The 100 Review: In Case of Emergency, “DNR”

The clock is ticking toward the second nuclear apocalypse, and all of our heroes (and villains) on The 100 are searching for ways to survive and cope with it. As the time winds down, different people have reached different conclusions about how they should approach the end of the world. The one thing that they all have in common, though, is that they’re compelling and exciting. It seems like The 100 maintains a high level of intensity at all times, but hey. I’m not mad about it.

This week on The 100: The grounder clans battle over which clan gets to live in the bunker, so Clarke tries to take the decision away from them. Raven embraces her madness to face the end of the world in her own way. Jasper, Harper, and a group of people decide they want to stay behind when the world ends, leaving Monty a wreck. Octavia opts for the quiet, simple life in the end of days, but that does not last long.

As intense as this episode was, my favorite parts had to be all of the emotional goodbyes between characters. The 100 is an absolutely fearless show, so I have to be willing to believe that they would kill off any number of their main characters when the end finally comes. Could we say goodbye to Jasper, Harper, Monty, and Raven all at the same time? On this show, you can never be too sure. Still, the impending death of these characters created some fantastic character moments. Bellamy’s goodbyes to Jasper and Harper were emotional, but Monty staying back with them was even more so. Then, there’s Raven and Murphy, who have absolutely hated each other for a remarkable amount of time. Murphy apologized to Raven and let her go, because she wants to spacewalk one last time. Each of these characters gave a masterful performance, propelled by strong writing.

Then, there’s Octavia. Ever the badass, Octavia opted for a brief bout with the simple farming life. But when people recognized her and attacked, she went back to being beast mode Octavia. I’m sure that she has caused herself a lot of pain by being an assassin, but everything is much more exciting when she’s killing people. And looking forward to next week, she is SOOO going to win this 13 way cage match. No contest. I never tire of watching Marie Avgeropoulos break barriers by being a strong woman who kills first and asks questions later.

Here are a few other thoughts:

• I was really hoping that Clarke would become commander, because I’ve been anxious for Skaikru to have a commander since Octavia became Indra’s second a while back. Here’s hoping!
• As exciting as all of this battle between clans story is, it still pains me a little bit that the survival of the human race can’t get leaders of clans to act like adults instead of petulant children.
• I breathed a huge sigh of relief when Miller and company made it back to get Murphy and Emori. This show isn’t the same when Murphy is off doing his own thing.

Overall, this was another impressive installment on its way to what should be an exciting season finale. Both the action and emotional intensity seem to hit new highs every single week, which only makes tuning in that much more necessary.

What did you guys think? Did you enjoy the episode? Let us know!

The 100 airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on the CW