Recap / The 100 S 02 E 07

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Season 2 Episode 7

Long into an Abyss

These two finally meet.

Lexa:"You're the one who burned three hundred of my warriors alive."

Clarke:"You're the one who sent them there to kill us."

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Keenan Mykulak awakens to find herself outside Mount Weather; however, she is not burning from the radiation. She is being monitored on a camera by Dr. Lorelei Tsing and Cage Wallace. At first, she appears to be doing well, but after four minutes and ten seconds have passed, her skin starts blistering and she begs to be let back inside. Dr. Tsing persuades Cage to leave her out there to die so they can get the full results of their experiment as well as prevent Keenan from telling anyone what they are up to.

Abby and Jaha are discussing their options of what to do about the Commander's ultimatum. Abby wants to rescue the kids in Mount Weather but Jaha wants to flee. Major Byrne interrupts and tells Abby that the rest of the Sky People are getting restless and need to hear a word from their Chancellor.

Abby tells everyone at Camp Jaha that, yes, the Grounders have threatened them but they haven't made any decisions yet. Jaha tells everyone to pack and be ready to leave if they need to. He will lead them across the Dead Zone and to the City of Light. Clarke interrupts and asks about the Delinquents still trapped in Mount Weather. Abby tells everyone that no decision has been made yet and they should all report to their station supervisors. As the meeting is breaking up, Bellamy grabs Clarke and tells her she needs to bring a med kit and go with him to the dropship. When Clarke arrives at the dropship, she sees Octavia and a chained-up Lincoln, who had been turned into a Reaper by Cage.

In the Mount Weather dorms, the Delinquents are discussing their dire situation. Monty says they can't keep waiting for Clarke to come rescue them. Jasper agrees and says it is time for them to be the criminals they are and find out the truth.

Back at the dropship, Clarke inspects Lincoln and discovers needle marks on his neck. Lincoln manages to break free and begins attacking everyone until Octavia is able to knock him out again.

David Miller tells Abby that he is not leaving Camp Jaha without his son. Abby tells him to pack his things and report to Major Byrne because she wants everyone out of camp by dawn.

Dr. Tsing is reviewing Keenan's blood results and discovers that the Mountain Men might be able to achieve full immunity if they go to the source of the blood: bone marrow. There are 382 residents in Mount Weather and only 47 Delinquents, meaning that after eight bone marrow operations each, the Delinquents would be dead. She tells Cage that he needs to convince Dante Wallace to move forward with the plan.

Lincoln has been restrained again as Clarke tries to remove the bullet from his leg where Octavia had shot him. Octavia tries to give Lincoln some water and he thrashes at her, upsetting her. She goes outside to get more water and spots a white flower in the tree, the same flower that Lincoln used to leave for her. Nyko appears and warns her that the Commander is on her way and Octavia needs to leave. They then hear Lincoln in the dropship and Octavia brings Nyko to him. Lincoln begins seizing and Nyko kneels down with a vial to give to Lincoln. As he is holding the medicine over Lincoln's lips, he says, "Yu gonplei ste odon" ("Your fight is over"). Clarke recognizes the words from when Anya had said them and stops him from mercy-killing Lincoln. Nyko tells her that death is the only way just as Finn appears to warn them that everyone in Camp Jaha is about to leave. When Nyko sees Finn, he attacks him and strangles him for slaughtering his village. Clarke uses an Ark Guard's shock baton to knock Nyko off Finn just as Octavia realizes that Lincoln has stopped breathing. Nyko watches in awe as Clarke gives Lincoln chest compressions and gets him to breathe again. Clarke realizes that the Grounders have been trying to bring Reapers back but have never been able to do so and she can use that to her advantage to stop the attack.

Clarke goes down to the second level of the drop ship where Finn has been waiting alone. Finn tells her that even if Lincoln lives, he won't be the same. Clarke tells Finn that both he and Lincoln are savable.

Back at Mount Weather, Monty, Harper, Jasper, and Miller break into Dante's office and snoop around.

In Camp Jaha, everyone is preparing to evacuate when Clarke arrives and tells Abby that she knows how to stop the Grounder threat. In the distance, lights start to appear in the darkness of the night and everyone realizes the Grounder army has arrived. Jaha tries to take control of the situation and force the Exodus but Abby stands her ground. Jaha tells David Miller and Byrne to arrest Abby but they only listen when Abby tells them to put Jaha in the stockade. Abby then decides to head back to the drop ship to save Lincoln while Clarke goes to talk to the Commander.

While in Dante's office, Monty, Jasper, Miller, and Harper discover engineering schematics for Mount Weather as well as pictures of Camp Jaha.

Clarke approaches the Grounder camp outside Camp Jaha and is stopped by Gustus who warns her he'll slit her throat at the slightest provocation. Clarke enters the Commander's tent and meets Commander Lexa who is seated on a throne with Indra on one side. Clarke tells Lexa about Mount Weather and about how she and Anya escaped together. She presents Lexa with a braid from Anya's hair. Clarke lies and claims that they can turn the Reapers back into Grounders because she has done it with Lincoln. Lexa demands Clarke to prove it.

Outside Mount Weather, Cage and Dante are in hazmat suits when Cage removes his mask and tells his father to do the same. The Delinquents' blood has given them temporary immunity and Cage wants his father's approval to proceed with the bone marrow. Dante refuses, telling Cage that they have already corrupted their legacy as the history keepers by what they have done to the Grounders and he will not go further.

Abby arrives at the dropship and gives Lincoln a shot to bring down his fever when he starts convulsing again. He stops breathing and Abby begins chest compressions. Clarke is leading Lexa and her guard through the carnage outside the dropship while Abby is trying to get Lincoln breathing again. Abby finally gives up and says that Lincoln is gone. Octavia refuses to believe her and continues chest compressions. Clarke and everyone else enters at that moment and they are at a standstill with everyone going for their weapons. Abby picks up the shock baton and holds it in front of her before using it as a defibrillator on Lincoln, shocking him twice before he starts breathing again, much to the Grounders' surprise and the Sky Peoples' relief.

In the dorms, Miller and Monty are discussing the possibility of their parents being on Earth since they were able to see Alpha Station had made it. Jasper comes up and tells them he has not seen Harper. In the Harvest Chamber, Harper is face-down on a surgery table as Dr. Tsing cuts into her hip with a scalpel. Harper begs Cage to let her go home. Dr. Tsing begins to drill into her for bone marrow and she screams in agony. Meanwhile, Dante, in his office, ponders the yellow flower picked from outside now sitting underneath a glass lid on his desk.

Clarke is back with Lexa in her tent outside Camp Jaha. Lexa tells Clarke that she is willing to have a truce as soon as Finn dies.

Tropes

• Both Sides Have a Point: Jaha and Abby argue over what to do with Lexa's ultimatum. Abby argues that if they leave, they will be abandoning Kane and the 47 prisoners of Mount Weather to their fates. Jaha argues that the Grounders far outnumber them, and will wipe them out before they get a chance to even try to rescue the 47, and that they can attempt a rescue once they themselves have found a refuge. They come to a stalemate until Clarke finds a way to Take a Third Option.
• Cerebus Call-Back: Inverted. Lincoln's detox recalls Bellamy's torture of him for information after his capture in Season 1. However, this time they are trying to save him, not hurt him.
• Chekhov's Gun: The Ark Guardsman taser-stick is used twice before Abby successfully uses it to bring Lincoln back.
• Chekhov's Skill: Monty's status as a minor Gadgeteer Genius comes up for the first time since early Season 1. Turns out he's more of a hacker than the mechanic that Raven is, but it's enough to break into President Wallace's office and hack his laptop.
• CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable: Averted. Abby's use of it on Lincoln doesn't work, although she only attempts to use it for about a minute, when most doctors in reality wouldn't stop until after at least 30 minutes.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Keenan dies of severe radiation poisoning when Monty's blood wears off, basically burned to death by the toxic air and rain on the ground. She dies begging to be let back into Mount Weather for safety.
• Going Cold Turkey: Clarke and Abby's solution with how to treat Lincoln's Reaper-ness, once learning it is partially drug induced, is to detox him from the Red Drug and hope he comes to his senses. Turns out Mount Weather thought of this, and the drug's detox effects are lethal, but Abby circumvents this inconvenience by resuscitating him after he flat lines.
• Hiding Behind the Language Barrier: Nyko attempts this, giving Lincoln the Grounder send-off in Trig instead of English, but Clarke has heard it before and recognizes it before Nyko can kill Lincoln.
• Hope Spot: Two:
  • Keenan briefly appears to have become immune to the outside radiation after being treated with Monty's blood. She takes joy in the beauty of the ground, then begins to horrifically burn to death as the blood wears off.
  • Nyko at first seems to have a means of treating Lincoln, but Clarke deduces just in time that he is actually trying to Mercy Kill him instead.
• Internal Reveal: Several:
  • The Ark survivors learn that Mount Weather creates the Reapers, and how to cure them.
  • The 47 learn of the survival of the Ark camps.
  • The Grounders learn of Mount Weather's experiments of their fellows.
• I Owe You My Life: Nyko attempts to save Octavia's life from the approaching Grounder army as recompense for Octavia helping to save him from the Reapers.
• Jerk Ass Has A Point: Jaha is completely against trying to negotiate with Lexa with the cure for Lincoln, viewing it as a negotiating with a bluff that is likely to get them all killed. He's nearly proven right when the detox briefly kills Lincoln and Lexa orders everyone slaughtered.
• Life Imitates Art: After breaking into President Wallace's office, Jasper briefly poses like a portrait of JFK behind him.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Played with. Cage originally has no intention of letting Keenan die, and means to save her when it becomes clear that the blood treatments don't work in the long term, establishing him as a lighter shade then Dr. Tsing, who wants to let her die to cover up loose ends. But then he is easily convinced by Dr. Tsing and lets her die anyway. Then it's played completely straight when President Wallace categorically refuses to kill the 47, even if it will help the residents of Mount Weather reach the ground.
• Literary Allusion Title: An episode about the consequences of leadership fittingly gets its title from Friedrich Nietzsche.
  "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."
• Magical Defibrillator: Taken to a new level. Abby shocks Lincoln back to life after he flat-lines from detox from the Red Drug, with what basically amounts to a cross between a taser and cattle prod.
• Mercy Kill: The Grounders have no way to actually treat their fellows who have been turned into Reapers, leaving this as their only solution. Nyko tries to kill Lincoln before Octavia stops him.
• Murder by Inaction: Dr. Tsing leaves Keenan to die from radiation poisoning and convinces Cage to not let her in.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Twice:
  • Bellamy and Octavia successfully dragged an unconscious Reaper-Lincoln several miles, then up the ladder to the top of the 100's Drop Ship and restrained him.
  • Maya orchestrates a fake decontamination of the security monitoring room, giving the 47 a chance to break into President Wallace's office undetected.
• Oh, Crap!: Several:
  • A collective one from the Ark survivors when they see the signal fires from the Grounder army, showing that they are just waiting to slaughter them all come dawn.
  • All of the group attempting to save Lincoln when Indra gives the order to kill everyone.
  • Clarke, when Lexa makes clear she will only accept a truce if she is allowed to execute Finn.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Jaha is uncharacteristically loud and and aggressive this episode, as the stress of the approaching Grounder army mounts. It climaxes with a failed coup, as he tries to re-assert authority over the camp.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Lexa turns out to be this, as she takes Clarke's offer for a cease-fire in return for the cure for the Reapers seriously, and once it's proven, only demands Finn's death as justice for the deaths he caused.
• Super-Strength: Implied before, but confirmed here. The Reapers' status as Super Soldiers seems to grant them a low level form of this. Lincoln successfully breaks free of his restraints after losing a fair amount of blood and having a bullet in his leg.
• Take a Third Option: Clarke devises a plan to trade the cure for Reapers to Lexa in return for a cease-fire between the Grounders and the Ark survivors.
• Tragic Keepsake: Twice:
  • Clarke kept Anya's braid after her death. She gives it to Lexa as proof of her and Anya's brief alliance.
  • President Wallace keeps a flower he picks outside after briefly venturing out for the first time in more than 50 years with Cage after being treated by the 47's blood.
• Unwitting Test Subject: Twice:
  • Keenan Mykulak, a loyal citizen of Mount Weather, is drugged and left outside after being treated with Monty's blood, so Dr. Tsing can see how long the effects last. At first delighted by being outside, the blood wears off sooner than expected and she dies in agony.
  • Harper is kidnapped by Cage and Dr. Tsing and has a drill painfully inserted into her hip to collect her bone marrow.
• Was Once a Man: The Grounders treat the Reapers this way, and Nyko nearly euthanizes Lincoln after seeing what he has become. Lexa also speaks of them as if they are no longer human.
• We Have to Get the Bullet Out!: Played completely straight. Clarke has to dig Octavia's bullet out of Lincoln's leg, ostensibly to keep him from bleeding to death.