In an episode packed with assassination attempts, shootouts, and many, many explosions, the big moment in last night's episode of The 100 was a kiss — a kiss that many fans have been hoping would happen for a while now.
While a lot has happened on the last few episodes of The 100 (and by a lot, I mean everyone getting blown up by a missile), I've been itching to see the acid fog turned off so that we'd see some action instead of Lexa and Clarke standing around and talking about their feelings. I've spent way too much time contemplating the significance of Lexa's eye makeup.
But it turns out that feelings are exactly what the writers of The 100 were hoping to explore, namely the feelings that Lexa — brutal, self-assured, steeped in Grounder culture but open-minded enough to understand Arker culture — has been developing for Clarke. I've seen a lot of Clarke/Lexa shipping cross my Tumblr dashboard, and my reaction to it has been a bit of a tepid, "Huh. Okay, sure. I could see that." So I was surprised at how overt the sexual tension was when Clarke angrily confronted Lexa about the hit Lexa put out on Octavia, and more surprised when Lexa broke through her emotional barrier and kissed Clarke.
Clarke seems pretty into the kiss, although she ultimately pulls away. She tells Lexa that she's not ready to be with anyone, which okay, I guess? Certainly Clarke has a lot on her plate right now, and having a relationship with the reincarnated spirit of every Grounder commander would complicate things a bit. But the fact that it would be complicated — the Arker and Grounder commanders, with their very different values, in a romantic relationship — is exactly what makes a Lexa-Clarke relationship an intriguing possibility. Mama Griffin will not approve.
But realizing that Clarke and Lexa knew about the missile in advance also complicates things for Octavia. She was happily settling into her nice Grounder life. Finally, she belonged somewhere and wasn't treated as an outcast simply for being a second-born child. But when she has a heart-to-heart with Indra about what Clarke and Lexa did, she's surprised by her mentor's utilitarianism. Indra readily accepts their decision: the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. With that, Octavia finally realizes what Kane impressed upon Abby last week: that the Arkers and the Grounders aren't all that different.
The MVP of the night, though, was most definitely Bellamy, with an assist from Raven and Wick. It's taken Cage and his allies under Mount Weather to realize they've got a rat in their walls, and in the meantime, the trio figures out a way to neutralize the acid fog — or so they think. Cage enjoys a moment of triumph when his team manages to cut off Bellamy's radio as he tries to warn Raven that the acid fog hasn't been disabled. But then Bellamy goes all action hero in Mount Weather's chemical storage room. We enjoy a moment of Chekov's acetylene torch, which Bellamy uses to blow up a bunch of oxygen tanks, the acid fog mechanisms, and a few members of Mount Weather's security staff. The invasion is on!
Far from the action, Jaha is off playing Moses in the desert. Does this mean he'll die before reaching the City of Light? We'll see. But first, he has to lead his remaining followers through a mine field.
I must be a terrible person, because I wholly admit that I wanted to hear more of Harris' awful racist jokes. (The Reaper one was actually kind of funny.) It also had me wondering: Does the phrase "walked into a bar" have any meaning for Arkers aside from being the setup for a joke?
Jaha's religious frenzy makes a lot of sense. The fact that he's alive and on Earth is wholly improbable, and it's enough to give a person a messiah complex. And while I don't think that Jaha is fated to lead his people to the City of Light (well, maybe he is, but he's fated by the writers, not some cosmic force), I think his spiritual conviction is quite useful in this case. It's the only thing that's going to keep him and his remaining followers moving forward, past the disappointing solar farm and wherever that dinky little quadcopter is leading them.