Seriously, spoilers like in the next sentence.
A fantastic show about survival, bad choices, consequences, and redemption ended with...ALIENS and no one 'surviving'? Are you kidding me?
Immediately after watching The 100 finale, I felt duped. Sad. Angry. Scratch that, FURIOUS that I promoted the show to my friends, begged others to just stick it through the first season and they'd be hooked, promised some of the deaths were worth it for the story...and so on.
Then I needed to know if I missed something, so I went back to the beginning and started all over again. Only this time, I did a super fast rewatch, skimming over certain storylines like Jasper and Maya, Jaha being stuck on the Ark, or pretty much everything that happened on Scantum in the last season because it DIDN'T EVEN MATTER. The only reason for any of those scenes was to get Sheidheda to Bardo. (Though, I will say, JR Bourne was amazing and it was great during the first watch).
Anyway, I felt the same about Season 1 as I did the first time - it got better the moment Lincoln arrived. I loved the Grounder World Building, really hated the choices most of the characters made, but saw them as real, flawed people with very few choices on their quest for survival. The finale of S1 was a cliffhanger, though it obviously didn't feel that way in the rewatch. Binging, overall, helped with the pacing of the story and made many of the episodes better and more heart-stopping when you plow right through them.
Season 2 - is the turning point for the show for me, we now have three groups of humans, all trying to survive. The Mountain Men do really terrible, horrific things to the Grounders just to stay alive. Yet again, really bad choices are made (Lexa), and Clarke and Co are forced to slaughter everyone in the mountain since they refuse to stop sucking bone marrow out of The 100 kids. That's right, KIDS. They were mostly 17-18 years old in Season 2 despite the actors playing them. I was still 100% on Clarke's side on that in the rewatch. Those people lived for 100 years, in a mountain, sucking out the blood of probably thousands of Grounders just so they could survive. I had no sympathy for them. At all.
Season 3 - Pike. Fuck you Pike. Perhaps this is partly because me, as the TV viewer, knew all the dumb decisions he made would end up just causing more conflict (which is needed), and seeing that much of conflict could easily be fixed by communication and compromise, which you'd think a group of people who lived in a space station would do once they realize people already lived on the ground, left me hating Pike and pretty much everything he did, including killing my favorite character, Lincoln. (I've read his departure was due to off-screen tension) I glossed over Jaha & Murphy's journey until they got to the City of Lights Island, however, having the whole story in my head, actually made the Allie scenes much more interesting. Before defeating Allie, she told Clarke that the planet has six months left before another nuclear disaster. Yay, fun.
Season 4 - This season, continues on with the City of Lights story, without telegraphing it by introducing the Second Dawn Bunker, though we as the viewer don't know it yet. In the rewatch, much more interesting! Either they planned to have Becca join the Bunker during this season or the retcon was utterly masterful in the future seasons. Anyway, Clarke & Co have to find a way to survive the meltdown. Octavia has become Skairippa, the most badass character in the show (after Indra), and makes the right choice in the end to share the bunker. Too bad Clarke is an asshole and tries to steal it with Jaha. Personally didn't like this dumb bit of conflict, because the only reason for it was stupid drama, and to get Clarke & Bellamy out of the bunker and to meet up with Raven. But then Clarke, having nightblood, offers to stay behind and 'sacrifice' herself so the others could get back to the Ark before the nuclear fallout. Duh, of course, she survives.
Season 5 - Not my favorite season, but it had some moments - Clarke's years alone and finding Madi - good, The Dark Year - yuck. This was another season of really bad choices and decisions, including some by the new character Diyoza who I didn't care for much until later seasons. I was really hoping to see them resolve the conflict and start rebuilding the Valley, but nope, it's destroyed and everyone has to get onto the Prison/Minning ship, and get the hell off Earth, again. The planet won't heal for 10 years or so. The last surviving humans from Earth decide to go into cryosleep. Only Monty (the true hero of the series) & Harper don't go to sleep. They stayed awake, to relive their happy time on the Ark, waiting until the Earth is healed. Only problem, it's not healing, so Monty sets the ship on course to find one of the other planets Elligius surveyed hundreds of years ago during a mining mission. Clake & Bellamy are woken up by Jordan, Monty & Harper's kid, and the most beautiful scenes in the whole series take place in the last ten minutes of the finale. Honestly, they should have woken up the main cast, had them all look out the window like they did in the S6 opener, and ended the show.
Season 6 & 7 - They didn't.
So, now we find ourselves on a crazy Moon with a bunch of humans being led by a group of Cult Leaders, who just so happen to have similar mind drives to that of the Flame and City of Light key. PS they are already in conflict with the Children of Gabriel, who don't worship the false gods. Not as bad as the Mountain Men, but the Primes are actively raising people in a fake 'religion' just so they can steal their bodies to live forever was a great twist. Wonkru isn't having any of this, so of course, they show some of the people how wrong this all is, and start an uprising with the COG, which leads the Primes to try to kill Clarke by putting one of their people's mind drives into her head. But it's Clarke, so we know she'll survive, and does, losing her mother in the process.
Gabriel, Diyoza & Octavia find the anomaly, and the two women go in. Octavia comes out a few minutes later with no memory. Ooh, fun. Tell me more. In the S7 opener, Bellamy is abducted by invisible people, and we learn where Octavia and Diyoza were in a really great flashback episode. We then learn that the anomaly is a wormhole transit bridge, and the invisible people are the Human descendants of the Second Dawn Bunker crew (cool!), however, they are all now part of yet another Cult worshiping Cadogen, The Shepard, (ugh) who has been enlightened by "higher beings" and wants to transcend the whole human race.
Um, what?
He believes that the anomaly Stone will allow Humans to participate in "The Last War" and either transcend or cease to exist, like the original aliens of Bardo (who we never get to see). Uh, okay. Jordan, Monty & Harper's kid, thinks the translation is "The Last Test" (he's right), but the fighting and killing continues because of bad choices and lack of communication. The flashback, adding Becca and Callie to the story was fantastic. If I hadn't seen this show first, I may have wanted a prequel show. I don't anymore. There's honestly no fucking point.
Anyway, Cadogen needs Madi to get the code Becca saw when she had the Flame in the flashback bunker scene. Clarke kills Bellamy to save Madi (so fucking stupid) and Cadogen basically kills the 15-year-old girl to get the information out of her head because Becca's memories were deep in her mind. She originally figured out the code and went into the White Light. Then Becca came back and said "We're not ready", because she was told about the test, but that didn't stop Cadogen.
Two hundred plus years later, after manipulating his followers, they're still not ready. Doesn't matter, Cadogen goes in, ready for war. His people are waiting for Wonkru on Bardo ready to fight. He seems humbled for a minute to learn it's a test. Before he can really do much, Clarke shoots him in the head. (lol totally worth it) Then the Contact like-judge in the form of Lexa continues the test with Clarke, who basically says what I would have, "You're a bunch of "higher-beings" who think you have the right to judge other races, eliminated them or make them part of your Borg Collective? Um, really? 1. They don't even show us the aliens. 2. If they are "higher-beings" why not just be forthright about it instead of manipulating cultures with weird, cryptic anomaly stones for thousands of years. 3. That's not what this show was supposed to be about.
The moment Clarke lost the test I knew the finale would ruin the whole show for me. However, Raven goes in, gets a second chance, and while Octavia, Indra, Echo, and Levitt are dealing with Sheidheda and the "last war" the Abby Judge tells Raven, you don't change, you just keep fighting and hurting and suffering and blah blah. Then Octavia, knowing they are on the brink, gets everyone to stop fighting. Raven asks for more time, but the Abby Judge "higher being" just starts Transcending people.
WTF?
*Sigh* Okay, fine, everyone's transcended except for Clarke, because you know, she murdered someone during the test, so she has to live as the last Human ever, with the dog, because apparently, dogs can't transcend despite being better than any Human ever alive. (So much for intelligent higher beings). BUT WAIT THERE IS MORE - Clarke goes back to Earth. Lexa Judge shows up to tell her that Humans have added wonderfully to their Borg Collective, but some of her friends wanted to come back to live out the rest of their lives with Clarke, because...wait for it, Transcendence is a CHOICE? WHAT? Didn't you just say ten minutes ago, pass the test or die?
The core group we've come to love, except for Bellamy, have all un-Transcended to spend out their remaining days on a vacant Earth, with Clarke. They can't have kids. They won't Transcend and meet up with the rest of the Humans, and once they are dead, that's it. No more humans.
HOW IS THAT SURVIVING? It's not. They ruined the whole show in one episode.
Now, I will say this, if you view (or think about) the story chronologically, the ending would have worked better, because we would have learned early about Becca and "The Last Test", first, and viewed the series as a "Strive for a better existence to pass the test" story, instead of a "we have to survive the apocalypse and continue our species" story.
So, there it is. I'll probably never watch the series again, which makes me sad.
I won't watch a prequel either. Meh.
How about you? Did you watch it? Did you like the ending?
