‘The 100’: Team Echo Builds a Beautifully Tragic Home (RECAP)
Spoiler Alert
[WARNING: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for The 100 Season 7 Episode 4, “Hesperides.”]
Throughout the seasons of The 100, we’ve seen the importance of family; to Octavia and Bellamy, to Clarke and Abby and Madi, to all the remaining delinquents. But this episode, we see family in a new light: as a strategy.
First, in Sanctum, one of the Bardo soldiers shows up and demands Clarke (Eliza Taylor) come with him through the anomaly… yeah, not likely. But the heart of the episode lies in the developments on Sky Ring; namely that Echo (Tasya Teles), Gabriel (Chuku Modu) and Hope (Shelby Flanery) have little choice but to make a suitable home for everyone. This especially includes the crazy guy who broke the tablet — but is he as crazy as he seems?
A Moment of Hesitation
The episode opens with some more Hope backstory. We see how she survived being forcibly abandoned — one of the Bardo castoffs named Dev took care of her, taught her how to fight and served as a father figure, in general. They came up with a plan to go back through the anomaly and save Octavia (Marie Avgeropoulos) and Diyoza (Ivana Millicevic), but when the time came for Hope to kill one of the soldiers, she froze… and her hesitation led to Dev’s death.
That kind of familial bond is forged again in “Hesperides,” between plenty of characters. Turns out, that crazy guy can be useful, according to Hope. She says they need him if they want to have a chance of succeeding in getting their friends back; that dude knows what’s on the other side of the anomaly, after all. “Trust me,” she says, “I’ve done this before.”
Since they’re stuck on Sky Ring for years, Team Echo has plenty of time to “bait the hook” to reel the dude in; they grow a garden together, teach each other how to fight and grow more comfortable in each other’s company. And eventually, it works.
Dean Buscher/The CW
New Recruits
Turns out, this guy used to be a military leader on Bardo, so he had plenty of knowledge to impart — like the fact that the only way off the planet is on his Absolution Day, in about four years. Oh, and his name is Orlando.
With his help, Echo, Hope and Gabriel develop a plan to bring down the cultists on Bardo and save the people they care about. They also grow pretty gosh darn close, to the point where he’s painting symbols on their faces and acting like a member of their squad. They’re all set to head back through the anomaly when the soldiers arrive, but Orlando flinches when they have to kill the Bardo baddies; turns out, he trained plenty of them, too. Echo’s not willing to take chances, so she kills the soldiers: after all, who’s to say Orlando won’t tell them everything?
Gabriel and Hope are vehemently against this, but Echo makes a good point: “We are not his people.” So they abandon Orlando on Sky Ring, with a group of his dead trainees, to go crazy or die. So that’s… nice. Just another of those “no good choices” scenarios.
The Key to Winning the Last War
Back on Sanctum, it’s all coming together. When one of the Bardo soldiers shows up on the outskirts of the city, Clarke goes to meet him, and he says she’s “the key to winning the last war mankind will ever rage.” (Seriously, what’s new? Clarke’s been that for, like, three seasons now.) Anyway, he wants the body of the Bardo soldier they killed, and he wants Clarke to go with them and meet their leader. She agrees, on the condition that her friends are returned first. It’s a deal: she’ll be able to retrieve her friends at “the bridge,” which is also the anomaly.
Jack Rowand/The CW
Meanwhile, Raven (Lindsey Morgan) and Jordan (Shannon Kook) investigate the Bardo tech from the dead soldier and realize the planets are interconnected through anomaly bridges… and Clarke’s a target. That’s all fine, but Raven’s not; she hallucinates the faces of the dead Eligius crew.
As the episode ends, Clarke, Gaia (Tati Gabrielle), Jackson (Sachin Sahel), Miller (Jarod Joseph) and Niylah (Jessica Harmon) go out into the woods to meet the Bardo soldiers. They tell Clarke about what happened on Sky Ring (they call it Penance), and reveal Orlando killed himself because of what Team Echo did to him. The situation escalates and the group nearly dies, but Raven and Jordan show up just in time to use the Bardo tech against the soldiers, killing them all.
They all head down to the anomaly stone with a plan to get to Penance, but they don’t have a guarantee that where they’re going is where they want to be. Nonetheless, they enter a code and step through the anomaly. Gaia, who volunteered to stay behind, also ends up getting dragged through by one last soldier, who initiates a power down sequence.
Jack Rowand/The CW
Other Observations
- I’m willing to bet those “paint berries” come back later this season somehow. And that procedure Hope told Echo about? I’m pretty sure that was what was happening to Octavia in the Season 7 trailer, when she was in a white room.
- As much as I love Clarke, I kind of wish the “key to winning the last war” was some other character, just for the shock of it. Like, what if it was Raven? Or Bellamy? Or Murphy? Can you imagine how Murphy would react to learning he’s the key to winning the final war mankind would ever rage? Hey, he’s a cockroach. It almost makes sense.
- Those last few minutes seem like they’re promising a bigger storyline for Gaia, and I’m all about it.
- Rating: 4/5 — a unique episode that highlights the uniqueness of Team Echo’s bond and starts unifying the season’s storylines.
The 100, Wednesdays, 8/7c, The CW
