‘The 100’ Series Finale: We Are All ‘Wonkru’ (RECAP)
Spoiler Alert
[WARNING: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for The 100 series finale, “The Last War.”]
It’s all led up to this; all the years of fighting, destruction and chaos. In its tense and emotional final hour, The 100 delves into what it means to “do better,” and whether humans are capable of changing for the better.
One last war. One last test. One last chance for redemption, for an entire species.
Let’s break it down, one last time.
The Last Test
Raven (Lindsey Morgan), Murphy (Richard Harmon), Jackson (Sachin Sahel) and Emori (Luisa D’Oliveira) head back to Sanctum, where the good doc promptly stabilizes Emori. Murphy has to stay behind to give blood to her, which means Raven’s heading to Bardo alone.
Meanwhile, Clarke (Eliza Taylor), Octavia (Marie Avgeropoulos) and Levitt go after Cadogan (John Pyper-Ferguson). Despite all the bada**ery Clarke displays in taking down the guards stationed outside the Bridge, she’s too late; the cult leader has begun the final test. On the other side, he sees his daughter—except she’s not really Callie. The higher power giving the examination, as they put it, “take the form of (a person’s) greatest teacher, their greatest failure, or love.”
The judge says that Becca (Erica Cerra) refused to take the test, but Cadogan says the human race is ready. Thus, they begin. The judge says they will ask Cadogan a series of questions and demands he answer truthfully. Should his answers meet with their satisfaction, they will transcend and become infinite. If not, they will be eliminated: turned to crystal like the Bardoans and others. So, no pressure.
Cadogan starts to answer the first question, but he suddenly collapses, a bullet lodged in his brain. It’s Clarke! “Pencils down,” she says.
Clarke’s Failure
The test appears to pause to re-calibrate for Clarke, and when the judge returns, it takes the form of Lexa (Alycia Debnam-Carey)! Clarke’s overcome with emotion and embraces her, even though she knows the judge isn’t the woman she once loved. The test can’t be stopped, so the human race will have to be judged through wanheda. As one might expect, that doesn’t go super well, even though Clarke implores the judge to feel her agony. “Pain begets pain,” it says. “That’s not justice, Clarke.” Clarke lashes out at her examiner, saying they’re no better than she is; after all, they’re exterminating whole races for not living up to their standards. Her speech is moving, but it doesn’t work. “If you are humanity, then I am afraid humanity is not worthy of taking the next step,” the judge says.
Elsewhere on Bardo, O asks a question many of us were probably wondering; whether or not Bellamy (Bob Morley) could transcend. The answer? Nope. “Death is the end, my friend,” Levitt says, quoting The Shephard. He consoles a tearful Octavia by saying either way—whether Clarke succeeds or fails—today will be the end.
On Earth, Miller (Jarod Joseph), Hope (Shelby Flanery), Indra (Adina Porter) and Gaia (Tati Gabrielle) are still sorting through the rubble. The Anomaly randomly re-opens, ferrying Raven and the rest of the Eligius prisoners through; Raven has, indeed “saved their a**es.” The prisoners get Echo (Tasya Teles) and Niylah (Jessica Harmon) freed, and they head for the Bardoan army. There’s a tremulous peace as neither side fires a first shot, but both ready for an attack.
A Second Try
Raven and Echo get through to Bardo, where they land in the midst of O and Levitt’s emotional moment. They decide to head back to the area where the armies are stationed to stop the fighting, in hopes they might better everyone’s chances of transcending.
Back in Sanctum, Miller and Jackson get a happy reunion, but Murphy and Emori don’t fare so well: she dies on the operating table. Distraught, Murphy and Jackson pull the mind drive out of Emori’s head and put it in his. She wakes up in her mind space, and Murphy’s there: he’s willing to sacrifice his body to have a few more hours with her. Emori’s none too pleased about that, but just as she starts screaming for Jackson to wake Murphy up, music starts to play—they’ll finally have their dance.
Clarke exits the test to find Raven waiting, and she has to tell her friend she failed. “They should’ve picked you first,” Clarke says, in a nice callback to Season 1. She scurries away to be with Madi (Lola Flanery), and, as Raven watches, the glowing orb turns red. With nothing left to lose, really, she goes through and ends up back on the Ark… with Abby (Paige Turco)! The judge has taken the form of her mother figure—one of the people she loved most.
Winning The War
Raven tries to argue that humanity is going to do better, and to give them some time before wiping them out. The judge says humans are poised to wipe each other out as they speak, and it transports them both to the battlefield, where Team Indra is facing off against the Disciples. Sheidheda stirs up trouble by firing first, and then both sides get going. Levitt, O and Echo show up amidst the chaos, and Levitt charges out onto the field. He attempts to get the truth out about the test and delivers a passionate plea for peace, but Sheidheda shoots him, and the war continues. O runs after him, and Echo runs after O, getting hit in the process. Octavia notes, once they’ve pulled a dying Levitt to safety, that she’s bleeding. “I lost Bellamy,” Echo says. “I’m not losing his sister.” How far they’ve come!
Only by killing Sheidheda can they pause the violence, and, as Raven and the judge watch, Octavia steps out onto the field. She tells everyone that if they truly believe they’re fighting for all mankind, they need to stop the violence, the destruction. She gets through to the Disciples, and the conflict ends.
Transcendence
One by one, everyone turns into glowing balls of light, transcending. Well, there’s one person left who isn’t a happy glowing ball: Clarke. Sadly, much as she did when she was the only one left after Priamfiya, she walks through her old haunts—Earth, the fighting pits, Sanctum—and finds them empty. At long last, she stumbles on one companion, not human. Yep, it’s Picasso, the Primes’ dog.
With Picasso, Clarke heads back to Earth to start a new, lonely life. She seems content enough, just her and her dog, until Picasso charges away. She runs after her and ends up on the beach, where judge-Lexa greets her and breaks it all down. As it turns out, Clarke won’t be able to transcend, but transcendence is a choice. Madi has transcended and she’s perfectly happy, but some weren’t—and as luck would have it, those who chose to return from transcendence were pretty much all of Clarke’s friends. Raven, Murphy, Emori, Octavia, Levitt, Jackson, Miller, Niylah, Echo, Indra, Gaia, Hope and Jordan are all there, happy and together. Clarke’s overcome with emotion. “A curious species,” judge-Lexa notes, and she dissipates, leaving the joyous friends to reunite and spend the rest of their lives on Earth, “the fourteen” instead of “the hundred.”
Whatever comes next, they’ve met again.
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