The 100 EP Breaks Down Series Finale’s Biggest Moments: Humanity’s Fate, Those Epic Returns and Much More
“The Last War” reached an unexpected conclusion in Wednesday’s series finale of The 100, which put the entire human race — what’s left of it, anyway — on trial. TVLine spoke with showrunner Jason Rothenberg about the episode’s biggest developments, but first, a quick recap:
With the code in his possession, Cadogan prepared to take the ultimate test, facing a celestial “judge” who took the form of Callie. And he might have stood a chance, had Clarke not busted in and shot him from behind. (“Pencils down.”) With Cadogan indisposed, Clarke stepped up to finish the test, facing her own judge in the form of Lexa. Unfortunately, the artist formerly known as Wanheda failed, dooming all of humanity.
That’s when Raven stepped up to appeal the decision, facing her own judge in the form of Abby. Together, they watched as the Disciples clashed with the people of Sanctum, much to the judges’ dismay. Just when all hope seemed lost, Octavia convinced both sides to drop their weapons, proving to “Abby” that humans are capable of unifying. And just like that, humanity was saved. Everyone who was still alive — including Levitt and Echo, despite sustaining near-fatal wounds, and Madi and Emori, neither of whom officially died — turned into energy and transcended.
Well, everyone except for Clarke. As “Lexa” pointed out, her actions (aka killing Cadogan mid-test) carried consequences; she would never be allowed to transcend. Then came the final final twist: Clarke discovered that a small group of people (aka all of the named characters we cared about) decided not to transcend, choosing instead to remain on Earth for the rest of their days. And because none of them are able to procreate — per the rules of transcendence or whatever — they represent the very last members of the human race.
Read on for our full Q&A with Rothenberg, breaking down the “return” of Lexa and Abby, the hint of closure for Bellamy, and the moment he wishes we could have had more time to savor:
TVLINE | This show has always had strong religious undertones, but you kept it vague with this “judge” character. Did you want to avoid being too preachy?
Depending on a person’s perspective on religion, there’s certainly a religious interpretation that one can draw from the finale. That wasn’t my intention. I’m saying that we all have energy, our consciousness is energy, and our energy can neither be created nor destroyed — only transformed from one form to another. And this is the next evolution of human consciousness, to join a higher universal consciousness. It’s the science fiction explanation for where religion draws its inspiration from.
TVLINE | I still gasped when I saw Lexa, even if it wasn’t really her. How did it feel to direct Eliza Taylor and Alycia Debnam-Carey again?
It was amazing. It was so fun to have Alycia back. She’s such a good person and such a team player. I know she was really excited to be back in the make-up and costume. It was a little tricky for all of us finding the line between how much of Lexa she should bring to the performance and how much to play the judge/higher being thing that’s happening in that scene. But it was great to be there and to watch that. I’m hoping that the fans get some closure. I know that’s important to her and to me. It won’t satisfy everybody, but it was lovely to have her back.
TVLINE | “Abby” was also a fun surprise. What was your process for deciding which characters to bring back? You certainly had a long list to choose from.
It mostly came down to who was going to be facing the judges. Cadogan was first, so it made total sense that it would be Callie. Iola [Evans] flew back from London to do it and she was totally up for it. She was amazing, by the way, so I really hope we get to play with her in the prequel. We also knew that Clarke was going to come in and disrupt that test, so we thought, “Who would be the character that she would see, knowing it’s either your greatest love, your greatest teacher or your greatest enemy?” And knowing that Clarke was going to fail the test and that Raven was going to appeal the verdict, she needed the embodiment of her greatest teacher. Sinclair was definitely on the table as a thought, but Abby meant so much to her — more than her own mother, on some level. And those were the only people who faced the judges, so there wasn’t any thought about bringing anybody else back.
TVLINE | I think the fans probably hoped to see Bellamy in this episode. I certainly did. Was there any talk of bringing him back in some form?
As Levitt says to Octavia in the hallway while they’re protecting Clarke, only the living can transcend. That’s a crushingly sad moment for Octavia to realize, that Bellamy was right. That was just the rule we established for transcendence, so it didn’t make sense at that point [to bring Bellamy back].
TVLINE | Not many deaths stuck in this finale, but I have to say — it was really satisfying watching Indra blow Sheidheda to bits.
So much fun! All of those scenes in the woods during the battle took two days of shooting that probably should have taken six days. We didn’t have a lot of time to get everything done. JR Bourne and Adina Porter are such pros, they don’t need a lot of time; they’re perfect the first time out. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much time to savor [that victory], because the finale had to keep moving.
TVLINE | What’s next for Clarke and the rest of the people who chose not to transcend?
They can never procreate and they can’t transcend, so this is it for them. They’re going to live their days together as a family, grow old together, and when they die, the human race is over. It’s OK, though, because we transcended and joined the universal consciousness. So it’s a happy ending for the human race.
TVLINE | The judge agreed to spare humanity when it saw that people could learn to lay down their weapons and get along. Is that the thesis of this show, that the human race is all really Wonkru?
Yeah, that is absolutely the message of the show, simplistic as it sounds. Tribalism is bad. The whole show was dramatizing the dark side of tribalism, of killing the other guy because you’re protecting your own people, as opposed to realizing that we are all sharing this space together. We are all Wonkru on planet earth, and until we realize that, we’re doomed.
Your thoughts on The 100‘s series finale? Grade it (and the final season) below, then drop a comment with your full review. Are you satisfied with the ending?
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The ending was awful. The actors did the best they could, but they weren’t given much to worth with. I’ll never watch another JRoth show again, that’s for sure.
*work with.
A typo in my disappointment.
I cannot agree more. I should have just quit watching at the end of Season 5. I believe that the writers never had a long term plan for the show and just tried to wing it.
I quit watching the episode Bellamy died. I was keeping some sort of hope alive that JR would get over himself and bring him back for the finale. But no he couldn’t get his ego in check and essentially destroyed the whole series for me and I am guessing thousands of others. So incredibly disappointing that instead of rewarding viewers for watching for 7 years, Jason and the crew said GFY.
It ruined for me too. I saw spoilers before starting the last season, so I won’t watch it at all.
I wish season 5 was the last one.
Before it aired over here in cali I read the Bell spoiler and deleted the show from my tv record list. Now I’m even more glad I gave up on this show and didnt watch the last few weeks…..I really cant believe any professional would ruin a show just because he has a problem with the lead actor. But I guess lots of actors have been written out of shows because the person in charge didnt like them. I just know I will never watch anything by jason again since he is so unprofessional.
you know, if you want to think a show is wasted cause of one single person, fine that is your way of thinking
but dont spread around claims you cant back up, what is the source that confirms jason had some problem with bob and thus why bellamy died, that is also speculative and you’re brainwashing naive people with that mentality
dont bring up the ricky whittle thing as your source cause that is a completely seperate matter and we dont even know what went down with the two nor do we know with bob and jason
Bob was the unprofessional one. Always has been
I have no idea if Bob was unprofessional but if that was the case they should have gotten rid of him years ago. Keeping him on the show till almost the end and giving the character an unsatisfying end was only punishing the fans out of spite.
and where is the proof he is unprofessional?
As of seasont5, i regard this as my best TV shows ever but now i come to realise that they all end woefully….. After a disappointment in GOT, this is a bit relief
Yup. I agree. The ending was way too Childhood’s End for me! This whole season has been dreadful. I’ll never watch another Jason show again! I like the first 3 season’s. I’ll watch those. Sigh. What a waste.
Wasn’t at all what I was expecting but it was good
this could have been an okay ending… for a totally different show
WTF?????
This series finale is Dexter-level in its suckage!!!!! What in the world were they thinking?? I figured it would be some sort of time travel deus ex machina to tie things up, but never like this.
And if Bellamy’s death wasn’t bad enough, this ending (the dead cannot transcend) makes it even worse and unnecessary than it already was.
I like scifi, because it pretends to follow up a specific path of rules. It makes you feel that what’s happening could be real, even the science behind it is pure fantasy. I won’t comment on the End itself rather than say it offered closure to your last New 2 Seasons Show “Peter Pan became Jesus in Alice’s Wonderland”. The actors had CGI on their face instead of fake tears, which was a nice touch for all the missing comedy in the series.
So, the last two seasons were pure fantasy and not Sci Fi. Since we shouldn’t blame without offering new ideas, a nice alternative closure could be:………………………………”You’re in the business!!! Figure it out on yourown or hire other people to do it for you!!
I hope you enjoyed your money grab situation. I’l congratulate you for one thing. You had better ending than the “Lost” series, or should I say similar, I don’t know. (which I hope isn’t categorized as sci fi…)
Weren’t them all on Earth at the end, not Sanctum?
Yes. Your right. Clarke walked out of the bunker.
Yes Clark went to Sanctum, picked up Picasso, and they went to Earth.
They should have brought some of the tech back with them…. I assume the big mothership is still endlessly circling sanctum.
The stone are still in place so they can go back fro the tech if needed. Also technically the embryoa were created before trancenance so does that mean they went too or could the use those to repopulate Earth.
I wouldn’t want to transcend if animals aren’t there, which I assume they aren’t because of Picasso. Humans suck animals rock
omg youre so right about the embryos! Wow.. im wondering about that too! Cause why would they even show that really random part of the show? Thats a HUGE plot-hole!
wait I have a question. Weren’t there still people in cryo? They only had taken out the friends and some of the prisoners.
“until we realize that, we’re doomed.”
lol really hopeful.
The finale was okay? It was mostly great to see Abby and Lexa again, even though it wasn’t really them. The “Bellamy was right” line enraged me. The ending left me wanting more of certain storylines that were kind of left by the wayside (the writing this season really suffered from some memory loss of previous season and character developments) but also all of them will die and life can’t go on, so what’s the point? I’m going to keep thinking about “end of book one” from season five – I was expecting “end of book two” or “the end” or something.
I thought it would have been better to have them return to Earth and start over and work on the try to do better. Why didn’t Madi return?
Madi wasn’t there because she was in a better place with people the same age as her and she thought Clarke would want her to be in a place where she’s happy.
She’s not in a place with people the same age as her. Transcendence involves integrating your consciousness into the collective. Madi no longer exists as an individual. She’s just a clump of memories that a single entity (which was never named) has. Transcendence is tantamount to death. You lose your individuality, you die. It was a terribly tragic ending.
when was this confirmed
“If your answers are satisfactory, your consciousness and that of your entire species will become one with ours. You will transcend your human form and become infinite”
The being said they would become “one with it”. I have no interest in that. I’ll stick to this plane of existence. I don’t plan on ever dying either.
We are not our bodies we have a conciousness that goes on after we die and Clark would have wanted that for Madi, she feel no pain and is at peace also if we noticed the being that is Alexa said us meaning more than one. I too would have preferred Madi to come back but she was happy with her choice and knowing it is what Clarke would have wanted for her.
“Us” as in the royal we. The Madi up there is no more Madi than I am. Just because her memories were incorporated into the collective consciousness, does not mean it’s actually her. Madi is dead. They’re all dead.
Personally it was a decent ending. It would have been hard to make a fantastic ending with a show about surviving. Knowing they can now live in peace and harmony together with the remaining people they loved was nice. I was almost kinda sad thinking Clarke was gonna end on Earth alone but her loved one showed up and now they can live happily til they grow old. I was honestly hoping to see more past characters in the test like Finn, Jasper, Monty it would have been better I think but what makes it sad is Bellamy couldn’t transcend.. the season overall was good but the only ruining thing was Bellamy.
The ending was ok and I liked the final message. What I did not like and I agree with you ,Peter, where were “the 100” in the end? It would’ve been nice and normal to see the delinquents at the end the way we’ve seen them in the begining of the series. Instead,again,we see Lexa intoxicating entire show up to the very last episode and this big,extraordinary, supernatural love between Clarke and Lexa. It was just too much.
I know alot of people will hate my opinion but I enjoyed this and thought it was one of the best series finales ive seen, it was not perfect and some things rubbed me the wrong way but for the most part it was fantastic.
And boy did i need a good finale and good piece of television lately
I liked it too. I’m glad the survivors can live in peace on Earth. Nice song choices as well. Now back to your regularly scheduled program of haters and the character obsessed. And thanks to TV Line for covering so much of the show.
glad im not alone
yeah, thus another reason not to watch the prequel
I had so many questions. Who in the world are the Aliens that transcend people? Why did they bring the stones? How long have the stones been there? How did they know that humans would be able to decipher it (because if it weren’t for Becca this would never have happened). I just have too many questions. Idk the ending didn’t feel like “The 100” it felt more like a an episode of like Star Wars with the crazy aliens and stuff.
You will learn alot of tv shows just leave questions vague cause i guess they dont want to spoon feed everything to the audience, and want us to figure it out outselves and there is ego often involved but just something to keep in mind as to not getting all the answers in this show
in an attempt to answer u-
they are just higher beings, gods esentially
they made the stones i guess to go across planets to judge species
they’ve been there according to gabriel thousands-millions of years
how they knew-I guess they predicted it?, i didnt remember them saying they knew they would do that
Thanks. That plot point is just so confusing and makes the 100 too mystical for me. The site used to be so grounded and real, I was kind of disappointed with the ending. Also they never truly explain what transcending really is.
transcending is being raptured in heaven more or less
there were no aliens lol
When I say aliens I’m referring to the “superior race” that decides if other races get to live or die.
Ummm there was, They even said they appeared as other people to keep their identity hidden
the bardoans were aliens u saw that in the episide where they seen that they were crystalize n were 10 feet tall the superior being were aliens/higher entity beings
Just a slight correction here, this isn’t an episode of star wars – it’s an episode of Star Gate.
Not saying it’s a rip off, but the obvious inspiration are obvious. Magical circular stones that let you move from planet to planet via a stream of symbols?
Higher beings getting people to ascend? It’s pretty obvious where the inspiration came from.
Interesting, I’ve never watched Star Gate…I guess it was before my time lol. But either way that ending didn’t feel like “The 100” to me. It was too mystical for the grounded show it used to be.
Because it doesn’t really make much sense.
From Bardo and the Sheppard’s point it makes perfect sense. They got what they worked their whole lives for.
But for everyone else? They got to ascend which is something they never even thought or wanted before. It was so attached from the main characters that we’ve seen that it really didn’t fit them at all.
Exactly! And literally in the first few minutes Octavia says “killing is what we do” then she just immediately changes her mind? I doesn’t make sense for her to do a whole 180 in that small time of just 1 episode.
Not true, they travelled without the stones via the elligious expeditions. Becca’s deciphering just allowed them to use that technology to do it.
No I mean without Becca that would never be able to transcend because they couldn’t use the stones at all. Bull tried for centuries and only Becca figured it out.
Honestly same. I hated Bellamy’s death and some of my friends stopped watching because of it. This was never a show to make ppl happy and spiritual sci-fi elements existed since s3. I’m used to liking things others don’t but it’s good to know you guys like it too.
cool
it can make people happy but its not a jolly fun show, its very dark, just cause its on the cw dont make it not dark
I absolutely loved the final episode. What an amazing message. Albeit, not perfect, but that’s the whole point really. Sure there were parts that I wanted to see work out differently. Bellamy being cut out the way he was, was awful just from a fan perspective. That was a really bad choice. But overall in the big picture, the story was pretty amazing.
yeah exactly
I liked it too. Amazing end!
cool
you guys should see the finales of true blood, game of thrones and arrow and then come back to me saying the 100 is worse than them.
I can hardly remember January, but I remember actually liking the Arrow finale. The funeral scene was nice, great cameos, Oliver and Felicity spending the rest of their days in the pocket universe…not bad.
glad u enjoyed it, for me i thought it was boring, a piss poor final villian and emphasising a point we already knew
I’ve seen all of those and yes, The 100, is still the worst.
just cause bellamy wasnt there?
Didn’t the actor who plays Bellamy, ask to have a limited role in the final season? It was his choice, of course what they did with his three or so episodes, I don’t know why some are so mad.
yeah and some people are saying this was a punishment to bob by jason, i cant comment on that
perhaps bellamy could have made it off ethera with himself and doucette in the finale as opposed to some episodes ago
bob seemed to be grateful for his role in a tweet a few weeks ago, now whether that is him or just his career breathing down his back making him say that, we wont know
Bob was only available for certain episodes so he wasnt available for the end of the season
I can only speak for myself but the reason this bothered me so much was not because Bob took time off or his lack of screentime in the final season(although I did miss him). It was the way he died and how spectacularily terrible the writing was. Six seasons of creating the friendship and bond of Clarke and Bellamy and the evolution of Bellamy from season 1 to turn him into a cult member and then have his bff kill him for nothing?!?! A total 180 for both characters from last season that made no logical sense because of who the writers had made us believe they were prior to this. It was just such a crap way to end this characters journey. I would have to think the actors agree but are too classy to speak out. Too many rumors on the internet about the pettiness of Jason as well to believe this was not an intentional malicious move on the powers part.
I agree. I also think this whole thing had a simple fix. Clarke could still have harmed Bellamy, making him too injured so he’s unavailable in following episodes. Then he would have transcended and they couldve shown him on the beach at the end (they couldve gone into old footage to get this likely). Bellamy and Clarke make eye contact and Clarke smiles at him. That’s all it would have taken for me personally to be happy about what happened to Bellamy.
This mirrors a problem i see in lots of shows these days – completely contrived drama, as if the writers wanted to do something dramatic and rationalized a lame excuse for it. In this case, oh, Bellamy might show Cadogan the sketch book, even thought its getting left behind and someone else will probably do the same, and even though Clarke could have just shot him in the leg and taken the book.
I don’t know about the behind-the-scenes dynamic, but I see lots of shows doing this type of crap, so it seems believable to me that it was just a ham-handed way set up a super-dramatic circumstance, with the desire for the latter preceding them thinking of a (lame) way to make it happen. Made worse, as pointed out, by this being completely inconsistent with both characters across the series
Contrived drama, the worst disease infecting modern television writing.
I just hate how they ended Bellamy’s story, I kinda wish they would have used him less.
We were led to believe he died in the explosion trying to save Octavia. Then we learn he was only teleported to a different world, see him surviving this world in what I found to be a VERY
boring episode. And he finally is killed by Clark after having a complete personality change.
I would have much preferred it if he had just stayed dead after the explosion. Dying trying to save Octavia or anyone he cares about is a much more ‘Bellamy’ way to die and better ending for the character.
Also they could have found a way to have Bellamy at the end. Like do have him survive (before having a complete personality change) and just do a shoot of Bellamy alone looking at Clark (shot out of order) and use a double (without showing his face) for group images during actual shoot.
Limited role or not, it was up to the writers how to use him. They chose insanity.
Arrow was not bad. Alot of finales I saw this season felt rushed though. I never saw GOT but I know people hated it, The 100 was somewhat fulfilling in some sense
glad u enjoyed, i thought it was mostly pointless
game of thrones finale was mostly a bore, its not so much of the controversy that bothered me as it was the rest
i think this finale was better than the originals finale which i prefer the originals but its finale is depressing, this finale of the 100 as dark as it is still came off more hopeful to me
and the final scene of the 100 was better than the ending of heroes reborn, worst ending ever i think for tv finales
The 100 ending was rushed too though because they were filming right at the beginning of the pandemic when TV shows were shutting down their filming. So, it could be some key things were left out in the rush to finish although JR didn’t mention that directly. I was disappointed with Bellamy’s death, and wished it could have been different.
I don’t care enough about the 100 to declare it the worst final but for me it was worse than Arrow and technically worse than GOT but when you factor in the much higher standard I have that show I’ll agree GOT was worse. I gave up on true blood before it ended so can’t comment on that.
we’ll just have to agree to disagree on the arrow being better
At least there was a finale. “Divergent” didn’t have one.
OMG, loved Divergent. I read the books and I was so disappointed and angry they did not continued and finished it…And I liked also GOT ending. You can’t expect a show to end the way you want it and dreamt it…
The arrow finale wasn’t great, but let’s cut them some slack. They went to it after they had Crisis – which was awful, sure, but was a heavy toll on everyone and on top of that shoving a backdoor pilot right after it.
Essentially it’s the timing that screwed arrow finale.
But yeah. This finale wasn’t great, but there were far far worse stuff out there. Merlin? Dexter?
ehh idk if i should, they had a year to prepare the crisis, i dont get where this rushed time window came from
never seen those shows
I didn’t say it was rush, just that it was tight.
You can’t write things a year in advance. The smallest thing like an actor being absent for some reason and you’re screwed. There are also a lot of changes that take place during filming due to various limitations.
Of course it’s the end product that counts, not the excuse. But I’d say that at least if I compare something as boring as the arrow finale I can cut them some slack as opposed to endings that made absolutely no sense.
Like a massive army follows their dragon messiah and have no problem with her killer walking free.
Or a serial killer who wants his son to be safe, so he sends him to live with another serial killer who is running from the law?
You get the point. It was bad… But it wasn’t as godawful as some of the other stuff we got.
but they didnt have stuff like that happening, plus i dont see what a crossover does to impact a finale
Id like to think clarke, octavia, echo and the others who didnt transcend see bellamys consciousness when they die and are at peace, bellamy did not for the last time, he did not die a bad guy.
He for sure died a bad guy
how?
You know, if anybody was going to watch this show, I think I’d just tell them to stop at the end of season 5. That was the better ending. These last two seasons are just..disappointing. I guess Rothenberg’s point is that the only way to transcend tribalism, is the annihilation of the human race. Why else create the rule against procreation. Is that like optimistic fatalism? I really didn’t need all the existential hooey, in this last season. Something they had done without, for the entire balance of the series. They have forced so many bad decisions and arbitrary situations on these characters, in order to reinforce their desire for entropy. And I accepted most of it, because I thought they might finally let them reach some stability at some point. That all the struggle and sacrifice actually amounted to something. Guess not. It was a doomed voyage from day one. This ending actually makes Bellamy’s death worse.
I said the same thing while we were watching it. For me, this series ends at Seasons 5. I was so excited when the show was renewed for seasons 6&7 but they wasted them.
I liked season 6 and thought it was such a creative reboot for the show but season 7 killed it, so realistically speaking the season 5 finale is the right line to draw for the show even though I thought season 6 was better than 4 and 5.
Well they kind of did explain it — badly. Think about Madi not returning because there would be no one her age to love. The actual history of the human race shows that our species has survived five bottleneck events in our history that have nearly wiped us out. It takes about at least 1,000 survivors to repopulate the human species with enough genetic diversity. If the remnants of humanity after this ascension are like a dozen people the continuation of the species isn’t really possible anyway. So even if they were able to reproduce, what kind of future would any children they might bare really have? If Not Lexa had explained they were sparing any possible future children from being born into the bleakness of the end of their species that Madi chose not to return to it might have come across as more of a kindness than a screw you.
season six was actually better than 5 tbh
In some respects I agree, but it only serves to set up the mess of this last season, so the whole thing is a wash, in my opinion.
Yes,this rhetorical is inspired from Bible….Isn’t it Noah was told by the Creator, to save all species on his ship except humans because every thing human beings did starting with Abel and Kain was to kill each other and destroy everything around them?
“Tribalism is bad.”
… says the man who has an almost GLEEFUL affinity for killing off characters who are men of color, but okay. Sure.
At least Picasso isn’t alone.
I think the better end was season 5, personally, even though I haven’t felt like the show was truly great since season 3. If I rewatch (in the far, far future), 5 is probably where I’ll stop.
Thats silly.. he killed off people of all sorts of races.. not just people of color.. this show had far more diversity in the cast than pretty much every show on television and many of them survived to the end.
i will say the biggest problems of this finale just to be fair:
madi should have been with the others at the end and i guess only didnt do it cause fear of pain?
bellamys overall ending was vague to say the least, he aint dead as jason explains but i dont want him to be alone forever, i guess we are to assume he meets clarke and the others in the afterlife?, why they couldnt just show that, i have no clue, the entity even says no more procreation, you guys are the last of humanity
what else…i liked the message of war needs to be stopped but its countered cause clarke kills bill for revenge for madi and indra kills sheid for revenge for her mom so pot calling kettle black a bit?, granted clarke and indra never claimed to be great citizens but jasons message im saying is backlashed cause those two didnt mind what they did, forgiveness was a very weak theme in the show when it came to enemies, when it came to friends and family sure they forgave
and they didnt exactly explain why bellamy had the dream of meeting his mom and bill other than maybe the entity implanted it there but why, what did bellamy gain, he would have died and not transcended regardless
i think those were my only complaints with this finale
There was no implication of an afterlife. I think transcendence is supposed to be representative of that. A separate afterlife would seem to represent it’s own version of transcendence. Which would make Clarke’s punishment for humanities sins redundant. I think we’re meant to assume everybody who stayed will just be null and void when they kick the bucket. Just like good Ol’ Bellamy.
but they transcended to an afterlife, they didnt become nothing after death, if so there is in a way no point in fighting and surviving
Transcendence only applies to those who were alive at that point. Clarke was left out in what I’m assuming to be a Moses parable. Everyone else who had the chance at transcendence but passed, are also in the same position as Clarke. Meaning their existence, whether physical or spiritual, will be finite..A bummer, ain’t it..
that trans thing is just going to heaven more or less, it doesnt mean the characters are on a time limit
Rothenberg reiterates a statement from the finale, saying that only the living can transcend. Which means that there is no implication that it’s possible for those already dead and those left behind. Transcendence is representative of an afterlife but it’s not meant to be a literal heaven. There is no indication that anybody else gets more than the void, once they’re dead. That’s really only something the individual viewer can bring to it. But in the universe of the show, there is no evidence of that, given.
They closed with “Bad,” one of my favorite songs of all time. How could I ever hate the ending??? I just might watch it over and over again and bump U2 on a 5.1 endlessly.
Exactly, if only the living transcend then why did Bellamy see his mom? Plot hole. Again I thought it would have been better to say hey you know what, we don’t want to transcend, we will go home (Earth)and start over and do better this time or at least try.
to be fair bellamys mom in that vision might not have been his mom but just his mind playing tricks on him, probably something that will never get explained which yeah ill be fair, that is a bit of a slap to the face cause that dream was the source of bellamy going to bills side to begin with and why he died
bellamy aside, im not sure what alot of you guys wanted to happen in this final show, like had they went ahead with the war, there would have been so much slaughter and lets be graceful and say a few people survived, they would have lived on as zombies and full of depression in their hearts(take it from someone with clinical depression)
or you guys wanted everyone to die on the battlefield, like im not sure what u guys wanted
basically almost everyone gets a happy ending and they did a twist on the ending so not everyone is going to paradise but you wont exactly be sent to hell either, i dont see why that equals a horrible finale, at least for me
What did I want? Having seen all that happened, I’m afraid they would have had to rewind the past two seasons. Or at least this last one. The last two seasons would have been about the hope of building something new instead the repetition of everything that went wrong the first time. At the end of season 5, Monty and Harper leave Clarke and Bellamy with the obligation of casting of the past and giving life to a new dawn for humanity. The writer’s decided, let’s skip that potential and just do some crazy, convoluted sci-fi stuff. If it ain’t broke, repeat until it is. I won’t say they didn’t get some cool stuff out of it, but it didn’t add up to a fulfilling final chapter. I guess they just didn’t know how to do anything else.
well im glad you appreciate time travel, i hate it, i cant suspend my disbelief too much and its the ultimate undo button
it seems alot of fans just wanted bellamy and clarke living in the lightbourne house with madi and a new baby on the way but I appreciate they got past conventional endings
I don’t mean time travel. I mean that the whole of the last two seasons was faulted from the start. To fix the mess, they would have needed to make different choices. Bellamy could be with Echo, Clarke or whoever. Don’t care. Heck, he could have died a tragic, heroic death at the end and that would’ve been fine to. But they just had to make things more and more complex. Build more and more layers of inscrutability. Twisting themselves into knots so the characters could suffer in just the right way. I’m sorry, but we had already done that for five years. Why not think of something new, instead of another ride on the merry-go-round of pain.
i see
so you’re talking about rewriting the season if you were in charge?
If there were an alternate universe version of the show, the last two seasons would be completely different in my version.
their plan was to do better on the new planet but the primes fighting children of gabriel and having new people arrive didnt make it easy for them to change like they wanted
The Primes should have been long extinct, by the time they got there, in my opinion. Maybe only remaining as a few mind drives or cryo pods. The last two years should have been about exploring their new world, solving the problems that wiped out the first settlement and dealing with the human conflicts they brought with them. That would have been plenty. And much more grounded.
Tommy, you need to get a blog or YouTube channel or something – you have a lot to say. I think people would read/watch it.
I don’t know what I wanted, but these past two seasons weren’t it. It wasn’t horrible, but it could have been way better. I expected them to try doing what Monty and Harper said. It seemed like Jason didn’t have a plan from the beginning. The show was at its best when it was about the delinquents. In fact, I would have loved to see as many of them as they could get to come back – Finn, Wells, Monty, Jasper, Bellamy, Harper – all of them. I wanted this last season to reflect on itself, instead of being formed around a backdoor pilot.
ill take that as a compliment, and keep that idea in mind
im sure budget had a part to play, i dont think they could get all those actors back, they were able to afford so many in this finale cause alot of them were extras and can be afford cheaply as opposed to bringing back every loved one of skykru
It was meant to be.
Yeah, the def don’t have the budget for those people. I imagine getting Alycia was not cheap. But a girl can dream! They did a better job at honoring their past during last season with Clarke’s drawings in her mind palace.
thanks
yep
Absolutely agree with Lysh. They could’ve bring delinquents as judges because, in the end, they were just the lambs sacrified for a bigger cause and they were the core of the show. Aby and Lexa were more important than delinquents? They why they call the show”The100″ and not “Lexa”? Ot was so annoying.
btw what planet were clarke and the others at in the final scene, was that earth or sanctum
Earth
thanks
we can only hope bellamys ghost followed clarke and we just didnt see it
It’s kindof confusing since the shot that lake for sanctum when they first got there as well.
That was ridiculous.
I have so many questions. Who in the world are the Aliens that transcend people? Why did they bring the stones? How long have the stones been there? How did they know that humans would be able to decipher it (because if it weren’t for Becca this would never have happened). I just have too many questions.
I think this transcendence crap was unearned because they didn’t spend any time explaining these transcended beings.
Exactly. Like the whole season was supposed to be fighting against Bill’s craziness, but then he turned out to be right? Then they never explained what transcendence was or who the beings were.
This is why I don’t really watch tv anymore, the writers always find a way to mess up a show after the first season.
I thought the finale was beyond disappointing, What gives these “beings” the right to “judge” & wipe out whole species? They are like a highly evolved version of “The Borg.” Become one & with us or be ellimanated. That sounds very much the Borg’s mantra of “Resistance is futile.” In other words, “Join us or die.” In the end, the remaining humans who do not choose to transcend, including Clarke, are left on Earth to die & are rendered incapable of having Children, So, how is this a happy ending? Basically, the human race is doomed.
Ok at the very end as we pull away from the group beside the lake it fade into someone maybe drawing. Who is that a young Clark sketching like in season 1? As series finale goes this one was alright. B+. Seeing Lexa was great.
I dont want to call this a criticism exactly but im suprised clarke didnt try to kill the judge despite holding a gun to save the human race cause she clearly didnt respect this entity
my best guess to why is cause clarke probably thought it was futile, it would just transcend itself back into the body over and over and over until clarke ran out of bullets. Thats just my guess.
Definitely a horrible ending. They meet an alien race who says they’re going to absorb them which wipes them from existing or just wipe them from existing and they decide this is a good thing? They sound like the Borg from Star Trek. Not to mention the massive absence of individual free will. One person cannot speak for everybody as is evident by the fact the borg accepted Raven’s answer but not Clarke’s.
They should have ended it with Clarke discovering Bellamy wasn’t dead and the 2 of them get to live on and hopefully save their friends from the creepy judgy Borg.
Did anyone else think that it looked like sparkly Groots after everyone transcended?
I thought the judges were some sort of aliens, even though it wasn’t explained.
YES, exactly! Like Groot when he freezes dancing. haha
I dont think the message btw is as dark and depressing as people make it out to be on this forum, yes clarke and the rest of them will die a mortal death and option A they live on as spirits and madi can visit them and technically bellamy, finn, etc should visit them too as spirits
option B is they die and become nothing and sure everyone else is in transcendence but they arent the main characters that we are invested in so its kind of like who cares
the characters you should worry about is people like bill, sheid, mccreary, cage and his dad…..who else, pike, ALLIE maybe
How is it not dark? Humanity is over. The ‘aliens’ or whatever they were basically sterilized Clarke and Co. because they judged them as too….what? Violent? Selfish? The only good part of this whole thing was that it was made definitive that Lexa was the love of Clarke’s life. The rest of it makes absolutely no sense. What was the entire point of 7 seasons of life being about more than just surviving when in the end it meant nothing because some higher being judges you and deems humanity too rotten to continue on beyond those already alive.
well the aliens werent wrong, the 100 was a mostly chaotic show
and why do you assume its over for humans?, they will live on after death, they just wont transcend to their other loved ones like madi but madi can come to them
the protagonists were never going to have i think a truly happy ending you see in some fairy tale
The judge Clarke encountered should have been Jason Rothenberg. We find out this transcendent alien race is just the writer’s room. She has an existential debate about how all the crap that happened to them is actually just their fault, due to an inflated god complex. Then she floats them.
ha ha
Well Clarke isn’t sterilized cause she never went to transcendence like the others did.. but there is no one for her to mate with.
I liked it. Reminded me of Lost’s finale. Which I also liked.
It’s funny, but I also loved The Lost finale but hated this one. Maybe it’s because there was a spiritual, existential element to Lost from the beginning but on The 100 it seemed like a hastily added way to wrap up the final season. The show had always been more grounded before.
Booooo!!!!