'The 100' Review: "Ye Who Enter Here"
Meaghan McDonough ’17/ Emertainment Monthly Staff Writer
After two weeks of relatively clunky establishing episodes, this week’s episode, “Ye Who Enter Here”, finally picked up with the momentum we’ve come to expect from the series. Titled after the Dante-described inscription on Hell’s entrance and with trailers promising death and destruction, the episode delivered well beyond what viewers could have imagined. Abandon all hope ye who hope to avoid spoilers and suffering: this review is unavoidably jam-packed with descriptions of both.
As already mentioned in Emertainment Monthly’s review of “Wanheda: Part 2,” last week’s episode struggled with making the most of their allotted forty-five minutes. Too many characters were too all over the place both physically and writing-wise. There were four or five plotlines each begging for more care and attention in the episode, creating arcs that couldn’t be finished properly and only adding to pile of questions created by the premiere. While “Ye Who Enter Here” doesn’t necessarily work to answer any of those big questions, it expertly handles plots and characters in ways that allow viewers to put those questions on the back burner.
Meanwhile, Bellamy (Bob Morley), Bellamy’s girlfriend Gina (Leah Gibson), Octavia (Marie Avgeropoulos), and Raven (Lindsey Morgan) arrive at the Mount Weather with supplies for the Farm Station refugees. Octavia has grown increasingly agitated with the presence of Grounder-hating Pike (Michael Beach) and his people. Seeing that they’ve settled down in Mount Weather—a place so filled with bad memories and apparent threats to the Grounder clans—absolutely disgusts her and she leaves almost on arrival. Raven, picked up by Sinclair (Alessandro Juliani), is assigned to fixing some of the technical issues in the Mount Weather compound, to which Gina follows her. This dividing of plot lines is done so elegantly compared to the last two episodes that it’s enough to leave viewers in breathless awe. The cuts here are so smooth and natural, it really helps to highlight the stunning writing of Kim Shumway, the careful directorial choices of Antonio Negret, and the overall vision of showrunner Jason Rothenberg. This is The 100 at it’s best.
As Kane and Abby make their pilgrimage to Polis, different plot points begin to reveal themselves throughout the other character groups. Echo (Tasya Teles), who most should remember as the Ice Nation grounder that Bellamy saved in Season 2, appears outside of Mount Weather and speaks of an Ice Nation plot to kill SkiKru—who and why and how is very subtly left out—while their leaders are distracted at the summit. At Polis, Roan (Zach McGowan) reminds Clarke of her desire for revenge against Lexa. Knowing of the threat to SkiKru, the Mount Weather group decide it’d be worthwhile to get ahold of the missiles while Bellamy, Pike, and Octavia (with the help of Echo) go to get Kane and Abby before it’s too late. Short cut scenes of an apparent assassin preparing for his job offer the audience a tangible proof of the threat. But, as things tend to go with The 100, not everything is as it appears.
As Bellamy, Pike, Octavia, and Echo reach the summit to rescue Kane, Abby, and Clarke, it becomes clear that there is no imminent threat to those present. Echo is gone before Bellamy even has a chance to give her a second look, never mind ask her what else she knew about the threat. The episode quickly cuts back to Mount Weather where it is revealed that the strange religious-seeming assassin was actually hiding there the whole time. A brief emotional scene between Sinclair and Raven lures viewers into a false sense of security that is quickly shattered by the brutal stabbing of Gina, which Raven hears entirely over walkie-talkie.
New conflicts arise as old conflicts resolve and there’s really no way to describe this episode other than shell shocking. They make great use of the wide range of sets and character dynamics that the show has, leaving no stone unturned while also keeping the plot moving. The lack of appearances from the group at The City of Light and other side characters really saved them some time this episode, and it was very much a reminder just how much Jaha (Isaiah Washington) has overstayed his welcome. All the actors present really shine, though special praise should go to Bob Morley, Alycia Debnam Carey, Lindsey Morgan, and Henry Ian Cusick, who really made their very heavily shared spotlights count. This episode may not have been perfect, but it got pretty damn close. Most importantly, it rose to the occasion of being what viewers have come to expect from The 100: heart wrenching, jaw-dropping character oriented television that’s perfect for the sci-fi loving young adult to chew on.