the men in the suits!) used the bridge to take Bellamy from Sanctum to Skyring and then directly to Bardo, do not pass go, do not collect $200. We learn that what our main people call the anomaly actually is a bridge between the different words. So far we know that Sanctum—>Skyring—>Bardo and that each anomaly stone has its own unique code.
Speaking of unique codes….
We also learn that every mind has its own unique code/bio-metric signature/consciousness code. When Gabriel entered the code on the back of Octavia’s back in to the anomaly stone at the end of season six he was actually entering Hope’s code thus pulling her from wherever she was in to Sanctum. Another way to pull people through is through a locator tag which is why Hope stabbed Octavia. The tag has to be in deep otherwise “it can turn you inside out.” That’s why Octavia disappeared in to the anomaly from her brothers arm back to (presumably) Bardo.
Hope has no idea why the Disciples would have taken Bellamy as well. She never wanted to hurt anyone, the plan (whose plan?) was to tag Octavia, jump back in to the anomaly, rescue her mom and Auntie O. The audience is also let in to the knowledge that she made the deal with Anders to tag Octavia for the release of her mother and that Octavia understood because “my mother, my responsibility.” My cringing at the line know no limits. Echo informs Hope that she isn’t a killer but she is and if whoever has Bellamy is also the same people who have Octavia and Diyoza then kill them all sounds right. Again, what a mood.
Despite being in the vial the lake water destroyed the “Trust Bellamy” note along with the code back to Bardo on it. Gabriel’s attempts to fix it prove to be fruitless and then we discover that Echo is the worst spy in the world because HOW DO YOU NOT REALIZE THAT YOU’RE NOT ALONE IN THE CABIN? You’re supposed to be a highly trained spy! I mean, damn! Anyway, a mysterious, dirty, half-crazed man with a countdown ticking on his arm jumps out at the trio just as Gabriel sees a really creepy doll. The man (whose name we never discover this episode) runs out of the cabin after calling the doll Hope and promising that he’ll be back for her. Creeeeeeepy.
Hope informs the others as well as the audience that the countdown on the mans arm is a prison sentence, the Skyring is a prison planet, and with the code being washed away that man is their ticket off of Skyring. She leads the others out of the cabin, past the garden that she informs them they will need to fix if they want any chance of surviving, and after the man because the disciples won’t come back for a dead man once the five years are up so they need to make sure he survives.
Echo scoffs at the idea that she’ll wait five years to go after Bellamy which blows Hope’s mind. The now iconic, “What is it about Bellamy that has otherwise sensible women willing to die for him?” Well, Hope. As one of those women, I am so glad you asked.
Now that we’ve cleared that up, we hear that Octavia was on Skyring for ten years and spent six of them trying to get back to Bellamy, as we all would have. While going after Dirty Harry (which is what we’ll call him for the remainder of this review) Gabriel talks about how depending on the time dilation relative to Bardo a twenty year sentence on Skyring could be a weekend on Bardo and how efficient it is. Per Hope, everyone on Bardo is raised to be a Disciple, a warrior, and they are only sent to Skyring if they are not devout enough, strong enough, or weren’t pulling their own weight.
The anomaly trio stumble upon a very creepy tea party aka Dirty Harry is suffering from isolation madness and has dug up buried corpses for company, one of which Hope recognizes as someone named Dev. Gabriel recognizes the uniform on the one of the bodies as well, reading ‘Col….” which we learn was a man from Eligius Three named Colin Benson. Recognizing the man from his Eligius uniform as well as his initals on the wall by the anomaly stone, he realizes that the planet they’re on is actually Planet Beta and that because he was part of the Eligius team he would have a mind-drive that works as a memory viewer. Becca designed memory drives to be a data retrieval system so that the mothership could determine what happened if the mission team should die.
Becca was really busy when she was alive. Original Heda, memory drive maker, worked up on the 13th ring of the Ark at one point, had A.L.I.E created in her image, had her own lab with a rocket. Busy bee she was before she was burned at the stake. Also, given the fact that she worked on the Ark at one point and was the creator of memory drives, those wristbands they put on the delinquents in the pilot seven seasons ago is a joke.
Anyway, Gabriel says that it’s a long shot that the anomaly stones connecting two planets is a coincidence so the people of Bardo are descendants of Eligius as well. As Gabriel studies the data from Colin’s mind-drive we see Becca on the screen as she monologues/expositions at us that planet Beta is too far from the blackhole relative to the others (planet Alpha), but she thinks time dilation is sexy because you can get to the future faster. Echo asks Gabriel if he can fast-forward to see if there’s anything that they can use but he is in the zone and ignores her. Eventually he sees Colin activate the anomaly stone by measuring the stones vibrations with a stethoscope to see what was getting a reaction in the planet. Realizing that he now has the code he runs outside and tells the others that he needs a pen because he has the code now. When they go back inside, Dirty Harry has the memory finder in his hands and is scared of it. They explain to him what the memory viewer is and what it does and they’ll take him with them. He says it’s too soon and that he “serves the master, his shield, and his sword for all mankind.” before shattering it.
That’s what you get for only guarding the front door in a home with multiple entrances.
Directional Shots: That’s it, really. I thought there were a lot of really cool transitions i.e Grown Up Hope looking out at the garden from the window of the cabin and it transitioning in to a flashback.
Honorable Mentions:
Symbols: There’s a symbol on the floor under the carpet of the cabin and while we can only just see it it later matches the symbol on Octavia’s gardening box. Symbol of Skyring/Planet Beta? Perhaps.
Hope Is Not Here For Echo: Like…seriously. Hope is an Octavia stan through and through and she is not here for Echo or anything she says or does. She’ll give credit where credit is due but this is the second episode in a row where Echo is dragged by someone. The two do come to a fragile truce and understanding after Echo dares to touch Octavia’s letter to Bellamy, Hope tears her a new one, and then has a breakdown when she realizes it’s the letter that led the Disciples to Skyring from Bardo. There’s two things to note about this exchange:
One) If you squint and cock your head 90 degrees to the left Hope telling Echo that she must think she’s so weak for her emotions and her breakdown could be a nod to season two and “Love is weakness.”
Two) If Diyoza and Octavia were taken when hope was nine or ten and she spent twenty years on Skyring, that means the message in the bottle stayed in the front yard/garden for at least ten years. Like…ma’am. Clean your room and then you wouldn’t need to worry about other people touching stuff that isn’t theirs!
Why Are Men?: Far be it for me to agree with Echo on anything but if Gabriel had fast-forwarded the video like she wanted him to, he wouldn’t have been alone without a pen, somebody would have been with the memory viewer, it wouldn’t have been shattered by Dirty Harry and they wouldn’t be stuck.
Speaking of Gabriel we’re informed that it was the memory drives that he and Russell reverse engineered to become mind drives. We also see that he checked Josephine’s drive to make sure she was really gone. I don’t know why that felt significant but it did.
Octavia and Diyoza: I love their friendship. I really and truly do. But my questions from earlier have nothing to do with them specifically and everything to do with the helmets/memories/anomaly travel.
Octavia spent ten years on Skyring before being taken to Bardo and then somehow getting back to Gabriel via the anomaly (which was a matter of seconds in Sanctum time). She had no memories of Skyring or anything about the anomaly. Hope also loses her memories upon entering Sanctum but gets them all back upon coming back to Skyring. She, Gabriel, and Echo remember their time on Sanctum perfectly, as did Diyoza and Octavia.
So…why the helmets? Do people just lose their memories of Skyring every-time they leave it? If so, is that why they send prisoners there so they don’t retain the trauma of being all alone for years at a time? But if that’s true then why send them there at all if they don’t retain the memory of their punishment? Unless the punishment is looking the mirror once you’re back in Bardo and realizing you’ve lost 5/10/15 years of your life?
And if that’s the point then doesn’t this make Octavia older than Bellamy now? Can she still even call him big brother anymore since she should technically be older than him now? So many questions.
Bellamy: I miss Bellamy Blake. We now know where he is but I would still like to rest my eyes-balls on him, make sure he’s resting, he’s drinking enough water, stuff like that.
That One Particular Thing: Listen, if you’re reading this review chances are you’re pretty active on social media and are privy to what had fans in a tizzy this past week. I won’t link to the script released here and I won’t discuss it yet. When/If something should come to pass with it then I’ll address it then and you should hold on to your hats.
DNR’s: Ever been curious as to what the Do Not Reveals for an episode look like? I used to be and have decided that with each review I will add in what the episode’s DNR’s were because I just find it interesting and think others will too. I also think it’s fine since the episode is over and it’s all been revealed but if it’s not then feel free to slide in my dms and let me know, writers.
DO NOT REVEAL – “The Garden”
- Skyring
- No sign of Bellamy
- Flashbacks of Octavia, Diyoza and Hope
- Reveal of (redacted) and him smashing the memory viewer (I redacted the name because they never even said it this episode!)
That’s all for this week. What did you think? Loved, hated, meh? Let us know in the comments below or on twitter @TVSource. Until next week!
You can watch the final season of The 100 Wednesday’s at 8/7 on The CW.
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