"Blood Must Have Blood, Part 1"
Original Airdate: March 4, 2015
Even though at times the different groups have come together, the battle to survive on earth has always been a three-way war between the Sky People, the Grounders, and the Mountain Men. Alliances mean nothing when faced with the decision of what is best for your specific group of people and at the end of the day, they are who matter most. This leads to difficult moral decisions for many characters, none more so than the leaders of each group.
In this week’s episode of The 100, this became the central point of conflict for Lexa. While she cares about Clarke, maybe even loves her, she had to do what she has done all along to keep her people alive: think with her head instead of her heart. And that meant betraying the Sky People and making a deal with the Mountain Men to get her people out of Mount Weather. Logically, this is the decision that makes the most sense. Hundreds of her people were being held captive and they were about to start a war that would have killed hundreds more of her people, with no guarantee that they would win. Sacrificing forty-four Sky People for the lives of so many of her own people makes sense. Even if in her heart she knows that Clarke will never forgive her for this betrayal, she had to do what was right for her people.
The main difference between Lexa and Clarke, something that the characters have struggled with all season, is that Lexa is always going to think with her head first while Clarke’s instinct will always be to think with her heart. No matter how many times Lexa has tried to get Clarke to change, even convincing her to abandon so many people to save herself when the missile hit in "Rubicon," Clarke is always going to be more concerned with the moral implications of her actions. We saw what her decision to leave with Lexa did to her, and it’s not something she’s willing to let happen again. For Clarke, decisions don't have to be broken down into either thinking with her head or her heart; she can do both. She’ll make a decision based off of what her heart is telling her and then use her head to find a way to make it work. More likely than not, this will lead to the death of some of her people next week but in the end, if they can end up saving the rest, it will be worth it to her.
Things are even more complicated at Mount Weather, where the Mountain Men are living safe lives but yearn for more. Many of them want to see the outside but that too is rife with moral dilemmas. For some of the Mountain Men, the sacrifice of so many outsiders (the Grounders and Sky People) isn’t worth their own freedom to go outside. But for others, like Cage Wallace, it is more than worth it. Looking at it objectively, if there was one true villain on the show, it would be Cage. His people are comfortable inside Mount Weather and if completely locked off from the outside world, they wouldn’t need to harm anyone. It’s his greed for more, to open up the outside to them, that drives him to make so many morally questionable decisions. But even those decisions can be justified because after all, he’s just doing what Clarke and Lexa are also doing: trying to give his people the best life possible.
While the leaders of each group make these decisions to do what they think is right for their people, there are some from every group who do not agree with them. These people have fundamental issues with the moral implications of their actions. From the Grounders and Sky People, we see this happen with Lincoln and Octavia. Lincoln has slowly grown closer to the Sky People while at the same time Octavia has grown closer to the Grounders. When it came down to it though, and both were faced with the fact that Lexa had made a deal with the Mountain Men to only save her people, neither were willing to retreat with the Grounders. At this point, both are right in the middle of the two groups, not fully one or the other. In a lot of ways this means that for them, no one group is more important than the other. They’re, instead, part of a group of people who believe that no matter where you come from, your life should matter just as much as anyone else’s.
At Mount Weather, there are people who feel the exact same way. In the past few episodes we’ve seen these people risk their own lives to keep the Sky People safe, not willing to let them die even if it meant being able to see the outside. Maya and her father are key examples of this. They’re faced with the difficult reality that if they save the Sky People, they will no longer be accepted at Mount Weather. They also won’t be able to leave with the Sky People because they are not immune to the radiation. Despite the fact that there is no good way this could end for them, they willingly help keep the Sky People hidden and safe.
Similarly, Jasper and many of the other Sky People are unwilling to let harm come to those who are not endangering them. When Maya’s life was threatened, Jasper was frantic, trying to find a way to save her. It doesn’t matter that they come from different groups; they obviously care about each other a lot. And even when planning an attack on Mount Weather, Clarke is very adamant that no innocents should be killed. She knows that not everyone there is against them and she is not willing to harm those who mean them no harm. While they are extremely concerned with keeping their own people safe, at this point in the series, they aren’t willing to sacrifice innocent people to do so, unlike the Mountain Men and Grounders.
All these moral entanglements came to a head in the character of Dante Wallace in this week’s episode. While he wants nothing more than to be able to live outside, he has up until now been unwilling to let the Sky People die for their cause. When faced with the reality that all of his people could be killed in the impending war, he has the most difficult decision to make. He cares about his people just as much as any of the other leaders and does not want to see their entire existence wiped out. At what point does the decision to save a few become less important than the decision to save your people? For Dante, this was the breaking point, as he gave in and helped his son devise a plan to save their people. Like with so many other character’s decisions, it’s difficult to view what he did as inherently wrong. Because of the complexity of this show, there simply is no right or wrong answer to many of these moral questions and that is what makes The 100 so compelling to watch.
Memorable quotes:
- "I told you I'd come back for you."
- "Get it? Dam joke."
- "Catastrophic failure? THAT'S your plan?" "Well, when you say it like that, it doesn't sound like such a good idea."
- "I'm moving as fast as I... actually, I can go faster."
- "You're one of us now."
- "But I made this choice with my head and not my heart."
- "I have no home."
- "All I was gonna say is 'please don't leave me.'" "Not a chance."
- "It can't be over."
Everyone welcome Laura to the site as our weekly reviewer of The 100! She'll be covering part two of the season finale next week and then re-watching and reviewing over the summer hiatus. What did you think of "Blood Must Have Blood, Part 1"? Do you agree with Lexa's decision? Are you worried about the fate of the ark people left within Mount Weather? What is going to happen to Raven and Wick? Hit up our comments and let us know your thoughts and predictions. Until then, folks! :)
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