‘The 100’ Reveals What Happened to Octavia — And Bellamy, Kind Of (RECAP)
Spoiler Alert
[WARNING: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for The 100 Season 7 Episode 5, “Welcome to Bardo.”]
At last, we’re getting answers on where Octavia (Marie Avgeropoulos) went and what happened there.
Several puzzle pieces of Season 7 start to click together in “Welcome to Bardo” — we discover why Bardo was determined to capture Bellamy, what memory capture is, why Octavia got back through the anomaly so quickly last season and why Hope stabbed her.
Meanwhile, Murphy’s forced to be a good guy, but being a good guy, as he finds out, comes with some very nasty, flammable consequences.
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Who is Bellamy?
Once Octavia arrives in Bardo, she immediately tries to break out of the facility — because she’s Octavia, what else would she do? She makes it as far as the woods (which are nothing but an illusion, surprise!), where she’s re-captured hauled back inside.
About a month earlier than the present-day, the Bardo folks are interrogating her using memory capture — which might lobotomize her if she resists. How lovely! She resists for a while, but after being tortured and told years have passed on Penance, she offers to cooperate if they let her go back to Hope.
Pure of Heart
Levitt, the scientist testing O takes a liking to her; he calls her “amazing,” and reminds her of everything she’s sacrificed for the people she loves. “Your heart is pure,” he tells her. Just then, Hope (Shelby Flanery) barges in to rescue her; she and O have an emotional reunion, and they go after Diyoza (Ivana Millecevic). They can’t get to her, and one problem snowballs into another. Tattooing Hope’s “brain-code” on O’s back will allow her to get back into Bardo, but O has to go back through the anomaly, where she ends up back with Gabriel in Season 6.
Then, in the present, Team Echo (Tasya Teles) gets through the anomaly and kills the Bardo soldiers. They have a half-hour to find their people, but they’re sidetracked when they’re forced to fall in line. At a meeting of the followers, they realize these people weren’t Eligius; there was a stone on Earth. Days earlier, it’s revealed that Hope’s true purpose in stabbing Octavia was to get to Clarke (Eliza Taylor) by getting O back, because Octavia knows more about her and the followers need her intel. That ties up the loose end of Season 6’s conclusion, and O heads back through the anomaly.
A week earlier, Octavia’s told that Bellamy’s there, and she had to talk him down. She succeeds by saying that if they send Bell back to Sanctum, she’ll tell them everything they need to know. But one of the soldiers detonates a charge, and Bell evaporates, presumably dead. In the present, Echo watches O’s memory of the incident and says it’s not real… but she kills the scientist operating on O out of rage, so they can’t use him as a hostage.
Colin Bentley/The CW
Tired of Being a Hero
It falls to Indra (Adina Porter) and Murphy (Richard Harmon) to deal with Sanctum, which is, as always, teetering on the knife’s edge. The faithful have barricaded themselves in the tavern and are demanding Russell’s release. If they don’t get him back, they’ll kill themselves, one by one, until he’s free. They make good on their word: one girl sets herself on fire, dying seconds later.
Sheidheda (JR Bourne) vehemently denies putting his followers up to that, but Murphy sees their extreme measures as a solution, not a problem; after all, with the faithful gone, the problem of their existence will be solved and they can kill Russell. And yet he agrees to be sent in to talk the faithful down. “The others had better come back soon, because I’m tired of being a hero,” he says.
False God
He and Indra head to the tavern, where he’s supposed to stay outside… but when he sees they’re preparing a kid to be burned, he barges inside. He asks the kid’s father if he wants him to die, and the father says he doesn’t — but if he serves the glory and grace of the Primes, it’s okay. Murphy orders the rest of the kids to come with him and turns to leave, but when the faithful order him to recite the four pillars of the faith, he can’t. He’s a false god, and now they know it.
They knock him out and douse him in oil, but he doesn’t burn. Sheidheda, Emori and Indra save him, and Russell demands his release. Murphy and Emori leave, and Sheidheda berates his followers. He asks for them to swear their fealty, then demands they kneel… or die. Indra says she’s heard that phrase before — and she realizes he’s Sheidheda. He knows that she knows, but he reminds her she can’t kill him. Oh, but she can — she gets a team of her people to dig the Mind Drive out of his neck.
Colin Bentley/The CW
Other Observations
- When did Murphy learn Trig? Did Emori teach it to him? Have we ever seen Emori speak Trig? My memory might be failing me, but I don’t know how he knows Indra was dealing with a “tough crowd.”
- Octavia remembering Lincoln when the Bardo scientists asked her to picture a hand reaching out to her in the desert is absolute heartbreak fuel.
- For what little time he had on-screen, Levitt was pretty likable. Here’s hoping he sticks around somehow.
- Is Russell dead now? I’m not totally clear on how removing his mind drive would work, since Russell Prime was killed in his mind-space. Or is he back to being Russell? This whole episode demands a rewatch to catch all the intricacies and easter eggs.
- If Russell/Sheidheda isn’t dead, Indra’s in a whole lot of trouble. And it’d be just like this show to never have her and O reunite.
- Rating: 4.5/5 — a fascinating episode that tied up loose ends, developed Octavia, Hope and Echo’s characters, and posed some interesting mysteries.
The 100, Wednesdays, 8/7c, The CW
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