I’m watching The 100 and I want to write about it. So, here we go. These won’t be recaps. More like disjointed thoughts. Spoilers ahead, yo. Spoilers be here, yar.

Bellamy does the voiceover instead of Clarke in the intro. I guess that means that Bellamy is now less likely to be a main character to bite the dust, but who knows with this show. Maybe they’ll rotate the voiceover? But it seems like Bellamy makes more narrative sense than Clarke. This show owes so much to BSG, and you can hear the influence with the music. The biggest influences on The 100 are Lost and BSG, but it’s Lost and BSG in a post-Game of Thrones world. So, main characters can die. (Well, main characters on Lost and BSG died too, I guess, but the line between death and life was much more blurred on those shows.) And we have the map in the intro, which is definitely influenced by the Game of Thrones intro. I tried to see what was going on with the map, but I suck at geography, so I’m not going to bother, sorry.

It took two viewings to try to figure out wtf is going on with ALIE. Well, actually, I still don’t really know what is going on, but I figured out a little more. While Murphy is in the bunker, we learn that ALIE’s creator isn’t the dude who shot himself, but instead Becca. ALIE models her avatar after her creator. What we don’t know is why the lighthouse dude let ALIE out, or why she was put away (perhaps her homicidal tendencies?). In the lighthouse, two other guys show up, and they’re also there in the avatar sequence. (But Becca isn’t in the lighthouse during the bombing.) So, Becca had some buddies help her with ALIE? She seemed closest to the guy who killed himself. Maybe Becca locks ALIE up, then dies, and the other dude wants to see Becca again, so he lets out ALIE? It’s impossible to know at this stage.

We also know that ALIE wanted to improve life, but she thought there were too many people. I suspect Becca programmed her with that prime directive, but we don’t know what she thought about the rest. Given that ALIE was “let out,” we can probably gather that Becca did the trapping, and didn’t approve of some of what ALIE was doing.

What’s the City of Light? Jaha says it’s real. It seems to be some kind of digital thing. ALIE’s conversation at the end of season 2 let’s us know that synthetic and biological consciousness are basically the same thing in this universe. Jaha is in a meditative pose and ALIE tells Murphy that Jaha is “in” the City of Light. Perhaps his consciousness goes to this digital place. Is it networked? Or is it just in your head? Of course, maybe it’s not a real place and it’s more like a drug.

When they locked Murphy up, it must’ve been because of the dangerous work they were doing converting a bomb to an energy source. (Okay good, she doesn’t seem to want to murder the rest of humanity… yet…?) But what is it powering? They wanted to complete the work ALIE started with her creator, but what was that work? It has to be something beyond just that prime directive, right? Why do they need so much power? Was it to manufacture that weird crystal thing that Jaha gave Murphy? How many of those things exist?

Also, did the City of Light exist before Jaha got there and helped with the power source? I have to imagine it did to convince Jaha to help out, and to recruit all the mutants. And to not only help out, but to be a die-hard Kool-Aid drinker, who thinks that ALIE was justified in murdering everyone in a nuclear holocaust. (Sometimes you have to sacrifice the many to save the few?)

Jaha says that in the City of Light there’s no pain, no hate, no envy. He also says that in the City of Light, we’re all kings, and the outside world doesn’t matter. I suppose the show will address what makes someone a human through this storyline. Murphy replies that pain, hate, and envy are the “ABC’s of me” and that if you take them away, then there’s nothing left of him. If you take away all the bad stuff, maybe there’s no humanity either?

They brought back Emori, but at first I was confused by who she was. I thought maybe she was the person that jacked all their shit in the desert, and that seemed to be confirmed when Murphy asked who she stole the boat from. Nice touch. I wonder if she’s been to the City of Light.

When they’re about to leave, ALIE shows up in a red dress. Speaking of BSG influences, haha. Beardless Jaha is no longer Jaha-Moses; now he’s Jaha-Baltar. But seriously, can anyone else see her? Is she hooked up to his consciousness and more free to roam around?

And since we had the Iliad show up in the beginning, will she be some type of god meddling in human affairs? Hmm. A couple more answers with ALIE, but really, just more and more questions.

It’s interesting how this show is dealing with sexuality. In the beginning, I thought it’d be some standard CW love-triangle stuff that I’d have to suffer thorugh for the good stuff. It kinda reminds me of Korra and how much time they spent on that. Korra ends up being bisexual, but I can’t applaud there treatment of it. After spending so much time on other heterosexual relationships in the show, I’m supposed to be satisfied with a relationship that exists only in hints until the very end. Plus, we don’t even know if their relationship is frowned upon or what? In this show, Clarke is bisexual, and the show doesn’t really make a big deal of it either. She’s really in love with Finn, and they she kisses Lexa, but says she’s not ready for a relationship. The show seems to be establishing a universe where same-sex relationships are not stigmatized at all. This is further proved when it’s revealed that Miller had a boyfriend on Farm Station. But I don’t know yet if sexuality is just fluid for everyone, or if some people have preferences, or what. I like that this show does have these characters, and I don’t want to change anything here, but it does punt a little bit on sexuality on race because it takes place in the future. I guess the thought is that some of these concerns go away when survival is the biggest thing (but classism doesn’t go away?), but I like it when narratives get to confront racism and homophobia and show how characters are shaped by these forces but also their own agents. Still, props for having complex characters with different sexualities who aren’t props for main characters. (Bad pun, sorry.) I’m sure it’s awesome for people to be able to identify with these characters on the show.

While we’re on the topic of sexuality, Abby’s doctor helper dude (don’t remember his name), mentions that people are getting their contraceptive implants removed. I’m guessing that every female in the Ark gets one, probably at puberty, so that’s why everyone got to have sexy-time on the ground with no one worrying about getting pregnant. I’d call it a nice ret-con, but this show is pretty good with planning ahead.

Clarke’s got a new lady-friend, but that might be over already what with Clarke being caught by that bounty-hunter. It was interesting seeing how Niylah admired her and thought of her as a hero because she ended the reaping, but we know how much pain Clarke went through and that she’s still having nightmares (when she wakes up suddenly). I don’t have any further analysis beyond saying it’s an interesting dynamic.

We don’t get to know anything about Bellamy’s new girlfriend. Raven says “she’s too good” for Bellamy, whatever that means. I guess it means she’s not a selfish douche, haha. (Oh how far he’s come.) Also, she gives him The Iliad, which is a nice gesture, but it makes me think less about her and more about what elements this season is going to borrow from that story. Obviously, war. But will there be parellels between characters, events, or themes? A sack of Troy? Too early to tell, but there has to be significance in which tale they picked. This show doesn’t waste something like that.

Raven no longer has a boyfriend. I was reading in The AV Club recap comments that the guy who plays Wick may have gotten fired after saying racist stuff on Twitter. Kinda sucks because I enjoyed the character. Oh and speaking of Raven, did you notice that she still had Finn’s necklace? It was in the truck. This show is good, right?

I really enjoyed that scene where the original crew got to let themselves go and sing in the truck. It was nice seeing them have fun for once. I was really tense though, half-expecting someone to die or for the car to blow up.

Lincoln and Octavia talk about what it means to be tree-people and sky-people, and I’m not sure I quite understand Octavia’s motivations right now. The first time around, I was trying to figure this out, but the second watch-through, I focused more on what they were saying and Octavia mentions running away and that Luna’s clan will take them in. Lincoln says Luna is in hiding. So, who is Luna? Was she mentioned before? Was that where Lincoln was trying to run to before? Will she be a character later?

Time for some wild-ass speculation: It seems like this show is setting up Trikru & Skaikru vs. Ice Nation. They just broke the cease-fire, the Ice Nation is hunting for Clarke, and Farm Station may have crashed there and we have no idea what happened to the people. But perhaps this show will zag when we expect it to zig and we may see an alliance with the Ice Nation and Arkers instead. It would explain why Octavia and Bellamy are fighting in the season 3 trailer.

Parting thoughts: Is the Ice Nation in New England or Canada (or all of it)? I really want the Ice Nation to be Canadian for some reason. Is there a Fire Nation? Do they attack?