‘The 100’: Marie Avgeropoulos on Octavia’s New Plan & When We’ll See Bellamy Again

Marie Avgeropoulos The 100 Season 7 Episode 2
Preview
Colin Bentley/The CW

[WARNING: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for The 100 Season 7, Episode 2, “The Garden.” If you haven’t seen it yet, you might wanna hop into the Anomaly and come back later.]

Many questions came out of last week’s final-season premiere of The 100, including concerns regarding the whereabouts of both Octavia Blake (Marie Avgeropoulos) and her brother Bellamy (Bob Morley). The first vanished into the ether after the suddenly adult daughter of the pregnant Diyoza (Ivana Milicevic) appeared from the future and stabbed her, while the latter was seemingly consumed by the Anomaly that exists in the woods outside of Sanctum.

This week, we got some answers as the episode entitled “The Garden” planted us on a new planet where Octavia finds herself stranded with a now in-labor Diyoza and a ton of reasons to want to get back home.

But since time and space have gone all sorts of wonky, fans saw more than just their early days on Skyring. In fact, the hour spanned so much of their lives together that we just had to talk to Avgeropoulos about Octavia’s emotional growth, the emergence of her softer side, and what she learned about her own rebellious youth from Diyoza’s daughter. (Also, truth be told, we wanted to chat with her because she’s cool AF.)

Hey Marie, how’s it going?

Marie Avgeropoulos: Oh, God. It’s going. [Laughs] I think if there’s no such thing as show business after this crisis calms down, I’ll be able to open my own landscaping company. That’s all I’ve been doing… gardening for the first time in my life. I ripped the lawn out the other day because I wanted to make it a fun shape with a rock garden and…

Holy crap.

Yeah, I’m feeling retired. [Laughs]

That is absolutely fitting, considering that this episode has you gardening.

Wow. I didn’t even think of that! Yeah, it is quite ironic how art does imitate life nowadays, doesn’t it? It’s pretty interesting.

So I spoke to showrunner Jason Rothenberg last week and we were talking about how weird it is that the show about the end of the world as we knew it is coming to an end… just as the world as we have known it has ended.

Absolutely. We finished shooting the 100th episode the day before the worldwide lockdown and we didn’t really get to say goodbye to one another or have a wrap party or anything. It just abruptly came to an end and it felt like I shot a fake apocalypse for seven years and walked directly into a real-life one. I’m sure everyone can relate to that with wherever their careers were at the time and how much things have changed. But thank God for Zoom and FaceTime to connect with people… at least we don’t have to write letters in the mail. The mail is also taking a while, too.

Diyah Pera/The CW

It also seems like Octavia is cleaner than she has ever been since the pilot in this episode.

[Laughs] Yes. The audience will certainly discover how she did become so clean. I think it’s the first time we’ll ever see Octavia literally cleanse herself this new world, but also cleanse her hair. Her hair was probably getting pretty rank at this point.

It must have been pretty nice for you to get to play this stuff where you actually have almost a domestic story. You and Ivana do form a small family unit.

One of the most incredible things about playing Octavia Blake all these years is how she’s constantly metamorphosing into all these different elements and versions of herself within her story and her personal growth. This season, it’s interesting to see a more nurturing version of Octavia become a stepmom in a blended family, while being isolated on this brand new planet we come to know as Skyring.

I think one of my favorite moments of this season was playing a midwife to Diyoza. It was also terrifying and I think the best version of real-life birth control for me, because it was scary. [Laughs] I was working with a real 13-day-old infant covered in KY jelly and jam to make it look as realistic as possible and I had to learn how to not drop this baby. I was terrified!

But it’s really interesting to see Octavia be a part of this blended family, because I think during her isolation on Skyring, she really gets to understand Bellamy’s choices when he was parenting her and she refused to listen. That really pushes and motivates her story to want to get off Skyring and reconnect with her brother and maybe give him all the apologies that he has so long deserved. She could finally say, “Hey, I get it. I get why you did that.” But of course, in true 100 fashion, the biggest obstacle is “How do you get to another planet?” It’s not like you can just jump in a car. [Laughs]

Lot of folks on Twitter are very concerned about the absence of Bellamy. Can you tease how long we will wait before the Blake siblings are back together?

The Blakes may or may not get together this season. But since that storyline is incredibly important, I think the answer is pretty obvious. And it’ll be interesting to see after how much time has passed exactly what that means for their relationship and what enemies will potentially come forth. Because nothing ever comes easy on The 100. It always must be incredibly earned. Ultimately Octavia’s goal right now is to find Bellamy, and Octavia is a very determined woman who doesn’t let much stand in her way. So I’ll leave you with that.

Diyah Pera/The CW

And how was it for you going into this, knowing it was the final season, and also knowing that this is a show that will happily kill off major characters?

[Laughs] Every day was a new exciting day. I would look forward to receiving scripts and flipping the page and figuring out, “Oh, is Octavia going to live to see another day?” But I will say that the series finale gives Octavia the ending that I think she ultimately deserves.

Because the Anomaly’s “transit system” aspect allows one to jump through time and space, I know that there’s a possibility of seeing people from the past. Can you confirm or deny that we might see people that were important to Octavia returning?

Confirmed. I just can’t tell you who. Time travel, depending on where you are and which planet, plays a very interesting role this season. Time travel almost plays its own character in the show. So anything is possible and it’s possible to potentially see some that have maybe passed.

For you personally, if you could go to any other time, where would you go?

Right now? I’d like to go anywhere other than my kitchen and my laundry room. If I could time travel, that would be great. [Laughs]

Excellent. You started this show with almost immediately injuring yourself during the pilot. Did you survive this final season without any kind of on-set mishaps?

On-set mishaps? I feel like I was always sore leaving set. [Laughs]  It’s a testament to how hard I went on playing Octavia. I sacrificed my body over the years, but I’m really thankful that the writers wrote her as an innocent young “doesn’t listen to authority” girl who, over the years, has developed into a warrior. It’s been such a pleasure to use my athletic abilities to play her, to tell her story while having very intense, dramatic, dynamic moments as well. It’s been awesome.

The 100, Wednesdays, 8/7c, The CW