if you had to keep the season 3 ending, how could we still bring Lexa back?

Right. Apologies for the delay, I’ve had a think.

So what you want is an alternate season 4? Right. You asked for it. It is Long.

Instead of returning to Arkadia with Bellamy (in this universe, Bellamy gives himself up to Indra after the fall of the City of Light to await punishment for his participation in the massacre – Jaha is arrested as well), Clarke takes off with Murphy and Emori, meeting up with Raven and Monty – they will all travel back to Becca’s home/lab (Emori being the guide). Raven isn’t convinced of Alie’s tale of melting reactors and a radiation deathwave (sounds hokum to her) – she sees no spike in background radiation from Arkadia.

In Polis, Indra works with Kane and the other ambassadors to calm the people and get back some sense of normalcy. Bellamy is sent to work farmland for some northern villages – Indra deciding to follow ‘blood must not have blood.’ Octavia sees him off, telling him she might forgive him one day – but it will be years. For his punishment, Jaha is assigned to clean up Polis and help with the wounded. In too much shock at all he’s done, Jaha doesn’t resist.

It has been agreed amongst the ambassadors that no new Commander will be chosen for now, but all the ambassadors will work together to maintain order. Kane affirms Skaikru’s desire to remain part of the coalition and is accepted as their new ambassador. Abby remains in Polis as well, helping with all the wounded. Indra reminds the people not to forget the wisdom of Heda Lexa, and to respect her wish for peace. Many saw Lexa in the City of Light and is it generally believed that she acted as a sort of guardian angel, returning from death to protect her people from Alie.

Clarke has kept the Flame.

When her small team arrives at Becca’s lab, there is a surprise: a Flamekeeper named Gaia is present with several women warriors – whom Clarke immediately recognises as Lexa’s handmaidens/personal guard – and Luna (there is no insane security perimeter covered by hundreds of armed drones).

Clarke is surprised that any Grounders know of the place, much less seem familiar with it. Emori explains how she used to distract Alie while The Commander and her people used the lab – though she never knew what for.

Clarke has Questions right off the bat – why are they there, are they aware of what has happened in Polis, and, angrily – why did Lexa’s personal guard abandon her on the night she was murdered?

One of the handmaidens, an older woman named Kell is offended, telling Clarke that they never abandoned Lexa.

In Polis, Indra privately grieves the losses of the last several weeks – she asks Octavia if she hates her for sending Bellamy away, but Octavia is surprised Indra didn’t just kill him for what he did, he deserved it. Indra tells Octavia how, after the massacre, Lexa turned her back on ‘blood must have blood,’ how Lexa had plans to further involve Skaikru in the education of their people, wanting to build a school, and how besotted she was with Clarke, she just wanted peace for all of them. Still bitter about Mt. Weather, Octavia tells Indra that if Lexa was so interested in being friends, she shouldn’t have abandoned them. Indra shocks her with a revelation about Lexa’s choice (or lack of it) at Mt. Weather.

Bellamy, with his guard, meets Echo again – he is not pleased to see her, but she points out he cannot judge anyone. She asks him about the massacre, were they so afraid of Azgeda? Bellamy says they didn’t distinguish between Grounders and Lexa’s betrayal had stung them all. Echo tells him he’s a fool. Lexa was betrayed, not Skaikru. She tells him Skaikru set themselves apart too much, hiding behind walls. If they’d made some effort to integrate a little, many misunderstandings and tragic events might have been avoided.

In Arkadia, Jasper keeps busy writing. Harper questions him – he’s clearly changed. Calmer, no anger or resentment. He tells Harper he’s writing of everything that has happened to them since they came to Earth, how they came to be there, all the people they lost. He wants to write a history of sorts so that others will know. Harper asks him about his experience in the CoL. He tells her it was perfect but all wrong. Nothing should be perfect.

At Becca’s lab, Kell explains to Clarke how they were misdirected by Titus on the day Lexa was shot. Afterward, he brought her body to them for them to prepare for cremation. Angry at him for not contacting them immediately (and knowing far more about Lexa’s anatomy than Titus), they disobeyed Titus’ orders and took Lexa’s body to the lab, putting an unknown cadaver in her place for the funeral.

Clarke is stunned to learn Lexa is alive, but comatose, and Luna was called upon to be a blood donor. Luna points out that Lexa did save her life more than once. She owed it to her.

The handmaidens and Gaia are guilt and grief stricken that they did not take the Nightbloods with them – but Titus had them under a full guard (one that, ultimately betrayed those poor kids).

Kell is concerned that Lexa might have brain damage since she was under for over ten minutes and the Flame was removed. She hopes the Flame’s return might restore her.

Whilst Raven and Monty use the lab to explore Alie’s doomsday story (as well as all of Becca’s work), Clarke goes with the handmaidens to give Lexa the Flame.

Luna isn’t impressed with anyone, is hateful of the whole Flame/Commander/Becca/Alie business, gives Raven, Monty, Murphy and Emori a little-known history lesson about how the Grounders and their system of government came to be.

Passing near the remains of Mt. Weather, Echo tells Bellamy how Queen Nia had been working with Mt. Weather, promising them she’d deliver ‘donors’ in exchange for guns. Bellamy asks her if they have them. Echo confirms that Roan forbade them, had them locked away.

In Polis, Octavia is assigned to help Abby and slips to her how Lexa had been told by Emerson that Skaikru and Ice Nation and Mt. Weather were working together to betray Lexa and her army – told right in front of her warriors (including Indra). Lexa didn’t believe it, but her generals did and she knew that if she didn’t get her army off the mountain, quickly, her people would probably slaughter Skaikru. Demanding the return of her people, Lexa left. Octavia acknowledges they might have misread Lexa. She’s still angry, still hurt over Lincoln, but doesn’t know who to blame anymore.

At Becca’s lab, Gaia administers the Flame to sleeping Lexa. The handmaidens and some of the Flamekeepers and the Commanders had always known of the place, though it was largely avoided to isolate Alie. They needed to keep an eye on her and to make sure her code never infiltrated the lab network.

Lexa wakes, confused, wondering where is Clarke and Titus and Aden. Is Alie gone? Clarke enters and the others leave them alone – Clarke overwhelmed and Lexa apologetic, telling her that she would have told Clarke everything – she just didn’t get the time. She hopes Clarke will give her that time now, and Clarke affirms she can have all the time she wants, forever if that will do. Lexa is despondent over losing her Nightbloods.

In the lab, Raven and Monty learn of Alie’s deception, but find something else they didn’t expect – they are not part of the only human colony. There are other survivors – groups located in Norway, Africa, South America and New Zealand. Raven, curious how so many people could have survived a vast nuclear apocalypse, learns of strange environmental factors that led to these pockets of habitable space. She decides they need to try and contact these survivors somehow.

No longer needed, Luna intends to return to her people, but not before seeing Lexa again. Their reunion is bittersweet and proves they were once close and Lexa did all she could to protect Luna and her people on the rig from exposure. Luna wishes they’d kicked Titus off the tower when they were kids.

Gaia and the handmaidens confer about the best way to return Lexa to Polis and restore her as Commander. Lexa is nervous about this, wondering, since now all the Nightbloods are dead, if it isn’t time to try a new form of government. She plans on returning as soon as possible to help oversee the changes and work with Skaikru to better integrate the clans into a stronger social structure that benefits all. Clarke isn’t happy about this, telling Lexa she has a chance now to be her own person, to not be a servant to her people. Lexa takes Clarke to Becca’s mansion.

In the mansion Clarke marvels at the comfortable home and how it has been maintained. We learn Alie employed robots and drones to keep it clean and tidy. They wonder together about having a home of their own, what it might be like. Lexa’s sense of obligation is going to win out, but Clarke tries to convince her they could have their time, now and let the world go on without them. Lexa reminds her of all the sacrifices made, how she must honour them and help her people rebuild. How she wants Skaikru to be teachers. Clarke could teach art, if she wanted. She promises Clarke they will have their own home and tells Clarke she loves her and reaffirms her oath of faithfulness.

Bellamy, Echo and his guard reach the northern villages to find they’ve been destroyed. They find some bodies – with bullets in them. It is a harsh reminder of the last massacre. Bellamy demands who is in charge in Azgeda now that Ontari and Roan are dead? Were any of them ‘chipped?’

Tracking the attackers, Bellamy and the others are horrified to see a well-armed army of Azgeda warriors. They are captured and the leader, a dark-skinned woman with a mad look about her and tattoos that suggest she was once with a clan other than Azgeda – is angry at her people being used by the woman in red, blaming Skaikru for bringing her to their people and causing havoc. She claims to be Nia’s rightful heir – after Nia had kidnapped her and tortured her – she is owed Azgeda – and the Coalition.

The woman tells Bellamy and Echo that she died for the Coalition and, therefore, she will take it for her own. Bellamy is confused by what she means – Echo explains to him how Nia had traded her from Mt. Weather with a dozen of her own warriors, twisted her mind, meant to use her as a weapon against Heda Lexa.

The woman rouses her warriors, telling them to prepare for invasion. They chant her name: COSTIA.

Terrified, Bellamy and Echo plan on their escape to warn the others.

In Arkadia, Kane and Abby have returned and are discussing the likelihood that they will have to tear down their wall and further integrate with the Grounders in order to survive. Abby isn’t sure they’ll ever be able to, but Kane assures her there is a way and they will find it. Raven radios from the lab and confirms Alie’s lie, but that there are other pockets of humanity around the globe. She thinks they should make it a priority to contact them or find a way to travel. Abby openly considers the possibility – there might be better options than staying with the clans. The other survivors might be more like them. Kane points out that hasn’t always been a good thing.

Abby wants to talk to Clarke, but is told she is busy and that they will be returning to Arkadia soon.

Nyko arrives with some more sick Grounders – though they were never chipped. Abby is able to take a better look at what is causing their illness – it wasn’t radiation poisoning, but something akin to Mt. Weather’s acid fog. Some of the survivors confirm a ‘cloud’ of sorts – from the north. Kane orders Miller and a few others to investigate.

In Polis, they have also been updated on the new acid fog survivors and that Alie’s story was a lie. Indra is told that Kane has sent some people to investigate where this new ‘acid cloud’ came from. Having a bad feeling, Indra orders Octavia to take a group and investigate as well.

Learning of the new acid cloud business, Raven and Monty programme some drones to have a look. Emori speculates Azgeda might be up to something. Gaia, Kell and the other handmaidens agree, with Kell particularly concerned about possible new leadership in Azgeda.

At the mansion, Clarke and Lexa have hardly got out of bed, unaware of what is brewing beyond the walls. Murphy interrupts them to let them know they need to start heading back.

And I’ll just leave it here for now. 🙂

Bunkers = Bad News

lolana07:

To start: It was Nick’s fault. Haha, let’s get into this

I loved that Madison wasn’t in this one. The entire second half I was just waiting for her to come barreling in save somehow light the hoard on fire with Strand or something and was pleasantly surprised that she didn’t make an appearance. Without Madison there, the kids and other characters really shine through more than they have in the past. Ex, that guy who Alicia mercy killed. I never spared a thought on him, but when he got overwhelmed, I was like wait, no! Not him! And then I got a little emotional over him being out of bullets, and Alicia taking the shot. Note: I’m going to separate my Alicia rant from this one, I got a few asks about my rants being Alicia-centric soo..

I do wish Taqa’s people had a moment like that though, but beyond Ofelia and Crazy Dog, we don’t really have any connection to them from past episodes. So seeing others die didn’t have quite the effect it could have. There was plenty of time to build up one or two more of Taqa’s people for a more heartbreaking payoff in this episode, especially for Ofelia and Crazy Dog.

Speaking of, while it’s still hard to believe Ofelia as a co-leader or temp leader of Taqa’s people (since we never really saw her transform, we were instead quickly told here’s what happened now believe it) I loved Loved LOVED that she held the power in this one. Crazy Dog stopped immediately with one word from her and she trusted Alicia enough to open the gun locker and arm everyone. She, Crazy Dog and Alicia were the last ones to get into the bunker, and idk that just speaks volumes to me of their characters.

I’m working backwards here sorry! When I first watched I thought the sand cloud was a sandstorm, and was like, ruh roh its about to get dusty lol, shows how long I’d live in this scenario. Once I figured it out, those larger shots of the hoard were beautifully terrifying, and it was like, no matter what, the group isn’t going to be able to weasel their way out of this one.

The plan to guide the zombies past the camp was a good one, and it reminded me of the 90’ movie Volcano, but I’m still a little lost on how they knocked over the trailer? Great scene overall though, the camera angles and effects were on point, and just added to the direness of the moment. Everyone had a part and our main characters were right in the thick of it. Although why did Alicia look over the bumpers? All the zombies saw her what’s she thinking’? A part of me wonders if they could have gotten on top of the trailers and burned them all using the oil, or burned most of them? Idk. I watched the talking dead after and Mercedes was like, why didn’t Ofelia use her gun, she had it the entire time but used the table leg instead? Good point Mercedes, why didn’t she? And where did her gun go when Alicia came to her rescue? (AHHH Alicia saved Ofelia!! I’ll rant bout that separately but looved that she got her pal!)

Sigh, I didn’t like the first half of the episode with Troy. Why are we wasting time on a clearly deranged guy who just wants to see it all burn, when you have Ofelia and Alicia who could always use more time? Or Crazy Dog, or anyone else who could have made the second half more heartbreaking. Legit anyone else but him. and Madison. And Nick.Frack, show me about the cow’s life for a minute or two, flashback style with Jake and Troy, that would be better. Or just Jake.

Sigh Sigh, then there’s Nick………………………Ugh. Teases his sister about Jake, is buddies with Jake and goes out to scout the area, and when Troy comes along, his other bff, he decides, nahh, I’m going to side with Troy, because he has a track record of being the best pal a guy could ask for. What the Actual Frack. I could go on and on but I’ll leave it at:

I’m sad Jake is dead. I think he should have gotten his standoff with his brother, and only one of them should have made it out, without interference. That would have made for good TV. Not Nick barging in yet again, and stealing another character’s moment.

Overall, good second half of the episode. Next week’s looks actually scary, as in, I get it a bunker should be safe but ooooo boy! Maybe someone dies and what happened to Shane in Walking happens in the bunker. Or someone was bitten when they closed the doors. Although I’ll still be waiting for Madison to show up and save the day…..or screw them all over either one.

@thedoctor-smith @3coffeecups @viguaquis @zombiechels

Thank you for sharing these with us. 🙂 Great breakdown here.

I truly hope Madison et al show up like the parents that went on holiday for a long weekend and came back and the house is destroyed.

‘We left you alone for three days and you trash the place?? Get out there and get those bodies cleaned up. I don’t want to see a single blood stain, hear me?’

‘Alicia…are you…are you smoking? Goddammit, Nick.’

‘Not exactly worried about cancer these days, ma.’

My question: why didn’t they do something more with the caravans?

They’ve got all those guns/ammo, why not have people standing on top of the caravans and mow down the dead as they came lumbering through? Seems like a good time to do something of that sort, or like you say, light the place on fire or something. Didn’t they invest in blowtorches or something? Eh.

Lots of great tension in this episode – save that ponderously long opening scene with Troy. Agreed – what a waste of material.

Yes, it’s all Nick’s fault, but I’m confounded by what the narrative is playing him as. Unwitting bad guy? Victim? He seems to have the intellectual grasp of the moral dynamics of the place, but there’s a part of him that is identifying with Troy, as well. What does it all add up to for him? A path like his mother’s? Will he and Troy become a strange, destructive pairing? I think his story would only hold interest if he did go down a dark road – his nonchalance making him a perfect sort of amoral grifter (and the end result of all he has known, from his parents to Strand to Otto to Troy). Case in point: his seemingly comical, but condescending comment to Alicia about ‘saving her boyfriend.’ He doesn’t respect Jake as she does (and then, the irony of causing his death). I suspect he sees Jake as ‘weak’ as well (notice how we’re all told Jake is weak, but we hardly ever saw him? Writing no-nos 101). There’s a twisted side to Nick.

Kind of hated that scene of Jake trying to guilt-trip Alicia into saying she loved him or something. The show never really went there, never spent time with them, only implied a casual intimacy. And she’s 18 and overwhelmed – and he’s much older. It was so unnecessary to do that – save to point out that Jake has a bit of his entitled father in him, I suppose. I’m okay with him being gone as I think his cowardice (wanting to run away when things got too tough) was damaging enough, but implying there are other ranches like Otto’s (more white supremacists?) as an option, no – I don’t think he was as good as Alicia wanted him to be. Not like he ever did anything to stop Troy from murdering people before – only when it’s *his* home under attack does he act.

Going to wager Alicia escapes the bunker and meets up with Luciana at some point (what’s SHE been up to), everything gets tied back to the dam (will it blow?) and everyone will be shook up and separated by the end. There has to be something bigger going on with Strand.

Let’s get Ofelia, Crazy Dog, Luciana and Alicia on their own (send them to NASA), lose Nick in the bazaar, send Strand and Daniel on another hilarious road trip while Madison and Walker use Troy as bait for the infected. Hang him by his arms near a cliff and watch the dead fall over it.

teddywestsidelove:

thedoctor-smith:

alyciadayumcareys:

throwback to season 2 where Lexa had already lowkey sworn fealty to Clarke + highkey took care of her wifey (▰˘◡˘▰)

This is what gets me about Lexa’s storyline. She was never written to be a romantic hero/foil for Clarke. She was written to be the Betrayer. The tribal leader who capitulates to the desires/needs of the would-be colonialist overlords. Gustus and Titus both see what the Skaikru are or what they could be (the end of the Grounder’s way of life) and are desperate for Lexa to uphold the will of their people instead of being swayed by Clarke. They know it will end badly.

Lexa was never intended to be anything but a tragic figure who betrays her people and must be punished by them for it. Her relationship with Clarke is the heart of that betrayal. Only when she is offered the ‘deal’ is she forced to return to the path of putting her people first. She means well. She wants peace. But her people will not accept Skaikru. In series 3, she tries to pull her people into her way of thinking, but Titus recognises she is so besotted with Clarke, she will not put her people first (even if she sees a bigger picture than he does). That he becomes the one to mete out her ‘punishment,’ adds another layer to her pointless tragedy.

And the fans saw something so much bigger and better in that storyline and completely rewrote the narrative to suit themselves. It created a disconnect between the audience and the show – which is a shame. The producers could have looked through the eyes of this audience and seen how much bigger their show could have been. Such a shame. A waste.

Love this.

I think it’s clear that Jason never intended for Clexa to be this massive thing that took over the show. Once he realized how popular it was becoming in season 2, he saw $$$ and brought Lexa back in season 3 to bask in the hype and positive press that Clexa was getting during the hiatus.

The problem was that he never actually cared about the character or the relationship the way the fans did. Storylinewise, Jason brought back Lexa SOLELY to kill her and reveal his “brilliant” AI plot twist. That was it. All the clexa stuff that happened before that was just for ratings and media hype.

Very well put.

The differences between ‘show Lexa’ and ‘fan Lexa’ are jarring. On one hand you have The Commander who is only a tiny sliver of the overall narrative, on the other, you have fans building an entire universe around all the possibilities of her character and her relationship with Clarke. The show isn’t going to explore those possibilities, likely not even if there was time to do so. I doubt the producers were ignorant of how the fans saw her, it was simply, as you say, nothing they cared about. A writer is going to write the story he wants, not the one his viewers want.

Where it took such a cruel turn was the naked greed of using and manipulating that vulnerable audience to increase numbers and achieve renewal.

Every showrunner looks for a hook to grab an audience. Lexa/Clexa was JR’s unlikely hook. He and his team played into it. They weren’t interested in investing anything real into Lexa – her death was assured from the first time she was seen on-screen – but they were going to play up the fan’s love of her. They wrote the first half of series 3 in the manner of total fan fiction: all of it designed to please a Clexa fan. All of it designed to keep them watching, keep them hooked. Big, crowd-pleasing moments like Lexa kicking the Azgeda ambassador off her tower or kneeling to Clarke or fighting Roan and killing the Ice Queen. Clarke sketching sleeping Lexa (how did that scene come about?). Nothing real. It was all fantasy-within-a-fantasy. If substance had been involved, we would have been given the Ice Nation as the big foe, we would have been given backstory on their history, on Nia and Lexa’s feud. It would have somehow paralleled all that was happening with the sky people and their struggle. All of it would have tied together into the greater narrative.

The AI storyline should have been the ‘filler’ for how the Grounders became what they became. Their origin story. Instead, it was given pride of place and wasn’t terribly well-thought out enough to make enough sense, to tie in to the Grounders fully.

How, in such a short period of time, did the Grounders go from being within living memory of technology, democracy and scientific learning to a haphazard grouping of ‘clans?’ How did people who had known Becca and learned of her AI and took her ‘nightblood’ serum not pass on their knowledge of her? How could Lexa not have known she was connected to a piece of advanced technology (especially if she had Becca’s memories)? How did a religion form around Becca’s invention? Anything that gave us a greater idea of Grounder history and culture would have made sense. But that wasn’t the story they were interested in telling. Lexa and her people were just pretty smoke, extras. It’s a terrible shame because the potential is all there and they didn’t look to explore it.

Is this necessarily a fault? No, not under ordinary circumstances. Under ordinary terms, we’d just be disappointed at poor storytelling and move on. But the unusual and (perhaps unintentionally) cruel manipulation of the audience put this failure on a completely new level. Now that they’ve been thoroughly called out for it by those fans and various media, their party is somewhat over. The exuberance of their earlier social media shenanigans are no more. Their show is forever tainted by their arrogant invocation of an offensive trope – one they should have had greater insight about (an insight the fans are now determined the entire industry will never ignore again). After paying sycophantic fan service they might have thought would net them greater rewards, they’re having to scale back in various ways, including the diminishing of their series from 16 episodes to 13, even less space to tell their already limited story. Instead of building up and outwards, they wrote themselves into one corner too many.

I find these disconnects interesting as they speak to greater problems in our culture, namely the unquestioned supremacy of the male authority figure, protected by a male dominated industry that continues to marginalise minorities.

If fans will continue to make noise, if the audience asserts itself as something other than passive, the industry must shift – and, perhaps, an active audience creating positive change will have positive effects in other areas of society.