In the seventh episode of the third season of\u00c2\u00a0The 100<\/i>, sigh. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0The 100<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For discussion of homophobia, queerbaiting, me yelling about sad gays.<\/b><\/p>\n
Did Joss Whedon write this episode? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know whose decision is was to stage one of the most absurdly offensive scenes I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever seen, so I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really care to lay blame here. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll just yell at the show as a whole for making a decision that is painful and nonsensical and enraging. Because seriously, this is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Seeing Red\u00e2\u20ac\u009d all over again, yet YEARS later, and EVEN MORE EGREGIOUSLY OFFENSIVE.<\/p>\n
Look, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be mad if any show killed off a LGBT character because there are so few of us. That shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be surprising; the Bury Your Gays trope is one I have spoken of countless times on this site. But the sheer audacity of this show to kill off Lexa\u00c2\u00a0after she has sex with Clarke<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0is just\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 jesus fucking christ.<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sensitive. I know that. This episode aired on March 3, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m watching it after Orlando, and it hurts. It hurts so much and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not something the people running this could have known necessarily, but the truth is that we\u00c2\u00a0do<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0die. We are shot by people who think that our relationships are not healthy or that they aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t right, and the fact that this show included a character saying that kind of shit before accidentally shooting a lesbian is just\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 god, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so callous and ridiculous and gross. The same show that can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t show Miller and his boyfriend kissing goodbye, or that cuts away from Clarke and Lexa\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sex scene\u00c2\u00a0can<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0show her gratuitous and bloody death. And it feels like salt in the wound.<\/p>\n
I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know shit about how this went down in fandom, what happened in the lead-up to this, or what the writers said in response. I imagine that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a reason that my Tumblr and Facebook dash was so completely full of things I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t read, though. My god, how many times does this happen? Hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it happened a lot this year? Didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t we just deal with this on\u00c2\u00a0Supernatural<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0last year? I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t possibly believe that the people running shows can claim to be ignorant of this trope anymore. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 2016. Knock it the fuck off.<\/p>\n
So, new rule: no one under the LGBT or queer banners is allowed to be killed off on any show for a year. The end. After that year is up, we add another year just for good measure. Writers, figure out a way to build tension or reveal new plots or provide emotional motivation without our deaths. The end, thank you.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a much larger issue here, one I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m frankly tired of writing about. I cannot say the same thing twenty different ways. But there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also a very tiny, insignificant issue here as well: this episode was actually pretty damn good before it was flushed down the toilet in the end. No Pike plot, and instead, an ambitious (if at times confusing) flashback to explain where Alie came from and why her plot is\u00c2\u00a0actually<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0way more important than anything dealing with wars or clan battles or Grounders. I never thought we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d get scenes aboard a space station again, and they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re SO GOOD.<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clear that the show is trying to jam this new mythology into the existing one. Sometimes, it works. Sometimes, it feels strange. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t recall seeing a single infinity symbol in seasons one and two, nor do I remember any discussion of the religion of people like Titus outside of season 3.\u00c2\u00a0That<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0stuff feels clumsy, like a retcon forced into the show to get the writers from point A to point B.<\/p>\n
But telling the real truth of how the Earth was destroyed was far more compelling. I loved seeing Roger Cross appear as the unnamed commander of\u00c2\u00a0Polaris<\/i>, and I loved that this felt like a classic science fiction tale. Becca is a character who is desperate and fierce, but she doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel hollow. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s someone operating under an intense guilt and shame for creating the AI that obliterated the world. It made perfect sense to me that she would behave irrationally in order to atone for what she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d done, and that includes risking the lives of her commander and fellow scientist. That doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a good person for doing so, and I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pretty clear she fucked\u00c2\u00a0everything\u00c2\u00a0<\/i>up. (Though I still don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand why the rest of the Ark fired on\u00c2\u00a0Polaris<\/i>. Why? That confused me.)<\/p>\n
So, now the Grounders have worshipped Becca \u00e2\u20ac\u201c called the Commander due to the word on her space suit \u00e2\u20ac\u201c who brought\u00c2\u00a0ALIE 2.0 to Earth in her own body. It explains the Nightbloods, too, who must contain part of the AI themselves\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 maybe? How did they get the black blood? How did that AI chip get from Becca to the first commander? How did this morph into a cultural mythology? Those people that found Becca must have known about modern technology or space flight or any of those things, so how did this become a\u00c2\u00a0religion<\/i>?<\/p>\n
I hope those questions are answered soon.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m still mad about Lexa. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be mad about it for a while.<\/p>\n
The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Thirteen\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded\u00c2\u00a0here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – I am now on Patreon<\/a>! There are various levels of support, from $1 up to whatever you want! You’ll get to read a private blog, extra reviews, and other such rewards.<\/b> In the seventh episode of the third season of\u00c2\u00a0The 100, sigh. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0The 100.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[643],"tags":[644],"class_list":["post-5688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-100","tag-mark-watches-the-100"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5688\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n– I\u00c2\u00a0will be at numerous conventions in 2016! Check the full list of events on my Tour Dates \/ Appearances page.<\/a>
\n– My Master Schedule<\/a> is updated for the near and distant future for most projects, so please check it often.\u00c2\u00a0My next Double Features for Mark Watches have been announced here.<\/a>
\n<\/b>-\u00c2\u00a0Mark Does Stuff is on Facebook!<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0I’ve got a community page up that I’m running. Guaranteed shenanigans!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"