This wasn't so much a season finale as a gigantic lead up unto a whole other reveal. And the reveal was good—we have to say we did not see that coming. So that's good, and the rest of the episode was OK, which is kind of how we feel about this show as a whole.
The 100 started off with a bang. Sexy teens were jettisoned from their space home to the hopefully not radiation-saturated ground of Earth. And when they landed, it was a big old Lord of the Flies-type sex party, with betrayal and children stabbing and sex and all that good stuff. Then we met THE GROUNDERS and things kind of went askew. Slowly, the people of the Ark became the most interesting folks on this show.
And such was the case in the final episode. While the two-part conclusion dragged across the forest floor of Earth, people were dying in space. All the remnants of the big Ark mutiny were huddled together basically muttering, "Shit." Because they were doomed. Doomed to die suffocating in cold, cold space. And this is where things got interesting. How about Gaeta (no, that is his name now and forever) throwing down to the Chancellor and exclaiming that if these are their final moments, then he wants to spend it with his wife. BOOM! I could have done with a little more of that—a little more Titanic sad violin "the water is coming, just embrace death" scenes. That stuff was great.
But then the Chancellor gets the wise idea to just crash the Ark in its entirety into the face of our planet. Hey only 10 or 5% of the population will survive but that's better than no one. So they band together and, what do you know, someone has to Armageddon themselves. Because OF COURSE THEY DO. And of course they have to act now or they will lose their chance to land near the 100 (it's funny that they still call them the 100, because really they are the 82). And OF COURSE the Chancellor chooses death and sacrifices himself for the betterment of the human race. And OF COURSE he decides to go out to the docile rockin' tunes of Radiohead, because this show doesn't want you to forget, not even for a second, that this is being aired on the teen heavy petting channel the CW.
His son died. This was going to happen. Also we need Clarke's Mom and Kane to get all sexy next season because everyone else who is getting all sexy is dead or off-camera somewhere, or quarantined (but more on that later).
And then KABLAMMO, the survivors land on Earth and it's all RADIOHEAD and "someone should have sent a poet" moments. And that was nice. Yay for Clarke's mom; she made it out.
This was a happy moment. Meanwhile, her daughter and all her friends were dying everywhere.
Have you guys seen Serenity? OK good, then this won't be that difficult. Remember the Reavers? Well the Reavers are also in this series but this time they're called the Reapers. The Reapers have maintained their penchant for eating people and scarring their face—oh and everyone is afraid of them because they are called "the Reapers" and because of all that people eating (I assume).
Grounder Great Abs Lincoln saves The Hair and Clarke from the Grounders' leader's continual bad decisions (never order someone to kill someone off camera; you want someone dead, you kill them and watch the flicker of life leave their eyes... duh!). So Lincoln and Clarke and Finn head to a mine (lol ok!) and then they meet the Reapers. This is good because later Finn will go get the Reapers, tricking them into chasing him so they can stop a fight between the grounders and children. You've seen Serenity; you know how this works.
Honestly, it's all just fire and spectacle to facilitate some very dark fighting. Like physically dark, I had no idea what was going on. But lots of kids died. Raven is injured when the traitor boy escapes. And she presumably bleeds to death (but she's real pretty, so she may be back). Octavia is injured, but Lincoln saves her AGAIN, which is getting to be comical at this point. But the BIG loss was Bellamy. Bellamy died after letting his sister flee with Lincoln because he had to keep fighting the big grounder. It was upsetting. Then Finn ran out to save him, but also got hit and we don't know if he's dead, because Jasper set off a huge bomb that burned everyone and presumably charred Bellamy up real bad. Finn's body was not showcased, Uncle Owen and Aunt Berus-style. So we're assuming he's alive. Alas, we will miss Bellamy because he was slowly getting better at not making so many bad decisions, and he had a nice relationship thing going on with his sister that thankfully saved this entire show from being an endless love triangle. Also because he was pretty.
We'll miss you Bellamy!
But that's not the twist! The REAL twist is the appearance of the much hyped about Mountain Men, who turn out to be regular Joes with gas masks (as was foreshadowed in Lincoln's journal, a book that has an odd amount of importance for being the journal of a feral teenager). The Mountain Men have guns and gas and scopes and are clearly not of the wildling Grounder type. They knock everyone out, and then BOOM! This happens.
10,000 points to Gryffindor for super nonchalantly slipping in a Starry Night shout out. So Clarke is alive, and someone washed her, and so is Monty! Thank god, he is truly the best alive member who did not come crashing down on the Ark.
It looks like the gang in the mountain they were supposed to hike to when they landed, which is actually a secret quarantine zone. Oh, fingers crossed it's all stuck in time Blast From the Past-style. However, if this is a stuck-in-time bomb shelter scenario, what are the odds that it's stuck in like 2014, so it will have all the hot new music handy? Pretty good.
And that's OK. Honestly, I was about ready to give up on this series until the Mountain Men showed up. So that's good. Overall I liked this series, and I hope the hits keep coming. I'm rooting for Clarke (boy's name) to meet up with her mom and find Finn and for Monty and Jasper to be reunited and all that good stuff. Fingers crossed this series delivers more "the others" scary in Season 2.
And finally, way to slip in a "game over man," The 100, we see what you did there.
EDIT: La Bamba may have lived! I don't know it was too dark to tell.