Well, it happened. Eleven weeks after The 100 killed off Lexa and gay lady fandom finally revolted, the finale reached our teevees, bringing Lexa with it one last time.
After a long journey, Clarke runs out of options for a new commander and decides to install the flame inside herself, with help from Ontari’s nightblood. Abby and Murphy help, but Alie’s army is knocking down their door. Clarke wakes up in the City of Light, and it’s present-day downtown Vancouver. This is the Grounder valhalla? Grounders didn’t even use electricity: they should probably ask for a refund. While Clarke tries to find the kill switch, she’s passed by absentminded yuppies trying to make it to their 9-to-5. But after a while, they begin noticing her presence and know she doesn’t belong. She’s bad code. So they chase her.
Clarke can’t fight all of them and just as they start to overwhelm her, Lexa swoops in in full Grounder gear and wielding two swords. Lexa quickly dispatches the wave of agents as Clarke lies on a set of stairs and reaches for Lexa. Clarke can’t believe she’s here. They embrace, but soon Clarke collapses; her body is rejecting the flame. Abby and Murphy work fast to make sure enough of Ontari’s blood transfers to Clarke, just as Clarke seizes in Lexa’s arms. As soon as she stabilizes and is able to sit up, Clarke kisses Lexa. And Lexa moves a lock of hair away from Clarke’s face. Their reunion is interrupted because Alie is changing the Matrix and they’re running out of time.
Why do I suddenly feel 60 percent gayer?!
You’re in Canada.
Lexa doesn’t know much about the City of Light, but she does seem to know it’s a program of some kind, and says things like “firewall” and “upload.” This is the same person who refused to use guns and used candles for light, but okay. Sure. So Lexa and Clarke have to find the kill switch in ten minutes, inexplicably because Clarke’s dad’s watch says so. A girl on a bicycle with the infinity symbol (Beca’s counterprogram to stop Alie) will lead them there.
When they reach the end of the trail, Matrix-Jasper, Jaha, and a ton of people wait to stop them. Raven finds a shortcut to lead Clarke to the kill switch, in the form of a hatch that leads to a virtual recreation of Beca’s ship.
Lexa will hold off the enemies and nods goodbye. Clarke grabs her and breathes, “I love you” (a thing was possibly added in post-production), and Lexa replies, “I’ll always be with you” before heading off to her final battle. Time was running out, but Lexa was on the verge of tears when Clarke was just going to leave Polis for a little bit. But when Lexa has to say goodbye forever, she doesn’t say I love you back? I don’t buy it. They should have fixed that in post-production too.
Anyway, Clarke meets Alie and Beca in this virtual ship. She has only minutes to flip the switch, but Alie informs her there are still leaking nuclear missiles that will kill everyone on earth. Again. Their only salvation is to stay in the City of Light. Clarke wouldn’t have to be a leader anymore; she wouldn’t have to bear this burden of guilt. Clarke is so unmoved by this speech it’s impressive. She flips the switch and wakes up in the real world, just as Alie’s mindless robots are about to kill everyone. Everybody who’s taken the chip is now fully feeling the memories and pain they’ve been shutting out. Clarke’s shoulders are heavy from knowing everyone is still in danger and Octavia finally kills Pike. This ending seems happy for everyone, except when I realized Octavia and Clarke don’t have anyone to hug in celebration.
When I was a kid, I saw episode of the ’90s Nick cartoon Doug that I think about often when dealing with my anxiety. In the episode, Doug leaves a theater halfway through a horror movie because he’s so terrified of the monster in it. Afterward, he has recurring nightmares of this monster trying to attack him. At the end, he forces himself to watch the whole movie and he sees the zipper on the back of the monster suit. The monster isn’t real. In his next nightmare, he unzips the suit and sees just a guy inside, or three puppies stacked together. Something like that.
I felt this way about The 100 finale. I wanted to see Lexa, but I was so anxious about the speculation around it. I heard Clarke’s memories of Lexa were going to be erased and that we’d see Lexa die again. I was dreading watching it. But I forced myself to watch and I saw the monster suit. The plot was so thin that it was laughable and it ended with Clarke, again, making a decision that could potentially save and end lives. But this time it didn’t affect me. The only thing I’m happy to report is that Clarke was finally given some of the agency she had before: she was able to make a decision and didn’t apologize for it. Yet.
Of course it’s happening inside your head but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?
Lexa might not have seen peace in her lifetime, but her legacy will be equality in representation, in defying the tropes, and in holding creators accountable for minority representation. In the billboards, the panel discussions at huge festivals, and in her own fan convention! That makes me happier than any two minute reunion scene. Lexa will never leave us. We’ll keep her alive inside us, just like Clarke will.
Yeah, the episode seemed really flat, and I think I could tell which moments were meant to have emotional impact…they just didn’t. How much of that is down to spoilers, I don’t know.
I was convinced when Jasper walked away from the others at the end that he was going to put a gun to his head, though obviously glad he didn’t, I do wonder if that was another thing they’d considered/edited out.
It’s remarkable that Pike was the only character of note to bite the dust, and even then I thought ending with Octavia storming out didn’t really work. Will they try setting her up as the big bad next season? I dunno, but she probably deserved some more dramatic music or something.
I think the ultimate irony would be if they realise the only way they’ll survive is by getting back up into space and the series ends with the remnants of the 100 being the council on the ark, about to repeat the same mistakes as their predecessors. Not sure the show will survive long enough for an arc like that though…
I didn’t have a lot of hope for this finale, but it actually ended up giving me everything I wanted. Somehow, in the midst of such a terrible season, The 100 managed to stick the landing. It gave me the Clarke/Abby reunion scene I’ve been waiting for all season; it gave me Raven being a badass and saving the day; it gave me Octavia being an ever bigger badass and killing Pike dead; it gave us a Clexa kiss; it gave us Clarke telling Lexa she loved her, and best of all, it gave Lexa the warrior’s death she should have had in the first place.
I haven’t decided if I’ll be back for season four yet, but it doesn’t really matter either way, because I’ve gotten the closure I wanted from this episode. And anyway, we all know that Lexa, and Clexa (and DoctorMechanic) will always live on in fanfiction.
Same. I was surprised by how…comfortable the finale was, in terms of being satisfying and not leaving a massive bait for the next season. I had initially decided to hold off on my overall opinion of Lexa’s death until the season wrapped up, and as horrible as the writers bungled her actual death, it was satisfying seeing Lexa save her love one last time and going out in an off-screen blaze of glory.
I miss the fuck out of Lexa, but I’m okay with this being her departure in light of the stray-bullet fiasco.
“but Lexa was on the verge of tears when Clarke was just going to leave Polis for a little bit. But when Lexa has to say goodbye forever, she doesn’t say I love you back? I don’t buy it.” Right?
the show is bad, so bad and lexa and clarke so,so good. i remember really being impressed by it after season two, was it the clexa high that blinded me to all the other crap happening? or did they hire new writers, lol i’m trying to understand how bored i was watching it.
It’s sad that the weakest clexa interaction is probably the final one. If the finale was in the hands of Kim Shumway it probably would have been alot better. I don’t think i’ll watch season 4 not unless Luna and Niylah get some serious screen time.
Thanks for getting this up so quickly! I haven’t been on tumblr yet so now I feel adequately prepared haha
Also “But when Lexa has to say goodbye forever, she doesn’t say I love you back? I don’t buy it” Lexa is like QUEEN of self restraint w/r/t Clarke, she def held back the “I love you” in 3×07 when she thought Clarke was leaving because she wanted everything to be on Clarke’s terms. Clarke says “I love you” and she replies with “I’ll always be with you” lmao please. This seemingly-lackluster season finale makes it so much easier to stop caring about the show esp now that Lexa is officially written off the show.
I’m of the belief that Jason Rothenberg edited the hell out of the finale to the point that he ruined it. A number of cast members talked about how epic and devastating it originally was, but it was lackluster and underwhelming at best. The Lexa/Clarke reunion was nice, but the editing in some of their scenes was so bad, it showed through and the writing was so bad, I was actually laughing.
Nothing moved me in this finale and there’s no lingering epic after-effect that The 100 normally creates. They really dropped the ball and they barely explored the world of artificial intelligence which is a genre that has so much to work with. I’m so disappointed, but I’m glad to finally be rid of this show.
God the plot holes… I can’t even…
Every single plot since 307 is empty & nonsensicall. Grounders out of caracter. Arkers super effective.
315 & 316 are way beyond the line of logic. “ppl know things” should be the name of 316.
All the Luna arc, don’t even…
& Ontary. WTF. Why she’s in this show? laying in the floor, like a rough.
And the 5min lexa. What the what!!!! ADR and shity editing. Mouth close and words sounding. Whaaaaat?
She could not be in the seasson but have time to travel from MX to CAN for FIVE frakking minutes!
The whole episode is just damage control for minimize the damage made by the EGO of a homophobic white supremacist.
The only way they can save the show (down to 10ep in S4) is some sort or “Clarke recovery from a concussion in the wood after the mountain”. Bc anything else is just as moronic as the A.I. arc
I think about this all the time too!
And totally agreed. After 307, the show squandered so much of my good faith, that plot holes and crappy writing that I could have excuses because I was so enamoured with the characters and storylines became so much more obvious.
I read somewhere that the finale was a perfect summary of season 3: disjointed, confusing, annoying and the best part about it was Lexa.
I’ve read better ff than what happened in season 3. All I can say is this show had great potential and was wasted when, first they didn’t secure Alycia before she got her series FTWD. Second, the sky people basically destroying everything they touched, to the Mount Weather people and the grounders. And lastly the A.I. story. Way too many plot holes. I stop watching this series before the 307, my heart could take watching Lexa die after they made love. Shameful exploitation of the fans to get them to watch this series then crush us. Why did they think that this is something we continue to support. Now with a 4th season, and these new threat of nuclear meltdown (hell we can’t control this in our time with the knowledge we have) this seems unlikely to be stopped by a bunch of teenagers. Stupid story line imo. I still won’t be watching.
I hope for the people who help make this show are successful, ie Eliza, et al. (not the show runner Jrot) They deserved our gratitude for their performance and talent.
In the last 2 days I was catching up with this show because after Lexa I did run from this show like a bat out of hell.
My endgame? This season was a gigantic mess, ok, let’s be more obvious, IT WAS A PIECE OF GIGANTIC SHIT. Because let’s say that out of generosity I leave out of this mess what Rothenberg did with Lexa, still you have the problem of using women, particularly Clarke, as a punching bag. Clarke was getting shit from everybody (Bellamy, Jasper, every freaking minor character around and even from Octavia).
Rothenberg destroyed the essence of this show, the thing that brought me to watching this, episode after episode for two seasons, for rating’s sake: the women playing such a powerful roles as I’ve never seen, and most of them playing freaking teenagers never-acting as teenagers. I’ve read several reviews of this episode and I don’t remember exactly where this thing is coming from (maybe IGN, maybe AV Club?), but somebody said that this episode returned to the women-centric plot that once was the essence of this show, because you had an episode centered on Clarke, Lexa, Raven, Abby, Spencer and Octavia. I totally disagree with this and with just one character in mind: Olivia. What she did to Pike in the Commander’s chamber: as women we can almost fucked up the world because we act as deranged emotional creatures. Thank you, Rothenberg, for putting us in our place and never making the same judgment about Pike or even Bellamy, the fucker.
And finally, the Clexa token. I don’t think there’s a lot to say about less than 5 minutes of screen time. But yeah, at least Lexa didn’t say “go on with your life, be happy” and next we have an image of Bellamy.
In the words of the great Kendall Malone: “No tears. These shites aren’t worth the salt.” (Orphan Black almost killed me last night)
I’m just grateful to be free. I quit watching after 3×07, but kept up with recaps on tumblr, and the writing was so underwhelming. After season 2, I really thought they cared about character development and exploring morality and stuff, but nope. Now that I’m super sure that ADC is gone and the Clexa haze isn’t around to cloud the shit way they treat POC, I can finally rest.
Much of the cast is outstanding. Eliza Taylor is a national treasure. Wells Jaha deserved better. That’s all I know.
I feel the same exact way. I hadn’t watched since 307 and only read recaps. I was really worried that they were going to do something horrible to Lexa in the finale, or make her die one more time in some horrible way. I’m relieved that didn’t happen and now I can just put the show out of my mind.
The finale sucked. As I said before if they hadn’t edited the hell of the entire season they could have had two great seasons instead of one crappy one. Pike, that would have been season three with his rise coming from a few people including Allie. Let’s face it Jaha could have engineered Pike’s rise to scare the hell out of everyone and get them to take the chip. From there almost everyone would have taken it and Pike after battling the grounders and killing Lexa would have found his own force turned against him and him running to the grounders. But they wouldnt have listened and Omari would have taken over and been lead astray by Allie and Jaha. Jaha could have claimed he was against Pike the whole time. Meanwhile Clarke would have been on the run and the final parts of Season three could have been expanded and written with Lexa coming back to help Clarke not only in the city of light but as an image only Clarke would have seen.
I like the analogy of the zipper on the back, while I wasn’t fixated on the same worries I had felt negative enough about the show to have the same effect. The brief appearance we got didn’t allow ADC to show off any of what had truly made Lexa shine, what we got just left me feeling cold and unfulfilled. Particularly in contrast to the emotional impact of Orphan Black which I watched immediately beforehand and absolutely devastated me (in a good story telling way, not like I felt after 307 of this).
I was also really annoyed by Clarke’s big speech before throwing the kill switch, and by it being given to a character and actress I like. “You don’t ease pain, you overcome it” is just so incredibly off base when the scenario you’ve depicted includes chronic physical pain. You cannot simply overcome the pain in those cases, although you might overcome the circumstances, you endure the pain, and easing the pain is an important component of being able to do that. It’s an attempt at profound that really is just ignorance.
I’ve been watching the episodes of Orphan Black AFTER the 100, as a palate cleanser. The latest episode of OB affected me 100x stronger than the 100 did, even at it’s biggest and presumably most emotional moments. In some ways I’m glad they killed off Lexa, in that at least we won’t have to see her character mangled beyond recognition in the hands of a terrible showrunner who thinks he’s a genius.
When Alycia Debnam-Carey took the full time roll on Fear The Walking Dead i started holding my breath because I knew it was only a matter of time before she was killed off and I knew how heart broken I would be when that happened. So I figured she would probably show up in the flames AI at some point, and when she did I as thrilled. (She can come save me any day lol)
But for real, Lexa’s memories were in the flame, and since one of the main reasons for the flame was to fix Ali’s bad programing the Lexa we see in the city of light is now a part of the flame so she will say stuff like fire wall. And since clarke was in he flame her and Lexa will always be together in the flame, kind of like an alternate universe. (Strangle reminds me of the end of Xena a little when I think of it like that.)
And I believe it was nuclear reactors not missile that is messing up everyone’s ever after.
I’m almost positive Jasper was supposed to kill himself at the end. There is no way the cast would had such visceral reactions to Pike being killed.
I’m also positive that we were supposed to watch Lexa die. I’m assuming Jason edited the hell out of the episode so we didn’t see that because he didn’t want to be murdered in his sleep forgot showing us Lexa dying TWICE.
The only problem with that is now it gives false hope that we’ll see Lexa again (which I doubt.) I’ve even seen other reviews where they say that- ‘This might not be the last we seem of her!” No thanks. Not if the writing is as bad as that finale.
It’s over finally. Although it’s been over since 3.07 really. The few good scenes (Clarke/Abby, Abby/Kane, Clarke/Murphy) did by far not overcome the overall bad writing, nor the plotholes and least but not least the Clexa reunion. Too short, too heavily edited, Clarke most probably said “don’t leave me” before the postprodedit, otherwise why would Lexa not answer with “I love you too, … etc. Also i am convinced Jasper was going to kill himself when he left the others … i wouldn t missed his character but it would just have been another violence trigger. An unnecessary one, too. AND i m convinced they edited Lexa’s dying (part2) out. So, at least they – in their enormous generosity – gave us the heroines fighting death and her protecting Clarke. (She could have gone with Clarke instead, couldn’t she ?). Glad the show is done. It is for me.
Also one technical glitch, All of those still climbing would have probably fallen off after losing Allie.
Plus all eight commanders should have come to save Clarke since their memories were in their as well. All eight could have shown Clarke a different personality and set of problems for her to overcome and grow with.
That would have made for one hell of a finale! Too bad we got what was aired.
Regarding Lexa not replying with a declaration of love in return to Clarke, I saw a reaction video that kinda summed up a potential reason for that to me anyway (even though I do believe that Clarke’s “I Love You” was added in post-prod) —–> https://youtu.be/BiXirkyv_vo?t=19m36s
I echo her sentiments, that Lexa didn’t really need to say it back because everything she did said it to Clarke through her actions. From showing Clarke emotional fragility (the only person in the world she’d show that to) to agreeing to try to change the “blood must have blood” ethos of her people and thus putting herself in danger of a coup and making the more difficult choice (recalling her conversations with Indra). Just something to chew on. My thought was it would’ve been too hard to get ADC to reply with an I love you as well because it wouldn’t match with the length or her actual line and you couldn’t do two cutaways.
I have lots of things to add, but most people have already said it. One thing in the vain of wasted potential is that basically ANYTHING would be more interesting than a “is the world going to end in 6 months” plot which next season looks lined up for.
The whole Allie storyline was so ridiculous and stupid and a waste of potential (the ice nation, Pike and the Ice Nation vs Arkers and Trikru, no really anything) and now it looks like that’s where they’re going with it.
As someone said above, I wouldn’t be suprised if they all end up back in space somehow and do the ultimate BSG “all of this has happened before and will happen again” rip off.
Ya know, they never actually showed Lexa’s and Anya’s funeral (burning their body). Maybe for the commanders they don’t burn the bodies but they bury them in the belief that one day they will return in life…just a science fiction possibility.