‘The 100’ Turns 10: Ranking the 10 Most Shocking Death Scenes
The 100 executive producer Jason Rothenberg warned fans that no one was safe in the world of the CW show and that “anyone, even a beloved character, can die at any time.”
But really, someone was dying all the time on the CW series, which followed some of the 100 juvenile delinquents who were exiled to a post-apocalyptic Earth. One death count logged 4,878 casualties across The 100’s seven seasons… not including the 11 billion who died in the nuclear doomsday that started it all.
With the show turning 10 years old on March 19, here are 10 death scenes that left their mark on our memories, including a couple that had fans up in arms. (Spoilers ahead!)
10. Charmaine (Ivana Miličević)
This former terrorist takes a turn for the heroic in Season 7’s “A Little Sacrifice,” when she catches a drop of the bioweapon Gem9 to save daughter Hope (Shelby Flannery) and everyone else on Bardo. In so doing, Charmaine becomes crystallized, telling Hope in her last words to “be better” than her.
9. Abby (Paige Turco)
After Clarke’s mother turns Nightblood to protect granddaughter Madi (Lola Flanery), Russell (J.R. Bourne) chooses her as the new host for his wife’s consciousness and erases her mind in Season 6’s “The Adjustment Protocol,” effectively killing her. Later, after realizing her mom is no longer her mom, Clarke (Eliza Taylor) ejects Abby’s possessed body into space.
8. Wells (Eli Goree)
This member of the 100 only lasted three episodes before little Charlotte (Izabela Vidovic) slices his neck open in an effort to stop the nightmares in which his father, Chancellor Jaha (Isaiah Washington), executes her parents. An episode later, a guilt-stricken Charlotte jumps to her death.
7. Maya (Eve Harlow)
Even though this Mount Weather medical assistant helps our delinquent heroes, she nevertheless gets caught in the crossfire when Clarke and Bellamy deal a lethal dose of radiation to the Mountain Men in Season 2’s “Blood Must Have Blood: Part 2.” She seems to accept her fate in her final moments, however, telling Jasper (Devon Bostick), “None of us is innocent.”
6. Harper (Chelsey Reist) and Monty (Christopher Larkin)
In the Season 5 finale, “Damocles: Part 2,” Clarke, Bellamy, and other survivors escape Earth on a prison ship and put themselves into cryosleep. Harper and Monty, meanwhile, stay awake and spend decades trying to find a habitable home. They both die — her of illness, him of old age— but not before welcoming a son named Jordan (Shannon Kook) and charting a course for a new world.
5. Finn (Thomas McDonell)
After killing more than a dozen Grounders in a desperate search for a missing Clarke, his onetime flame, this member of the 100 faces execution in Season 2’s “Spacewalker.” And when he admits to Clarke that he’s scared, she spares him a barbaric and agonizing death and mercy-kills him herself.
4. Lincoln (Ricky Whittle)
Lincoln goes from Trikru warrior to Mountain Men captive to recovering Reaper to Arkadia enemy over the course of two and a half seasons. In Season 3’s “Stealing Fire,” he sacrifices himself to save other Grounder prisoners, and Pike (Michael Beach) executes him while Octavia (Marie Avgeropoulos) can do nothing but watch.
3. Jasper (Devon Bostick)
Haunted by Maya’s death and resentful of the 100 members responsible for her demise, this chemist falls into a depression that lasts until Season 4’s “The Other Side.” That’s when he knowingly overdoses on a hallucinogen, passing away in best friend Monty’s arms just as Maya passed away in his.
2. Bellamy (Bob Morley)
In perhaps the most outrageous death on the show, Bellamy is fatally shot by Clarke, his best friend, in Season 7’s “Blood Giant,” after converting to the Disciple cause during a detour on the planet Etherea and then threatening to hand Madi’s all-important sketchbook to the Disciples. Worse yet, Clarke flees without recovering the book.
1. Lexa (Alycia Debnam-Carey)
This Grounder commander’s romance with Clarke reached a zenith — and a tragic conclusion — in Season 3’s “Thirteen.” When Lexa’s advisor Titus (Neil Sandilands) shoots at Clarke, it’s Lexa who is felled by one of his bullets. Amid fan outcry about Lexa’s demise coming so short after her hookup with Clarke, Rothenberg apologized for perpetuating the “Bury Your Gays” trope.
