After The 100 gave fans a phenomenal preview of Clarke (Eliza Taylor) sans emotions at the close of last week’s episode, “Survival of the Fittest” was pretty much a gigantic let down on that front. The good news is that while Clarke and Lexa (Alycia Debham Carey) were out fending off King Kong and trying to keep all their limbs (hashtag post nuclear disaster problems?), Octavia (Maria Averopoulos) was holding down the fort. And while the cat’s away, the mice definitely got their play on – if that consists of beating each other up in the interest of training for the pending battle against the Mountain Men.
As cool as the hand-to-hand combat looked, it’s hard to imagine that it’s going to be what wins this war with the gun loving Mountain Men, but like I said, it looked cool. Bellamy (Bob Morley) doing some major damage from the inside on the other hand, that seems to be a fairly user-friendly decision.
First of all, it’s subtle. There’s something to be said about a plan that involves sneaking in a back door and wreaking havoc before anyone realizes what’s happening. And, second, out of all the remaining 100, Bellamy is the most qualified. Before he went rogue, Bellamy was trained as an officer on the Ark. He has experience with close quarters combat and he’s proven himself as someone who comes through in the clutch before. It’s a lofty gamble, but even without Lincoln (Ricky Whittle) backing him up or Clarke experiencing her first bout of carelessness, it seems like a no brainer.
The only downside to this plan is that Bellamy wasn’t back at Camp Ark (or, whatever it’s called now) to see Octavia take one for the team. The alliance between the Sky People and the Grounders was on shaky ground way before it was ever officially signed and sealed, and all it took was one teenage girl to make it a wee bit stable. Octavia has come a long way since the pilot and you have to hand it to Avgeropoulos for bringing her A-game to every episode. She’s portraying a character who has something to prove, and she does – over and over again.
Clarke may get the credit for being stronger than anyone thought, but truth be told, no one really thought anything much about Octavia before she got to Earth. She was simply the girl from under the floor boards. And now, she’s the bridge her people desperately needed since that gap between the two sects was only getting wider. At the very least, Octavia is the reason that everyone’s dinner sucked a little less than normal this evening. There wasn’t cake, but I’m sure when Mount Weather comes under their control, someone will pillage for it.