The 100 Season 7 Episode 7 Review: The Queen’s Gambit

When is it too late to have specific conversations?

The 100 brings that question our way while also making us wonder about the communication it is trying to have with its audience. 

During The 100 Season 7 Episode 7, Gabriel and the others allow themselves to join the cult in Bardo. Gabriel gets to help code-break while the others are presumably disciples now.

Meanwhile, Emori was trying to unite the people in Sanctum while Sheidheda had a plan to tear them apart. Murphy and Nelson were the pawns stuck in the middle of the Sanctum chessboard, and Emori’s life is now on the line.

Last but not least, Clarke and the others arrived in Bardo only to find out that Bellamy “died.” And somewhere more suspicious, Anders woke up The Shepherd, who turned out to be Cadogan.

“The Queen’s Gambit,” written by Miranda Kwok, forced characters into impossible places where they ended up having to face one another in ways they never planned for before.

There were a few dynamic pair-offs that really paid off in shaking up yet another filler episode, but at the same time, there were aspects that were just wading in old history.

This episode was also Lindsey Morgan’s directorial debut, which was an extraordinary look at the show through her eyes. The intimate close-up shots added depth and emotion to even the most chilling duo.

It was the most refreshing and intimate way to get to explore the show, and Lindsey accomplished it in a way where it didn’t feel like this was her first episode as a director.

The Echo Shame Circle

On what we can only ironically assume was the third anniversary of Clarke’s death, Bellamy decided to honor her in the most memorable way possible.

He decided to be a ho. 

Technically you don’t know all of the facts, including that I love him and forgive him no matter what.

Even if we don’t comment on how the show seems to be asking the fans that are left to stop watching with the way that they unnecessarily are adding scenes no one asked for, there is still plenty to breakdown about the direction of the story. 

In an underwhelming turn of events, it isn’t that Octavia and Echo are grieving in different ways, the show really has decided that only Echo is allowed to grieve.

It felt like a weak choice to make, considering how we have explored Bellamy losing his sister before. Giving Octavia that same arc would have been the perfect way to keep Bellamy’s memory alive until he comes back.

There is also no way Marie Avgeropoulos couldn’t handle the challenge considering the range we have been lucky to experience from her this season alone.

Yet, in the past few episodes, the show has done everything but focused on Octavia, from the second the Skyring trio arrived at Bardo, it was like she was on the backburner.

Instead, Tasya Teles had the challenge of carrying the weight of a grief plot centered around one of the most important characters on the show.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t always easy to invest in her portrayal of that journey. It was still difficult to want to invest in Echo’s pain when so much of it felt so over the top.

Again, Echo shouldn’t be more upset than Bellamy’s actual family, who is in the same cell as her. 

And it would be one thing if Octavia is grieving internally, but where was that insight? Where was the Blake flashback? Where was Octavia allowed to mourn and to react and to have the attention of her brother’s loss?

Instead, that was given to Echo, and even though she said that her pain is now over, it feels like ours was just beginning as we followed her on this self-harming adventure. 

But between the show’s strange attempt to upset its audience with an unnecessary and mostly useless flashback that doesn’t matter two seasons later, it did give us a peek at something the narrative doesn’t want to admit to creating.

Bellamy: Your weakness is tricky. You don’t talk about yourself much, and you’re a shapeshifter. Loyalty. Loyalty is your weakness.
Echo: Loyalty isn’t a weakness.
Bellamy: It is when it causes you to do something you know you shouldn’t.

Let’s be very abundantly clear; when Bellamy and Echo got together, it made absolutely no sense.  

Bellamy could do better than the person who killed so many people in his life. Echo could do better than having the show try to make her a fan-favorite by connecting her to an existing fan-favorite lead.

Regardless, there were hints that as much as those two were together, so were the cracks.

The biggest issue that was always going to exist between them is that their moral levels could never sync. Bellamy was always struggling with the choices he had to make while Echo was always able to reason it, so it didn’t affect her as much.

But them getting together in space only added to the understanding that this formed out of convenience.

Bellamy found himself having to deal with the fact that he lost his soulmate. It didn’t escape the audience that again, Bellamy found himself in a relationship when Clarke was nowhere to be found. How convenient.

At the same time, though, it felt Clarke was still very much in the air; or that is what Bellamy was trying to fend for himself.

Because when they came back down to Earth, Bellamy was trying to reason how Echo was a changed woman with a moral compass, and the narrative was positioning them as a team.

Sound familiar?

Bellamy was looking for a replacement to his perfect partner, and while Raven fit the role when it came to leadership, something didn’t click outside of that. But at the same time, Echo seemed to be becoming a different person when Bellamy was looking for someone.  

The question though, is, did Echo actually grow and change? The answer seems to be no. So much of Bellamy and Echo’s relationship was built on and continued to be Bellamy looking down at Echo while she looked up at him.

In a way, she idolized him because she wanted to be someone who was deserving of Bellamy, with his moral code and his honor. But Echo’s moral code was still rooted in Azgeda, which Bellamy always attempts to draw her away from.

Even in the flashback, Bellamy is looking down at Echo’s inability to be loyal, but her strength to shift as the situation demands it.

What if the situation for Bellamy’s heart demanded for her to transform into someone more like the people he lost?

Echo may have been up for the challenge and did what Bellamy pointed out to her. She shapeshifted. 

Suddenly Echo became not only a person that Bellamy could be with, even if he had to defend her at every turn, but she was also probably a person that deep down inside she wanted to be.

But in trying to be what someone else wants, it can only be authentic for so long. 

Every time Bellamy looked away or wasn’t around, suddenly Echo was back to being the good Azgeda spy. During The 100 Season 5, she had to be strategic when it came to appealing to Diyoza and selling out Shaw.

During The 100 Season 6, Echo again found herself returning to her darker side when telling Ryker the truth about her past only to kill him. She didn’t have to, but she did.

This only continued when during The 100 Season 7, Echo found herself without Bellamy, and she had to question who she was outside of his girlfriend.

The answer? A ruthless spy who would stop at nothing and killing everyone who got in her way until she made it to Bardo. Her finding out that Bellamy “died” only made it worse, because suddenly questionable Echo actions became a ruthless massacre disguised as a strategic approach to help them escape.

It took Bellamy being gone a day in our time for Echo to no longer stick to the image that she had that made Bellamy always defend her.

And now honestly nothing is stopping Echo anymore, with her using self-mutilation to return to who she was. Or maybe she was just shapeshifting back to who she always has been.

There is no way to miss Echo calling Azgeda “her people,” something we discussed before when it came to how she viewed the world.

She left Orlando behind because, in her opinion, they weren’t his people, when the reality was that she didn’t see him as her people. The same went for Gabriel and Hope as soon as she found out her plan to save Bellamy failed. 

Suddenly five years on Skyring meant nothing because she wasn’t getting what she wanted. Echo risked their chance to find Diyoza and to escape because they weren’t a priority. They weren’t her people.

This only spiraled further and further until now.

Now Echo is entirely back to the version of herself before the time-jump. She is the version that tried to delete her past before Bellamy took on the burden of reasoning her development.

Whether this is the new Echo without Bellamy remains to be seen.

But the flashback did manage to acknowledge that no matter what, Echo will revert to her true self when she doesn’t need to exist any other way just for Bellamy’s sake.

Regardless of if the show realizes this is the point it keeps making, there hasn’t been a couple this mismatched on The 100 before.

Bellamy ended up in a relationship with someone just because they were in a limited space together. Through that relationship, he has been constantly used as a way to absolve Echo’s past deeds because The 100 decided it didn’t need her to be the villain anymore.

But because of that, Bellamy suffered because he was just there to benefit Echo; and yet he still didn’t seem to fully connect with her or to see the two of them on the same level.

Meanwhile, Echo ended up in a relationship that was the only thing the narrative felt could sustain her. Echo wasn’t allowed to grow or prove her development outside of being a love interest for the lead.

But at the same time, the show was also saying that Echo only changed because of the relationship she was in and she wasn’t allowed to exist outside of it either.

Both are suffocating because of how the show forces them together, no matter what, which is very similar to the audience’s situation. 

But now Echo has gotten on the Bardo agenda and has conquered her lesser emotions so things can only get better from here, right?

At this point, anything is better than the struggle that Octavia and the audience had to go through watching Echo left to her own devices. 

The more time we spent grieving with Echo; the less sympathy that existed for the situation.

The Bellarke Sob Corner

Here we are. 

It’s finally here, and I hate it.

I hate how much hope Clarke had when she arrived at Bardo in search of Bellamy.

Gabriel tells her that everyone is here, and her heart gets so happy. Gabriel delivering the news was probably the best-case scenario, even if he didn’t seem as upset about it.

Three months did pass, so it is probably not news anymore. Or maybe he knows something we don’t know … 

Anyway, Clarke Griffin quickly takes on being the heart of the show when she reacts to the “loss” of Bellamy. The directing in the episode is so pointed in the way it zeroes in on Clarke and how the music suddenly zones everything else out.

Everyone looks at Clarke, knowing that Bellamy is gone is going to destroy Clarke, considering everything he means to her.

Eliza Taylor takes all of this to another level, delivering that heartbreaking realization and making it the only thing we can care about right now.

It may not have been a long reaction, but Eliza made the audience feel like they were reliving that Bellamy scene for the first time. All that loss and that pain were suddenly right at the surface again.

Because the truth is that you haven’t grieved for Bellamy until you went through it with Clarke.

So while the reaction wasn’t “loud,” the volume was in the unspoken. It was refreshing to have Clarke level it out, especially coming off of Echo’s over the top response.

Just because Clarke didn’t show her emotion all episode long doesn’t mean she isn’t going through that pain.

But the audience still deserves to see her grapple with the idea that she lost Bellamy, precisely the way that Octavia should as well.

Octavia and Clarke have time and time again been the most important people in Bellamy’s life; they deserve the time to truly mourn him. Or at least question his death like anyone who saw the memory should.

No matter how much Bardo loves Clarke, they took her soulmate, and they have to know she won’t exactly co-operate smoothly with that knowledge.

Anders now has at least Octavia and Gabriel’s view of how much Bellamy means to Clarke. If he could watch The 100 Season 6 Episode 10 and he doesn’t know that the first time he needs to introduce himself with is Bellamy’s actual whereabouts, then he isn’t a true fan.

Someone ask Levitt to explain to him how it is done. 

But none of this will really make any sense until Clarke Griffin and Bellamy Blake are actually on our screens again leading the show. 

For now, though all we have is that parting shot of Clarke learning her soulmate is gone and everyone’s heart should collectively break with hers.

Nelson’s Final Rose Ceremony (With Emori) in Sanctum

Before Nelson was trying to be subtle about the fact that he wants some friends, but this time around, he decided to make an entire competition out of it.

But nothing could prepare us for the outcome that now has his new best friend in real danger.

It was wonderful to pair off Emori and Nelson because, at first, you wouldn’t think they could work, but then it all makes sense.

So much of who Emori has been for us is this beacon of survival and self-love even when outsiders might not offer you that same energy back. She has come a long way from the scene-stealing character who we somehow wanted to make sure fit into the leading group, even if they didn’t always make room for her.

It was inevitable that Emori would seek to do the same, including those that have been so far removed from Sanctum’s way of life.

Again, the constant divide in Sanctum may not stand out in any way, but Emori trying to bring the Children of Gabriel back into the fold makes it all that more interesting.

But it is also intense because, as expected, some can’t budge on their way of thinking. Like Sheidheda trying to insult her or like Nelson’s dad turning him away.

The issue is men.

Still, getting to explore Emori’s pain through an attempt to heal other people’s emotional wounds was a comprehensive exploration of finding your people. 

Luisa D’Oliveira and Lee Majdoub were stellar against one another, stirring up feelings and anxiety at the same time. It was a rollercoaster worth going on because it enriched both of their stories by allowing them to relate to one another.

The 100 might not always like to invest too much time in building connections, but Nelson and Emori prove why that doesn’t work.

So much potential exists in friendships like the one they started to form; it has to be explored.

And it was explored, with Nelson taking from Emori a sense of hope and love. 

Emori may not have been able to confront her past as she wanted, but she found a future where she doesn’t struggle with it as Nelson does. Emori found her version of peace on Sanctum.

Offering Nelson the closure she wasn’t afforded was a reminder of how caring Emori was and how lucky he was to have her as a friend option.

But Nikki saw that Nelson was going to give Emori that rose in his final friend ceremony, and she couldn’t have it. Somehow she just knew the perfect timing for when Nelson’s dad was going to disappoint him as many dads do, and she went for the kill.

Except Nelson was looking for peace, even when he didn’t know it. So Nikki coming in, guns hot, looking for revenge and power, that was an unfortunate friendship doomed from the start.

But Nelson is stuck, so driven by his emotions, that now the queen is at stake and it is time to worry. Nelson having a gun to Emori’s head, can’t be a good thing, yet maybe there is hope that he understands she isn’t to blame.

However brief, Nelson and Emori understood each other in a way that not many could around then. Nelson calling Emori by her fake name felt like a sign that this wasn’t him blaming her for his father’s ignorance.

If Nelson is the soft Gabriel child that we love him for, maybe he has figured out a way to control the situation. The point is to trick Nikki, which starts by pretending he is on her side.

But to be on her side, he has to be motivated, and he didn’t have enough reason before this. 

Nikki doesn’t doubt that Nelson is on her side, which usually means she absolutely should. She also doesn’t understand how vital Emori is and how hard others will fight for her.

Murphy is on his way, and Nelson has to be putting on an act. Hope has to exist not only on Bardo, and right now, my hope is in that room where Nelson is trying to save his new best friend.

Emori, you are going to get that rose!

The Stranger Beside Me

While Emori and Nelson were becoming the Sanctum version of best friends, Bardo was doing things differently.

Diyoza/Hope and Echo/Octavia felt like the same story of stalling that was going on between Murphy and Sheidheda. But while there was progress between Murphy and Sheidheda, however threatening, what was there in Bardo?

Echo and Octavia didn’t mesh right away, with Octavia giving her everything and Echo not budging much to match the distance between them. 

Maybe it was the fact that Echo couldn’t let Octavia enjoy her book, or perhaps it was the narrative pretending that Octavia cared about Echo, it just didn’t click.

Over and over, we have heard that Echo was the monster in Hope’s bedtime stories. 

Octavia instilled in her that Echo wasn’t someone that her aunt saw as an ally or a friend. The same must have gone for Diyoza since Hope used training with Echo as a dig at her mother.

Echo even voiced that she knew how little Octavia and Diyoza thought of her if Hope met her with such resistance and dislike.

But now suddenly Octavia is embracing Echo with open arms? Maybe if the show let Octavia have an arc in this episode, it would make sense, but it just looks like Octavia is the new Bellamy.

Bellamy isn’t around right now to allow Echo to revolve around him and have him be on her side, so instead, they got a new Blake to take that on.

The only issue is that they are still strangers to one another, and the one thing they could bond over is the one thing they don’t have in common anymore. It was also ridiculous having Octavia take Echo into her family, was that mentioned already?

There is no groundwork for that relationship, and from the looks of it, Echo doesn’t actually consider Octavia, her person.

This version of Echo is the same one that pushed Octavia off that cliff, so let’s hope that doesn’t happen again.

Speaking of Hope, she is in a nearby cell, also struggling with a stranger. Diyoza is no longer the person that Hope remembers idolizing because suddenly she isn’t a kid with the wool pulled over her eyes.

Meanwhile, Diyoza struggles to learn this new version of her little girl, the one that went down the same path that she never wanted for her. And it was all because of Diyoza that Hope is now a proud killer.

Compared to Echo and Octavia, this duo was more engaging. A mother and daughter trying to reconnect after all this time apart for one of them is a complicated maze of emotions.

There was also an ironic parallel of Diyoza explaining that doing the wrong thing for the right reason doesn’t make it okay. Something tells me that there is a person in the next room that could benefit from hearing that because the rampage she is looking to cause is a worry.

But Diyoza and Hope were working through what is the right way to approach all of this. 

Diyoza is reacting in anger because of the pain she is experiencing from the years she lost, without even knowing it.

Hope is reacting in desperation to get them out and to get things back to what they were before.

Except things can’t just go back to them living all together on Skyring as if nothing changed. They have to move forward as a family, even with the changes. But at the same time, you have to work through the past to get to the present.

Diyoza and Hope made progress there, working out the pain inflicted on both of them while not letting the love they still have for each other disappear.

It is an adjustment, but it has to work for all of this to be worth it.

Except it still feels like Diyoza might not make it out alive, and the stress is real.

Gabriel’s Time To Shine feat. the Cadogan Unveiling 

First things first, I would like to thank Gabriel Santiago for continuing to be a snacc. 

I would also like to thank him for proving me right about how pure his intentions always were and continue to be. It is easy to come off of The 100 Season 7 Episode 6 and assume that Gabriel is the bad guy in the situation.

Echo was already on her hypocritical train of thought when she accused Gabriel of not wanting them to leave Bardo.

But objectively, it made sense for him not to trust Levitt’s advice; this was a guy that we spent time with but that Gabriel knew nothing about then.

It was also clear that Hope and Echo didn’t fill him in, meaning he was out of the loop and only acting on the facts he heard when Anders said it is impossible to survive outside.

To be fair, Levitt said to do it, but we still don’t know if he was giving them good advice.

Gabriel was always acting on the understanding that he wanted to keep everyone safe and kill as few people as possible. 

Not everyone had the same priorities, but they all still ended up in the same place.

And from the moment we check back in on Gabriel, it is obvious how worried he is about the situation and his friends. His words, not mine.

He isn’t doing this for the benefit of Bardo; everything he did came from keeping everyone safe and not leaving bodies trailing behind them.

Bardo is still not giving all of its secrets away, but there does seem to be a benefit in joining the cause, even if you don’t know what you are supporting.

Gabriel does just that after he proves just how much he cares about the others when he tries to find them on the way to the Stone Room. Say what you want about him, but Gabriel’s heart is on his sleeve, and he deserves way better friends.

Because as much as Gabriel advocates for them, they didn’t think about him once. Gabriel starts his entire arc in this episode trying to make sure Hope, Echo, Octavia, and Diyoza are okay.

The four of them, on the other hand, are too invested in themselves and each other to even bother to have a thought about Gabriel’s safety.

Regardless, he still thinks about them, and that is why he is after our hearts. His intentions are pure, and he deserves to be rewarded in knowledge for that.

Except apparently, code-breaking is next level boring, and Gabriel must be regretting what he wished for with that. The robe is cool though.

Do I get a robe?

Gabriel

Because the Anomaly Stone isn’t actually as interesting as it looked, especially if most of what the people in white do is try different combinations until something new works. 

No wonder The Shephard went into cryo. Who has the time to wait for all of that?

But Gabriel is a trooper who spent three months helping them and is now a Level Two code-breaking disciple. He isn’t happy about it, which might ironically be based on the way all of this is honoring a false god, but he is trying his best.

It also means that Gabriel willingly shared his memories and must have gotten information in return. Anders had to have told him why Clarke is the key.

He didn’t seem worried for her when she arrived; he was probably thrilled she could finally help him stop guessing random codes. Does that mean that Bardo can be trusted? Partially maybe?

It isn’t clear how much information can be shared with a level two on Bardo, especially since they can’t go around trusting every newcomer that they recruit. But there is a possibility that Gabriel has more information than the others might.

Not as much as Anders, though.  

He gets to have the fan-boy experience of his life when he has the great honor of waking up the Shepherd from his long nap to fill him in on the key returning.

Raise your hand if you saw that Cadogan reveal coming from a mile away.

Anyway.

Cadogan is alive. Everything is now connected, and they are about to transcend in the war that is the final evolution of species through the stone.

Now, where is Bellamy Blake?!

Writing For Your Audience

Speaking of long-overdue answers, as much as this episode covered some new ground, it had a glaring issue.

The 100 has taken this final season to prove that it has either forgotten who its audience is or they are doing their absolute best to make it clear that they don’t want the audience that they do have.

Time after time, the show keeps creating storylines that make it seem like this isn’t the season that is looking to wrap up the series.

So we are left with the question of honoring your audience at a time when the show needs it the most. With the backdoor pilot for the prequel coming next, why is the show struggling so much when it comes to communicating with its audience?  

The biggest issue during “The Queen’s Gambit” was that they suddenly decided that now was the time to have The 100 Season 5 discourse.

Two seasons and three planets ago was the time to bring up the underwhelming issues, and they brought it up now and only made things that much worse.

It didn’t help that what they did say was more or less useless.

Jackson rehashing Madi’s past is one thing, but it was very pointed at the audience that he only ended up discussing Bellamy in a bad light.

There was nothing else they could speak on except to say that Bellamy asking Madi to take the flame was a lot of pressure, and he is horrible for doing it?

I’m sorry, but who cares?

The same goes for the flashback that made it clear how aggressively the show seems to want to alienate its audience.

The 100 spent all of Season 5 telling and not showing us that Echo has changed. Bellamy was the writers’ room mouthpiece the way they forced him to defend her all season long.

And all fans requested is a flashback or two that could actually show the way Echo changed.

Instead, The 100 glossed over it with a simple, “She changed because we said so,” and then continued on their journey for her without any context.

Until now.

Except for the flashback they did include was just a way to take everything the audience requested and make it the exact opposite, completely missing the point in the process.

Instead, they brought back Bob Morley and shaved him (another request fans voiced before) just so he could play a supporting role in someone else’s storyline.

It felt useless, and it was a little insulting that since they can ask Bob to film again, the only thing they could utilize his skills for is that. That isn’t to say Bob doesn’t carry the entire scene like he always does, but why should he?

Why is Bob seemingly useful to the show only when it relates to someone else’s memory of Bellamy? He is the literal male lead, and he is treated like a guest star.

And for what?

It didn’t add any context for how Echo changed, which this episode proved she never actually did.

Bellamy spent the entire time looking down at Echo and slightly insulting her inability to be genuine because she falls back to shifting based on the group she is with at the time.

They threw in a kissing scene because the remaining audience that is only in it for Bellamy and Clarke wants nothing more than to see that, right? Stir the pot, but what does that say about how the show is valuing the fans

In short, The 100 wants us to know that it doesn’t find any value in their fans.

Reducing Clarke and Bellamy, creating a stagnant storyline for episodes to come that doesn’t focus on any preexisting essence of the show, and all the continuous insults at the audience in the dialogue, all of that shows a disconnect.

But it is now getting embarrassing that The 100 is so disinterested in its viewers and their opinions that they seem to be actively writing content to interact with those opinions.

It is two seasons too late to have most of the conversations this episode was trying to bring up. But even worse, the context we did get further proved that The 100 never understood the issues that existed during Season 5.

Or maybe they just don’t care. 

It’s chilling to feel like the show is going out of its way not to honor those that have followed its trajectory from Day 1, but here we are.

Maybe the real acceptable loss on The 100 wasn’t any specific character; maybe it was just the audience. 

Stray Thoughts

• For any The 100 fans looking for some nostalgia as the series concludes, TV Fanatic has a surprise interview series for you! “Looking Back On The 100” centers on monumental cast members and characters from the show that left their mark. 

  We spoke with Eli Goree about his time on the show, as well as Michael Beach about the journey he had, and we even took a walk down memory lane with Christopher Larkin and Aaron Ginsburg. We even checked in with Zach McGowan about that surprise return to the show. We also spoke with Leah Gibson about #GinaWasReal and her experience on the show. 

  Keep checking TV Fanatic for more upcoming interviews with surprise cast members from seasons past!

• Nelson’s real name is Sachin, and that’s all I am going to say about that.

• Octavia finally talked about her hurting Bellamy, and how he let her when he shouldn’t have. This is the only discourse I will accept into my home, even if it is about four seasons too late and with no Bellamy in sight to hear her say that. 

  Still, it was important to have her address it, and I appreciate that even if the show isn’t investing in Octavia as much in the present time that they are still showing us her growth. 

• In case you missed it, there is a Memori Baby Theory out there, and you can now consider me fully aboard that train. 

• There are so many questions about Murphy after this episode. Where did he learn to play chess? Especially since he called one of the pieces a “castle,” he isn’t exactly well versed in the game.

  And then there is the way he taunted Sheidheda about Lexa and the history of the Commanders. It felt like opinions that Murphy couldn’t have access to unless Ontari somehow filled him in without the flame.

  It seems a little strange that Murphy would know all this information unless it was a way to mention Lexa so that Sheidheda would get upset. 

• Lola Flanery is always such a delight, but I am curious about her wardrobe as Madi. It might be a way to age her down compared to every else, but that doesn’t need to be the case.

• Speaking of Madi, can Jackson tell me where he got his degree to practice in every kind of medical field? I’m asking for a friend. 

• Are we still meant to assume that Bob Morley asked for time off? If so, why did he return for one scene during The 100 Season 7 Episode 5 and then only appeared again for a flashback episode to contribute to someone else’s storyline?

  Someday it won’t always feel like Bellamy exists only for those around him instead of himself. Today is not that day.

• Anders mentions that he knows about Gabriel from Octavia’s memories. But Octavia only showed Levitt until a certain point on Earth, and she was following his instructions about making sure they don’t get anything else from her.

  Was Octavia not able to keep them out of her mind, and they got all the memories? Did Levitt lie? Or did the show forget its own mythology? Only time will tell.

• Theory Time: What if Levitt was right and people can exist above this Bardo bunker? What if Levitt was sending Octavia up there because that is where they are hiding Bellamy? Just a thought. 

• We have a “body,” so I guess Orlando is dead. Maybe.

  It was fitting to only have Gabriel say goodbye to him, though. Out of all of them, he pushed back the most about leaving Orlando like that. Gabriel didn’t want to make that choice, and he was the only one who still seems to care about the pain they must have caused him. 

  But you have to wonder if Orlando knew that they couldn’t be trusted since he left out so much information when he taught them about Bardo.

• Echo’s new look is meant to be the Azgeda warpaint, but then what about that white panda look from before? Also, did anyone else get Lexa warpaint vibes? 

  The sentiment makes sense, but hopefully, Echo doesn’t need to harm herself next time to prepare for battle.

• This needs to be said more than once; The 100 really missed the chance to let Marie Avgeropoulos show off her acting and to explore Octavia’s love for her brother. It is so unfortunate because even when she was simply there to support Echo she was blowing it out of the water, so why not allow her to have more?

  It is her brother that she lost. 

• Eliza Taylor deserves another round of applause because she doesn’t need to have an abundance of material to make it all jump off the screen. But at the same time, this better kickstart the beginning of the screentime she deserves and has been lacking. 

• This is also a reminder that Gabriel Santiago is too good for the Bardo world. For any world. 

• Sheidheda wanted to be resurrected so badly, but that honor went to Bill Cadogan. In a hilarious introduction, he has already carved out space for himself, and just in time for the prequel.

  But I do want it on record that I think Sheidheda and Cadogan need to face off soon.

• Let us again compliment the effortless way in which JR Bourne keeps killing it every week. Putting him against Richard Harmon was such a great idea because both of these actors are so good that they bring a new level of epic to their scenes. 

  It’s really nice to get to see actors in their element, and the way some of these pair-offs only made the actors in them stronger. 

• Hope calling Dev her dad actually made me really soft.

What did you think of this episode? What do you think about that Cadogan reveal? Were you shocked?

How much did you enjoy Lindsey Morgan’s turn at directing? What was your favorite aspect of her style behind the screen?

How much are you still missing Bellamy Blake? How much do you wish Clarke Griffin mattered more to her own show?

On a scale of 1 to 10, how hurt were you seeing Clarke find out about Bellamy? How much do you love and support Gabriel’s venture in Bardo? Were you more about Diyoza and Hope or Echo and Octavia? Do you trust Nelson or not?

Do we think Anders was confused by Echo’s performance stunt or very confused? How big of a fanboy do we think Anders is when it comes to Bill? Who else is loving all the outfits Octavia has been in so far?

Let us know what you think below!

Stick around for more interviews, features, slideshows, and reviews of the upcoming season, and watch The 100 online right here on TV Fanatic.

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Yana Grebenyuk is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.