Recap / The 100 S 01 E 013

Back To Recap Page

Season 1 Episode 13

We Are Grounders Part 2

Mount Weather Quarantine Ward

In the drop ship at the camp, Clarke cauterizes Raven's gunshot wound caused by Murphy. Bellamy flips through Lincoln's journal and comes to a drawing of a Reaper and asks if the Reapers might help them fight the incoming Grounders. Clarke tells him it is not an option. She then tells Raven that she cannot walk with the bullet still inside her and Finn goes to get a gurney. Bellamy calls Finn a coward for wanting to leave and Clarke interrupts, telling them it is time to go. Finn leaves and Clarke tells Bellamy she needs Bellamy with them because the Delinquents are willing to fight and die for Bellamy. Outside, on their way out of the camp, Bellamy mentions there are eighteen dead and Clarke tells him there are eighty-two people who are still alive and they did good.

Later, after the delinquents have begun their march to the sea, Octavia brings everyone to a halt, sensing something. A blade comes flying out through the trees and embeds in Drew's head. Jasper screams out, "Grounders!" and all of the delinquents flee back behind the walls of the camp. Clarke realizes that they are doing exactly what the Grounders want them to do: returning to the camp so that they are back in place for the assault. With the Grounder scouts already outside, Clarke realizes it is not safe for them to try and leave camp again and they need to stay and fight. Bellamy tells the gunners to get to their posts and to close the gates. Octavia takes off with the gunners and Bellamy stops her, telling her she's not a gunner. She tells him she's a Grounder, like he said.

Later, inside the drop ship, Bellamy and Raven tell Clarke and Finn that the main entrance road has been booby-trapped with landmines and that Raven has built a couple of grenades. Bellamy plans to keep the Grounders at bay using guns, grenades, and the landmines to hold the gate. Raven notes that if the Grounders get through the gate, they will have to hide inside the dropship and close the door and pray. Clarke suggests using the remaining rocket fuel from the drop ship to fire the rockets once the Grounders have surrounded the drop ship, which would burn the Grounders alive. Raven says she can do it.

On the Ark, Sinclair informs Jaha, Kane, and the other inhabitants of the Ark about the workings and possible consequences of bringing the Ark to Earth, explaining that some parts of the Ark will be destroyed when entering the atmosphere along with the people inside. Jaha tells the Station Representatives that they have no other choice if they do not want them all to die.

Back on Earth, Clarke and Finn are underneath the drop ship, looking for it's ignition system, when Raven reveals that she cannot feel her legs anymore. Clarke discovers that the bullet is in Raven’s spine and that she is bleeding internally. Finn suggests going to Lincoln's cave to get some of the coagulant stuff the Grounders use and leaves to go get it.

On the Ark, everyone is strapped into different stations of the Ark. Jaha gives the Traveler's Blessing across the PA and tells Sinclair to begin their journey back to earth. Sinclair tries to remotely separate the Ark’s stations from GoSci and the Earth Monitoring Station with explosives so they can then use the Ark’s thrusters to blast them towards Earth, but the remote detonation fails. Sinclair informs Jaha that someone will have to manually detonate the bombs and stay behind. Kane volunteers and is ready to leave. Abby asks how much air Kane will have. Sinclair tells her that Kane will have one week, two weeks at most. Suddenly, the bombs explode, shaking the Ark. Jaha tells Abby from Earth Monitoring Station that she will see her daughter soon. The Ark’s stations separate from GoSci and head for Earth as the thrusters activate.

On the outside of the camp, Grounders start to appear. Bellamy joins Miller and Monroe in a foxhole as other gunners start reporting Grounders moving across their lines of vision. Bellamy then sees Grounders moving around and Monroe and Miller start firing as Bellamy tells them to hold their fire but they are already out of ammo. Meanwhile, Clarke searches for an orange wire that is the drop ship's ignition. When Clarke finds the wire she discovers it to be broken. Raven asks Clarke if she knows how to splice a wire. Over the walkie-talkie Jasper informs Raven and Clarke that the landmines are working. Raven realizes Jasper can splice a wire. Clarke calls for Jasper to get to the drop ship. Outside, in the west fox hole, Jasper realizes the Grounders are drawing their fire to deplete their ammunition and he tells the gunners to stop firing. Bellamy orders the gunners to not shoot unless the Grounders are directly attacking.

In the woods, the Grounder troops lead by Tristan and Anya have one of the walkie-talkies and hears Bellamy’s commands while they have Murphy tied to a tree. The Grounder general, Tristan, stabs Murphy in the leg for not telling him about the mine field, and decides to go in for the attack. When the Grounders finally attack their foxhole, Monroe flees, Miller is hit in the shoulder with a spear, and Bellamy is knocked down. The Grounder who knocked Bellamy down tries to choke him but his head is impaled by a sword as Octavia saves Bellamy. Octavia is hit in the thigh with an arrow quickly after and Bellamy tries to carry her back to the drop ship.

Finn gets to Lincoln’s cave and looks for the coagulant. Lincoln appears and gives him the coagulant and hears the battle over the radio. He decides to go with Finn to the camp. Finn sees one of Lincoln’s sketches of a Reaper and is reminded of Bellamy's idea to use them.

Clarke and Jasper are underneath the drop ship and Clarke asks Raven to repeat the direction but receives no response. When Clarke goes to check on her, she sees Raven has lost consciousness. One of the gunners announces through the walkie-talkie that the Grounders have broken through, Clarke tells Jasper to finish the wiring of the ignition system while she goes outside to check out the situation. She tells the gunners they need more time and to stay at their posts and hold off the Grounders while the others get inside the drop ship. A bright light suddenly lights up the night sky, distracting everyone on the ground. Clarke realizes that it is the Ark, entering the atmosphere. One of the Ark stations explodes, killing everyone inside.

Finn and Lincoln arrive back at the camp, having lead the Reapers to Anya and Tristan and the other Grounder warriors outside the camp. The Reapers and Grounders engage in a violent battle as Finn escapes into the camp through the tunnel entrance.

Lincoln comes across Octavia and Bellamy, and says he can help her but they must leave now. Bellamy tells Octavia that his life did not end when Octavia was born, but that it hadn't started until then. Bellamy tells Lincoln to keep Octavia safe. Lincoln carries a crying Octavia away while Bellamy hides behind a tree near the battling Grounders and Reapers. Anya, Tristan, and their warriors succeed in killing the Reapers and they turn toward the camp's wall.

Inside the drop ship, Clarke injects Raven with the coagulant. Miller comes in and informs them that the Grounders are taking down the gate. Jasper announces that he is ready with the ignition system. The Grounders breach the gate and Clarke yells at the people outside to get inside the drop ship. Bellamy returns through the secret entrance but sees Tristan slaughtering the delinquents. He picks up a gun but there are no bullets and Tristan begins attacking him. Finn grabs a gun and runs to Bellamy's aid but the two of them are left outside while Clarke reluctantly goes inside the drop ship and closes the door as the Grounders breach the camp. Anya, however, quickly jumps over the door and is locked inside with the delinquents. Anya stands, ready to fight the delinquents with two blades. Clarke tells Jasper to push the button but it doesn't work. Outside, the Grounders are making their way up the sides of the drop ship while Anya begins to attack. She is easily overpowered by the numerous delinquents as Clarke stops Miller from killing Anya by reminding them they are not Grounders. Jasper realizes he forgot the magnet and reroutes the connection through a magnet, blasting the drop ship's rockets, incinerating the Grounders outside.

Up in space in the remnants of the Ark, Jaha attempts to contact any surviving stations and is able to reach Abby on Mecha Station who was with Kane and Sinclair . She tells them they landed successfully and goes outside and describes her experience of the Earth to an emotional Jaha. Kane joins her outside and spots smoke in the distance in the mountains. Abby thinks it may be one of the other stations and Jaha advises her to go check it out. Jaha then goes out to the airlock and watches Earth as he uncorks a bottle of liquor named “The Baton," which is “To be opened on Earth”, and opens it up, saying “this’ll have to do”. Jaha, alone on the Ark and having only one or two weeks left of oxygen, toasts to the survivors of the Ark, saying “may we meet again."

The delinquents and a bound Anya leave the drop ship to find the ashes and skeletons that were a result of the rockets’ ignition. All of a sudden, several red smoke grenades are thrown over the camp’s walls, and Anya says fearfully, "Mountain Men," as the red smoke begins to knock out the Delinquents and Anya. Clarke's last image is of several men in gas masks and military outfits with laser-sighted rifles enter the camp and a Mountain Man pointing his gun and laser at her.

Clarke awakens in a completely white room where she is being monitored. It is furnished with a bed, a toilet, a couch, and several other items. She is wearing a white tank top, white pants, no shoes, and has an IV stuck inside her, which she immediately pulls out. On the wall, Clarke notices Vincent van Gogh's "The Starry Night". She then goes to the locked door and sees Monty banging on the door of a similar room across the hall but his door is also locked. A plaque on Monty’s side of the hall says "Mount Weather Quarantine Ward".

Tropes

• The Ace: Raven and Clarke have a brief discussion on how they are both a form of this, with Raven concluding that her injury has turned her into the Broken Ace. Clarke disagrees.
• Annoying Arrows: Octavia takes one to her leg after saving Bellamy.
• Arc Words: Two instances.
  • Jaha recites the Traveler's Blessing to everyone on the Ark as they prepare to separate. A few of the 100 say the end of it several times. Jaha says the end when toasting the Earth out of a viewport from the Ark.
  • Lincoln repeats the Grounder phrase "Your fight is over."
• Artistic License – Medicine: Averted, refreshingly. With next to no medical supplies, Clarke can do very little to help Raven besides stop the external bleeding, and is adamant that Raven remain immobilized in a stretcher so she doesn't do any more damage by walking. This turns out to be completely justified when Raven loses feeling in her legs after they are forced the ditch the stretcher in a hurry and help her limp away.
• Artistic License – Physics: Played straight. It is highly improbably that anyone on the Ark would survive the Colony Drop at the conclusion, as it is basically at this point a giant tin can hurtling at the Earth, and would (and does) breakup on reentry. Sinclair handwaves this as saying the remaining maneuvering thrusters will help slow their descent, targeting the speed to 70 mph. However, at that speed in reality it is unlikely anyone would still survive, as the Ark isn't designed to absorb that kind of impact (like a car is for example). Remember, the Drop Ship had a parachute and landing thrusters, and two people still died on impact.
• Batman Gambit: Finn and Lincoln's plan to draw the Reapers to fight the Grounders involves running ahead of the Reapers and directly at the Grounders, hoping to duck away before either gets to close. They succeed.
• Book Ends: Clarke ends the season in a very similar place to where she began: Terrified, and locked in a cell of a technologically advanced base, with a picture of the night sky by her bed. In the original, she was in a jail cell on the Ark, and thinking she was about to be floated. Here, she's in a quarantine ward of Mount Weather, with an honest-to-goodness copy of Van Gogh's "Starry Night", and no idea why she is there or what her captors want.
• Callback:
  • To the pilot. The 100 had pretty much forgotten about Mount Weather, as the Grounders appeared to be guarding the path to it. Turns out, Mount Weather didn't forget about them.
  • Abby and Kane have a similar, if more subdued, joyful reaction to landing on Earth that the 100 did.
  • Jaha pulls out The Baton bottle of Scotch again, and finally drinks some.
• Cliffhanger: The episode ends with Monty and Clarke captured and locked in Mount Weather by an unfamiliar force.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Offscreen, Murphy is recaptured by the Grounders. Tristan stabs him in the leg for not warning them of the mine field surround the Drop Ship.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: The Drop Ship barbecues most of the Grounder army using its thrusters. The results in multiple people being burned to a crisp, with at least one surviving long enough to run and scream in agony as he burns.
• Death Seeker: Jaha is still very much this, and even Kane gets in on the act. In the end, Jaha basically condemns himself to a slow death from suffocation on the Go-Sci Ring, but takes comfort in the fact that he will see Wells again.
• Dirty Coward: Bellamy accuses Finn of being this, after he and Clarke convince the remaining delinquents to abandon the camp. Although, based on all we've seen, Finn is anything but this.
• Dwindling Party: Bellamy states that 18 delinquents are dead at the start of the episode, with 82 left (not counting himself and Raven this adds up). 28 more die during the ensuing battle, meaning there are only 56 left.
• Enemy Mine: Invoked by Bellamy, hoping to ally with the Reapers. Clarke shoots him down, saying they can't be reasoned with. However, Finn remembers Bellamy's words, and teams up with Lincoln to make the Reapers to fight the Grounders by luring them to the camp.
• Exact Words: The show had previously let viewers assume that the Mountain Men were rugged and wild fighters like the Grounders and Reapers, given the connotations of the name. They're technologically advanced capture team from the Mount Weather Observatory.
• Heal It With Fire: Clarke treats Raven by burning the bullet wound shut. However, she admits this will do nothing about any of Raven's internal injuries, which are extensive.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Kane has a go at detonating the explosives on the Go-Sci Ring, but Jaha beats him to it while Kane is saying goodbye.
• I Can't Feel My Legs!: Said verbatim by Raven, showing that her internal injuries are slowly worsening.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: The unseen Grounder who kills Drew hits him in the face with an axe from at least 30 feet away, without anyone actually seeing him do it. Lampshaded by Jasper.
  Jasper: (That's) one Grounder with insanely good aim.
• Instantly Proven Wrong: Clarke and Finn make a big deal in the prologue out of abandoning the camp, with Bellamy arguing that this is and incredibly stupid move, as the camp is at least partially defensible, and them insisting it's the only way to survive. After finally convincing him, we get a dramatic shot of everyone leaving the camp, and Bellamy extinguishing the last campfire. By the time the opening titles have finished, everyone has been forced back into the camp after a Grounder attack.
• Ironic Echo: Bellamy repeats his statement that his life ended the day Octavia was born, but clarifies that it didn't actually start until then.
• I Will Only Slow You Down: Octavia tries to pull this when she is shot with an arrow, asking Bellamy to leave her behind. Luckily, the much stronger Lincoln arrives and is able to get her to safety.
• Knockout Gas: The Mountain Men use it to ambush the remaining delinquents as they exit the Drop Ship.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Clarke has a brief moment of this when it looks like she killed Finn and Bellamy with the Ark thrusters. The Mountain Men show up and knock her out before she can properly process it though.
• Negated Moment of Awesome: Four times:
  • Jaha recites the Traveler's Blessing and then orders Sinclair to detonate the explosives. Sinclair does. Nothing happens. He then realizes someone will have to do so manually.
  • Kane immediately volunteers and starts saying goodbye to people, but Jaha beats him to it.
  • Anya jumps into the Drop Ship as the door is closing, and is immediately taken prisoner with multiple guns on her. Miller promptly cold cocks her with the butt of his rifle.
  • Jasper fails to trigger the thrusters on the first attempt.
• No One Gets Left Behind: Subverted. Clarke has this mentality all the way up until having to close the Drop Ship door. Faced with abandoning Finn and Bellamy outside to the Grounders, or delaying to save them and possibly letting the Grounders inside, she chooses the former and leaves them outside.
• Oh, Crap!: Everyone gets a massive one when Drew gets an axe to the face, completely out of nowhere.
  Jasper: GROOUUNN-DERRRSSS!!!
• Outside-Context Villain: The residents of Mount Weather appear to be this, having actual technology to fight the 100 and the Grounders, and being completely mysterious in their motives.
• The Plan: Two:
  • On the ground, Bellamy already had a defense of the camp planned, although he admits all they can do is stall the Grounders and retreat to the Drop Ship, as they don't have enough ammunition, grenades, or mines to truly stop the army. Clarke and Raven figure out and addendum: Once they retreat into the ship, fire the remaining thrusters and use the explosion to kill the surrounding Grounders. They just have to stall them long enough for the injured Raven to rewire the circuitry. It works, but not without help from Finn and Lincoln softening up the Grounders with the Reapers. They also suffer at least 27 casualties.
  • On the Ark, Sinclair devises the plan to bring the Ark to the ground. Using explosions, they sever all the stations from the Go-Sci Ring, and use the thrusters to maneuver and degrade their orbit. Upon reentry, the remaining stations will separate, and some will explode (but they can't predict which). However, someone has to stay behind to trigger the explosions, deliberately marooning themselves on the Go-Sci Ring without hope of escape. Jaha volunteers and it works, although a lot of people still die.
• Properly Paranoid: Bellamy training the gunners to defend the camp and establishing discipline, despite his somewhat harsh training methods, turn out to be completely justified. The only reason anyone survives is because the gunners are able to hold off the Grounders long enough for a retreat into the Drop Ship.
• Race Against the Clock: The 100 have to hold off the Grounders long enough for Raven to rewire the Drop Ship to fire the thrusters, which she has verbally instruct Jasper and Clarke how to do before passing out from blood loss.
• Redemption Equals Death: Kane and Jaha both think so, and both thus try to make a Heroic Sacrifice. Jaha succeeds, although he's still alive by the end, just trapped in space.
• The Reveal: There is a technologically advanced group of humans, who survived the nuclear apocalypse, living in Mount Weather. They were the ones who abducted Monty two episodes ago, and here they abduct more of the 100, including Clarke. These are the ones Anya and Lincoln referred to as the "Mountain Men".
• Sequel Hook: After just barely managing to defeat the Grounder army send to kill them the Mountain Men appear and knock out the delinquents in the dropship. Clarke then awakens inside a holding cell within Mount Weather.
• Shout-Out:
  • One of the Grounders lets out a Wilhelm Scream when they accidentally trigger one of Raven's mines.
  • One of the 100 yells Game over, man! over the radio.
  • Clarke's cell has a copy (possibly the original) of Van Gogh's Starry Night in her cell.
• Someone Has to Die: When the remote detonation fails, Sinclair comes to this conclusion. If they wait for him to reprogram the computer to do it remotely, then, assuming it's successful, they will have missed the window the rendezvous with the 100 and won't even land in what was the Eastern US, and they can't wait until the window is open again because they will run out of air. Someone has to stay behind and trigger it remotely.
• Take Up My Sword: Done literally with Octavia, who starts wearing Lincoln's sword in honor of him, thinking he was killed by the Reapers. She promptly takes a level in Badass with it. However, it turns out Lincoln's even more badass than anyone gave him credit for, and improbably survived.
  Octavia: (To Bellamy) Admit it, you want one.
• Tragic Dream: The Red Shirt named Drew states that the first thing he intends to do when he gets to the beach is go surfing. Not 15 sends later, he gets an axe to the head and dies instantly.
• A Truce While We Gawk: Twice:
  • Both Grounders and the 100 briefly pause the battle to watch the Ark's descent.
  • Both Grounders and Reapers pause when the Reapers unexpectedly arrive, neither expecting the other. Then they attack.
• Wham Episode: The Ark arrives on Earth and Clark and the others are taken by people in gas masks and wake up in white rooms in the Mount Weather Quarantine Ward. Raven was last seen passed out from blood loss and unable to feel her legs. Finn and Bellamy appear to have been killed by the Drop Ship's thrusters, Lincoln and Octavia have escaped to parts unknown, and Jaha is marooned on the Go-Sci Ring with no means of escape and only 2 weeks of oxygen left.