(Spoiler alert: Please do not read on if you have not watched the Season 4 finale of “The 100.”)
After four seasons on the ground, “The 100” has returned to space, and it will stay there for the time being.
“That’s not to say they’ll stay up there for long, but they’re certainly starting the next season up there,” showrunner Jason Rothenberg told TheWrap of early Season 5 plans.
He is referring to the seven people who launched into space and back onto the Ark in the Season 4 finale, namely: Bellamy (Bob Morley), Raven (Lindsey Morgan), Monty (Christopher Larkin), Murphy (Richard Harmon), Harper (Chelsey Reist), Emori (Luisa D’Oleveria) and Echo (Tasya Teles).
Meanwhile, Clarke survived the nuclear blast – thanks, probably, to her new nightblood – and has been spending the past six years talking to Bellamy on a radio, waiting for the ship that took her friends to space to come back down now that Earth is hospitable again.
A ship finally does come down at the very end, but to Clarke’s astonishment, it is not the small rocket she watched take off, but something that bears the words “Prison Transport” on the side.
“You’ll have to wait for Season 5 to see who is in fact on that ship, but it is not Bellamy and Raven,” Rothenberg confirmed. “It’s not the same ship they left in, so unless they found another way to get down, which I suppose is a possibility, that’s not who we’re going to find in that ship. To me it’s kind of cool that ‘The 100’ started with 100 juvenile delinquents, prisoners, coming to the ground, and now, this season ends with prisoners coming back to the ground. Only now, Clarke is a grounder, perhaps these prisoners are not just juvenile delinquents, we’ll have to wait and see.”
While Bellamy, Raven and the gang went to space, the majority of other characters baracaded themselves in a bunker and hoped it would withstand a nuclear blast. This included Octavia (Marie Avgeoropoulos), Abby (Paige Turco), Kane (Henry Ian Cusick) and Jaha (Isiah Washington).
So which group has a higher chance of surviving the six years, the bunker or the Ark?
“I think everyone has a really hard six years ahead of them,” Rothenberg said. “When we find Clarke on her radio, she hasn’t made contact with her mother or the people in the bunker for six years and couldn’t dig them out, so they’re trapped underground. And Bellamy and Raven and the seven who went to space are silent also. So she doesn’t know if anybody is alive. It’s a safe bet some of them at least are and it’s a safe bet that the stories of what happened over those six years will get told. It will be pretty harrowing.”
Someone who probably did indeed survive is Octavia, who Rothenberg teased will have a brand new look when we see her in Season 5, meaning, she won’t still be donning the grounder commander’s traditional look as last we saw her.
“Symbols are important to grounders and it was important, in that room, to see that they have a commander. I think we’ll play in Season 5 with what that means,” Rothenberg said. “How does she look five years from now? I think that will be a big new look for the show when we see her. It won’t be what we saw in the finale. She’s going to evolve over the six years.”
And as for Clarke talking to Bellamy on that radio …
“It’s a little bit like it’s become her diary,” Rothenberg said. “It’s become her way of, as she says, trying to hold on to who she was, who she is and not forget where she came from and who matters to her. It’s a narrative device for us to be able to tell some of the stories and also, psychologically, it’s become part of her routine. She does this everyday, she goes to the same spot perhaps, and talks to this guy. She’s not just talking to Bellamy, she’s talking to Raven and company too, but clearly, obviously Bellamy means a lot to her. This is her partner, he’s her co-pilot. So she’s definitely mourning him in some ways with that. She doesn’t know if he’s alive.”
“The 100” Season 5 will return in midseason on The CW.