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After an excellent episode five that had me optimistic about the rest of the season, episode six “Nakara” took a turn left and brought us right back to boring. This isn’t to say that there weren’t some interesting moments because there were but overall this episode falls flat especially on the heels of what I consider to be the best episode of the season thus far. There wasn’t anything necessarily wrong, per se. There just wasn’t anything especially good or that got me excited to see the next episode like “Welcome To Bardo” did.
Because of this there are no “things I loved” nor “things I hated” as the entire episode was very filler and very “meh” so we get one long “The Meh Things” section and some honorable mentions. Will these filler things come back to play later in the season? Maybe. But as a standalone it just feels unnecessary.
[This review contains spoilers for the ‘Nakara’ episode of The 100.]
The 100 Review: ‘Nakara’
Season 7, Episode 6 | Airdate: June 24th, 2020
Directed by: PJ Pesce | Written by: Erica Meredith
The Meh Things
Diyoza’s Return: Let’s start with the least meh thing. It’s no secret that I absolutely adore Diyoza. She almost always makes it in to my “Loved” sections and for obvious reasons. Well, she’s finally back in our eyeballs (which is ironic to say since she carves someones out with a spoon this episode, gross) and we see a condensed version of her time on Bardo for the last forty-five days (accompanied by a pretty great song choice, honestly).
Which comes as a shock to absolutely no one Diyoza is a bad-ass. And everyone knows how much I hate that term for female characters on this show because “bad-assery” is often an excuse for abuse and not allowing them to have natural emotions that any woman would have because to be a truly bad-ass female character you have to be a good fighter with no actual emotions or undamaged relationships. Luckily, they seem to have done Diyoza the right way. She’s actually allowed to be strongly driven by her love for Hope and Octavia while also being physically strong.
As Diyoza is being dragged through the different floors of Bardo she takes in her surroundings with an eagle eye filing everything away for future reference which she later puts to use. As she’s strapped to the table in M-CAP she uses the machine needles to continuously stab herself in the temples so that the pain takes over all other thoughts and they can’t get anything they want or need. They decide that they have to “break her.” And yeah. Good luck with that, rando Bardo dude.
After a montage of Diyoza looking like she is progressively getting more and more insane we see her tied up to a ‘Y’ shaped cross and being spoon fed by a Bardo guard. She pretends to choke on the spoonful of gruel he gave her and after he sets the bowl down and gets closer to her to help her out she takes a page out of Vinson’s book (season five) and takes a chunk out of his neck killing him rather immediately, but of course, not before he released her restraints. Because she needed eyeball scanning to get in and out of the cells she carved his out with her spoon (seriously, so gross) and the next time we see her she’s in his uniform, holding his eye up to the scanner, and slipping out undetected.
Now, there was this one guard dude who was escorting her to her cell in the beginning that was being a real dick, forcing her face forward, shoving her in to her cell, and who should she come across but him! He sees her in her guard uniform (that she’s rocking, by the way) and grabs her to which she says, “That’s three.” and proceeds to kill him and the other two Disciple’s that he was with. Three other Disciple’s round the corner and she throws her knife in to the eye of the helmet and begins to bum-rush them but comes to an abrupt halt when the Disciple takes off her helmet and calls her mom. Then she notices Octavia and realizes that this grown woman is actually the little girl she left behind on Skyring just a month and a half ago. Diyoza’s relief and joy at being reunited with Hope is palpable as they embrace. Echo, still being upset about the “loss” of Bellamy, coldly tells them that the stone room is down the hall and Diyoza finds out from Octavia that Bellamy is dead.
Only thing I’d really like to draw attention to here is Octavia seems so calm. It’s unclear if she’s truly okay with it or if she’s simply still in shock and hasn’t processed it all. She just seems very off. For the time being, I’m going with still in shock and focusing on the immediate problem at hand. Learning of Octavia’s loss Diyoza, Hope, and O have a group hug and seeing them together again was enjoyable.
When the newly reunited Bardo group reach the stone room they fully expect to be ambushed but before they make their entrance Octavia sees a mirage of Bellamy! Okay, that’s not true. She sees Levitt who has been demoted to a janitor just like her brother was on the Ark so I needed to point out the parallel. He’s still a code-breaker which is when it finally clicked in my head that Disciples wear the masked suits and code-breakers wear the white robes and the guards wear the grey. That’s not exactly ground-breaking it was just something that finally clicked.
Anyway, Levitt tells Octavia that there’s a dozen Disciple’s waiting in there and ready to suicide bomb them if need be to make sure they don’t escape and that it’s impossible for them to make it out alive. He tells her to take the elevator to the oxygen farm and go to the surface from there. It won’t kill them immediately (though it will kill them) but at least on the surface they might have a chance of survival as opposed to walking in to that room. He thanks her and tells her his demotion was worth it because she showed him another way of life, and to punch him, and escape again. After she softly strokes his face she does just that and runs off with the others.
Levitt and Octavia stans rejoice.
The group head up to the oxygen farm and Echo kills an old man. Okay, so she kills him because he heard Octavia say Levitt’s name but I mean…I really need her to find some chill and stop murdering everyone in sight. Do some yoga, take some deep breaths, find your center, or whatever. Octavia, who has known and loved Bellamy (sometimes even when she didn’t want to) for her entire life, thirty something years, is handling this better. Granted, everyone handles grief in different ways and clearly Echo’s way is to revert back to what she knows which is violence but it’s truly becoming just a bit too much to handle. This could also be because I, personally, have a really strong aversion to seeing old people die. It makes me cry every single time. Especially when this man’s only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He just wanted to pick some flowers, he was an innocent. He was just murdered for Octavia’s mistake and it’s just not fair. Maybe I’m crying again.
Much like me, Gabriel has had enough of all of Echo and Hope’s murdering antics and also has decided that going to the surface would be suicide. Echo accuses him of only wanting knowledge (which is true) but he says he also wants to live. She suggests he gets out of the way while all of the other women start yelling at him to move, they don’t have time, the guards are coming. Gabriel said enough is enough and stuns them all before surrendering to the Disciple’s and being stunned down as well.
Nakara: For an episode named after Nakara we don’t actually spend a lot of time here but the time we do is okay. We start off with Clarke calling out for Bellamy (the most Bellarke content we’ve gotten this season so far), Octavia, and Echo before deciding that they’re on the wrong planet. Raven’s handy little helmet tells them where the anomaly stone is and they decide to head that way but before they do they stumble upon a frozen dead body. They quickly realize that Nakara is where the people of Bardo store their dead. Jordan’s mildly bummed that the deceased is human because he would like to meet an alien.
Careful what you ask for.
Clarke and Company mosey on over to the caves which is super narrow and tiny and Raven tells them all not to be wimps before leading the way on hands and knees. She’s able to activate a light on the helmet to help their expedition down and that’s when things get a little horror movie-esque. Creepy music, weird ass rodent/bug sounds, and our characters pausing and looking around themselves as they crawl. Raven stops because she can vaguely see/hear something in the distance and then she’s attacked by this weird ass spider with sharp ass teeth that is trying to gnaw at her face through her helmet. She’s able to get the knife to come out of the suit sleeve and kill (or at least injure) it and they proceed forward because they have to get to the stone, they have no choice.
When we come back to them (a fade-out from RussHeda telling Nelson that they have to take out the enemies queen and focusing in on Clarke) they notice that the stone is blocked by some sort of wall. Clarke recommends that they go back around and find another way but before they can there’s a “seismic shift” that blocks Raven and Clarke off from Jordan, Miller, and Niylah. Raven realizes that the walls didn’t just move, that the cave is actually a living organism, and the sticky icky coating that keeps falling on them and that Jordan had just touched is actually digestive enzyme.
So, the cave is basically eating them. Which…does it work like the Sanctum forests? Does the cave feed off of them that way? I’m trying to figure out exactly how it works but also I doubt we’ll revisit Nakara so maybe I shouldn’t waste my time on that.
Anyway, as Niylah, Jordan, and Miller begin banging on the wall trying to break through, Clarke and Raven have a heart to heart. Raven feels broken and guilty about killing the eleven people she did in Sanctum and she envies Clarke’s ability to just keep going. Clarke tells Raven that she did what she had to do to save the people that they love to which Raven responds that they loved people too. It’s really nice to see Raven off of her high-horse and realize the strength and character it takes for Clarke to do all that she’s done. More so, this scene really drives home the fact that Clarke has an amazing ability to compartmentalize to protect not only herself but also the people that she loves. It’s also highlighted via Raven that Clarke has always put herself in harms way despite being afraid so that her people wouldn’t get hurt, something Raven didn’t do despite having the ability to do so with the reactors because she was afraid. She tells Clarke that she’s sorry before the two embrace in a hug.
When some creepy ass things start attacking at Miller, Niylah, and Jordan they begin shooting at them, hitting the walls, and causing another seismic shift. Not only are Raven and Clarke released (with the wall of the cave mere inches from squashing them together and digesting them), the stone is revealed as well. Miller asks Raven to find them a planet with a beach and preferably one that isn’t going to try to eat them. As Raven struggles to get the damaged helmet to focus in and work the others begin hearing the creepy crawlies in the distance and they’ve brought friends. Miller notices a piece of cloth on the ground and calls Niylah over to look at it. It’s from the Second Dawn cult on Earth. Miller says it must be a coincidence because apparently he’s new here and hasn’t yet realized that there are no coincidences.
Raven is finally able to get the helmet to focus in just as the weirdo bugs begin attacking again and our heroes begin shooting back. As the anomaly stone opens and brightens the gross things scatter away and Clarke tells them all to keep their weapons hot because they don’t know what’s waiting for them on the other side.
Heartbreak, boo. Heartbreak is waiting for you on the other side.
Sanctum:Guys….Sanctum is so boring compared to the Bardo storyline. Truly, I don’t care about RussHeda or who’s going to control Sanctum or anything else. Bad fan? Sure, whatever. It is what it is.
The saving grace to the Sanctum storyline is Adina Porter and JR Bourne. They have really had a chance this season to stretch their legs and make these roles great to watch. This isn’t to say that other members of the cast aren’t talented but Adina and JR truly shine and when you put them in scenes together the talent just smacks you in the face with its excellence.
Other than that things remain the same on Sanctum. Murphy is sarcastic and drinks, tensions mount between RussHeda and Indra, Madi just wants to be a normal child, Nikki is mad at Raven. Anything of importance will be talked about in honorable mentions below.
Honorable Mentions:
Indra/Madi: After a discussion with RussHeda where he tells her that only three people have had the Flame in Sanctum that “Wonkru” will follow (Clarke, Madi, himself) and that Indra is afraid they’ll follow him. Realizing he’s right Indra pressures Madi in to being Heda without the flame because she’s at least had it before and she can command them. She just needs to wear the racist ass Bindi.
Fuck that Bindi, honestly. How many times have fans complained about how racist it is to use it on white women in this show and they still just chug ahead, ignoring the criticism from actual Indian women who were upset about the cultural appropriation because suddenly they’re Mariah Carey and can’t read.
Madi cracks under the pressure and runs off in a panic attack because she can’t do it. Murphy and Emori tell Indra that she has to be the one to do it because she’s a leader too. Indra claims to only be a warrior and Emori tells her that because she doesn’t want to do it is exactly why she should. Indra gives Murphy the Bindi and tells him to get rid of it. And God I hope he does. I never want to see that thing on this show again unless they put it on an actual Indian woman.
Indra goes to where the former “Wonkru” members are and kicks some ass and is now in charge of a newly reunited clan once more. I can’t help but remember that Octavia didn’t want to be leader, was forced to, and that didn’t end too well. Indra is older and wiser however and may garner a different outcome.
Anyway. Madi is still drawing memories that aren’t her own and she’s currently working on a sketch of an anomaly stone. Best guess is that it’s a memory of Becca’s from Earth.
Trigedasleng Is A JOKE: No hate to David J. Peterson but my GOD. Let’s go through the list of ridiculousness from this episode alone, shall we?
- When = Time
- Good Morning = Sun Up, Yo
- Make No Mistake = No Trip You Up
- Defeat = Take Us Down
- You’re In Charge = It’s On You.
All of these are said with a guttural accent to make it sound more exotic than it actually is and it’s so absurd that it takes me right out of it. I will never forget that Spongebob was yellow.
Bardonians: This isn’t really and Honorable Mention as much as it’s a vague parallel that may or may not play out. But is it possible that the Second Dawn people arrived on Bardo and forced them to the surface to die out, a strange sort of parallel of both Mount Weather (hiding in the mountain because outside wasn’t livable) and season four in the bunker with the “Chosen” being in the bunker and the rest above on the surface, breathing the toxic air, dying slowly. It feels like something is there, we just need more information.
Also, is it possible that just like all of the Grounders didn’t die out during the first apocalypse that all of the Bardonians haven’t died out? Is there still a handful of them left up there wandering around?
Second Dawn/Bardo Symbols: Is there literally any difference between them?
Bellamy: Nothing really. I just miss him. Where is he? Is he safe? Is he being fed and keeping hydrated? Come back for more than ten seconds, Bellamy. You’re vastly needed. Over the hiatus a crew member told fans that The 100 isn’t the The 100 without Bob Morley/Bellamy and man is that proving to be true. The beating heart of the show is missing and the longer we go without him the more pronounced the feeling of being incomplete is.
DNRs:
DO NOT REVEAL – “Nakara”
- The true nature of the cave on Nakara
- Anything about the Second Dawn
- Sheidheda’s attempts to grab power
- Diyoza’s escape from captivity
- Reunions on Bardo
That’s all for now. Join us next week for the review for episode seven “The Queen’s Gambit” and in the meantime you can comment below or come yell at us on Twitter @TVSource.
The 100 airs Wednesday’s at 8/7c on The CW
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