Monday, May 16, 2016

The 100 3x15 Recap: “Perverse Instantiation -- Part One” (One Step Forward, Five Steps Back) [Contributor: Laura Schinner]


“Perverse Instantiation-Part One” 
Original Airdate: May 12, 2016

One step forward, five steps back seems to be the motto for the end of this season of The 100, and frankly, it’s getting quite boring to watch our core group fail time and time again as they attempt to kill Alie and release everyone from the City of Light. Every time it appears that they may actually succeed, Alie and the rest do something predictable to stop them, resulting in the same old cycle. Understandably, they want to wait until the season finale to actually kill the big bad but then perhaps they shouldn’t have spent so many episodes leading up to it, only for the group to fail.

Watching family members torture each other and almost kill themselves to get their loved ones to enter the City of Light was never really fun to watch at any point in the show, and now it’s simply annoying. As character after character loses their agency to Alie and turns against their friends, the show becomes more difficult to watch. Hopefully by this time next week, the nightmare of the City of Light will be done once and for all.

We’re not quite there yet though as naturally, Jasper joined the City of Light this week, having been tempted many times before to take the pill and finally giving in. The show went so far as to tease a Monty and Jasper reconciliation — something many have been waiting for all season as Jasper has become more and more unbearable — only to have him turn on Monty and stab him.  When Jasper began apologizing, it became evident that he had to be under Alie’s control because the man we’ve seen all season would never make a change that quickly. So while it was disappointing, it wasn’t surprising when he attacked Monty in an attempt to get the technology that would let Raven access the program to destroy Alie. Jasper couldn’t even succeed at this, however, as Monty got away and was able to lock himself and Raven in the room where they could work on getting the system back up and running.

The true difficult choice for Monty this episode came from the fact that Harper, who he recently started something with, was still outside where Jasper could easily find and hurt her. And when worse came to worst and Jasper did attack Harper, we saw Monty left with an incredibly difficult decision to make, once again. He’s already sacrificed his mother twice in order for them to keep going forward in their mission to stop Alie. The question now is: will he willing to sacrifice one more person? Jasper has made it clear by flashing his gun that he would have no remorse in killing Harper, and the only way to stop it would be to destroy the computer they’re rebuilding to access Alie’s code. The end of this week’s episode left it open-ended as to what Monty will decide. But once again he’s faced with a lose-lose situation.

Unbeknownst to them, Raven and Monty staying their course and completing the computer might be the only option left to bring Alie down. Another foolproof plan from Clarke, Bellamy, Octavia, et. al once again hit a rough patch, as Jasper’s involvement with the City of Light alerted Alie and the others to every part of their plan. This time they had Roan with them, who had agreed to join forces with them in one of their only options left: remove the A.I. from Ontari like they had with Raven and give her the new A.I., allowing them to destroy Alie.

Having known they were coming, Alie and Jaha prepared for this, immediately capturing Clarke and killing Roan, as he was useless to them. They did need Clarke alive though, as she is the only one who knows the passcode that will allow Ontari to take the new A.I. while still chipped and give Alie more power. They turned to their usual methods to try to get this information out of her, first having Abby torture her and when that didn’t work, making Abby hang herself in an attempt to break Clarke. Alie thought for sure that this would work, as it has every time in the past, but Clarke once again proved how strong she was. It was truly disgusting to watch this all play out, with Abby being so far gone that she would torture her own daughter with no remorse. She’s just one of many characters we’ve lost to the City of Light this season that has had a real negative effect on the show.

For Bellamy, Octavia, and the others, they were immediately captured while attempting to complete their part of the plan but thankfully Murphy, Indra, and Pike were able to find them and come to their rescue, and they joined together. Knowing that Clarke was upstairs, they realized their only option was to go save Clarke, defeat Jaha, and successfully follow through with their original plan for Ontari. Murphy once again proved that he has a heart, telling Bellamy that the reason he was willing to go with him was because they both have someone up there that they care about, referring to his relationship with Emori.

Their plan didn’t go off without a hitch though. Pike was injured and Indra and Kane’s fate was left in the air as she went back to save him when a bomb they’d planted was about to go off. Everyone pressed forward though, and they were able to get Bellamy and Murphy upstairs, where Clarke was being held. Realizing that despite all her efforts, the group had still managed to succeed, Alie turned to the only way left to ensure they wouldn’t be able to destroy her. She had Jaha attack Ontari, causing her to become brain dead. This meant that even with the new A.I., she wouldn’t be able to give Clarke and the others the kill code they needed to destroy Alie.

Again, we’re practically back where we started at the top of the episode, with the team's plan to destroy Alie once again failing. Literally the only option left is for Raven to figure out the kill code on her own and destroy Alie from afar, and that's assuming Monty holds strong and doesn’t give in to Jasper. Out of everyone, Raven has been the true hero this season, despite her brief stint in the City of Light. She came back much stronger, not letting anything stop her from succeeding. I’d love to see her be the one to save everyone in the season finale, putting an end to all this nonsense once and for all.

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