The episode begins with a flashback to the early days of the Sanctum expedition. Its leader goes mad and shoots his wife and daughter along with a few other members on the expedition, declaring Sanctum to be his.
In the present, the group decides to wait out the psychosis, which is caused by the airborne release of toxins caused by the eclipse, in separate groups. Although they plan to stay separated and tied up, Bellamy and Clarke are forced to release each other and tranquilize Miller and Jackson soon afterwards. However, Murphy breaks free of the restraints. Clarke hallucinates a radio call from her mother, which almost drives her to suicide before Murphy interrupts. Murphy and Clarke go to talk down Bellamy, who is increasingly affected by the psychosis. Bellamy nearly drowns Murphy before Clarke, who is still hallucinating Abby, intervenes.
Back on the ship, the awakened characters are accosted by masked individuals and locked in the mess hall. Isolated from the others, Raven awakens Diyoza, who kills two of the goons and tries to negotiate with the others. Octavia increasingly lashes out at the other survivors.
Raven, Abby, Octavia, and Jordan bring the last Sanctum resident down with them. Octavia is able to track the others to the village.
Tropes:
- Air Vent Escape: Double Subverted. Raven considers it as an option to get to the mess hall, but the air vents are too small. However, the much younger Madi is able to drop down from them to rescue Raven and Diyoza.
- Berserk Button: Octavia calls Monty a coward, which enrages Jordan. He is smart enough not to try fighting her, however.
- Big "NO!": Raven gives one of these when they find the grave with Shaw’s name on it.
- Chekhov's Gun
- Chekhov's Scalpel, which Murphy uses to cut himself out of the cuffs.
- Diyoza says she and Raven can’t get through the air vents unless they “shrink down to the size of a small child”. Offscreen, they unfreeze Madi, who is a small child and saves them when the situation on the bridge looks grim.
- Cliffhanger: Even though he survived drowning, it looks like Murphy died from being held underwater at the end of this episode.
- Continuity Nod: Quite a few:
- Murphy calls Clarke the Commander of Death, a nickname that hasn’t been used for her in a while.
- Murphy also lists off a bunch of Clarke's past transgressions, specifically the times he ended up tied up when Clarke was around.
- Clarke hallucinates her mother calling her out for the deaths of her father and Lexa, which she thinks are her fault.
- Miller thinks the bugs are inside of him and doesn’t want to die like Okiba, who died from the worms in Season 5.
- Cruel Mercy: Abby tells the people beating up Octavia to stop rather than killing her. Not to spare her, but because she has to live with becoming Blodreina.
- Death Seeker: The reaction Octavia has to Wonkru stopping their beatdown on her certainly comes across as this.
- Dizzy Cam: The Sanctum character's temporary madness is visually demarcated by odd camera angles and zooms as the camera spins around their heads.
- Driven to Suicide: Clarke’s hallucinations get her here after hearing her mother’s voice that she’ll get Madi killed, like she did to her father and Lexa.
- Genre Shift: The part of this episode set on Alpha is played like a horror movie.
- Godzilla Threshold: Raven ends up waking Diyoza to help them take back the ship.
- I'll Kill You!: Shouted by Bellamy to Clarke while under the influence of the toxins.
- Malevolent Masked Men: The people who infiltrate the ship are dressed in black neoprene with masks to match.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Some of the awakened Wonkru members beat up Octavia.
- Sanity Slippage: Experienced by everyone under the influence of toxins released during the eclipse.
- Talking Down the Suicidal: Murphy is able to temporarily talk Clarke out of killing herself, though his tact is completely lacking.Murphy: As much fun as it would be to shoot you, Bellamy would hear it.
- Tainted Veins: Murphy's blood vessels are dark for an unexplained reason, implied to be why he doesn't wake up like Clarke and Bellamy.
