TV Review: ‘The 100’ 3×06 “Bitter Harvest”

There was a lot that was going on this week on The 100. However, one thing that is apparent is that history will probably be repeating itself.

Roan sends Clarke a pleasant surprise: Emerson, the last Mountain man. Clarke is faced with the decision of what to do with him. Her first reaction is to sentence him to immediate death and Lexa is perplexed at this. It was just a little ago that Clarke led Lexa to oath by a new decree: “blood must not have blood,” when it meant stopping war against her people but did it not apply when it wasn’t to her benefit?

Clarke was having a double standard and Lexa was very quick to call her out on it. Lexa’s new stance for peace also means new targets on her back. She was feeling conflicted about her decision as previous commanders haunted her dreams and to see Clarke not be peaceful across the board clearly infuriated her. This season we are seeing a different side to Lexa as a leader but more so as a person. Integrity is incredibly important to her now, it’s a value she dearly holds on to and it’s interesting to see how she has changed over from when she abandoned Clarke at Mt. Weather.

Lexa is serious about this new peace stance and she believes that to create change you must be consistent. She’s hoping that Clarke will realize this too, and she does after she has an unpleasant conversation with Emerson which reminds her once again of all that occurred at Mt. Weather. She ended up killing his whole family and no matter how tough you may be there is guilt that will rise up after hearing that. Emerson was anxious to be executed because his suffering would be over and Clarke’s would continue on. Titus also tries to sway Clarke’s actions. He says he’s looking out for Lexa but I can’t help but feel there is more to his story. Titus insists the peace policy is far too dangerous for Lexa’s life and rule. But all of Titus’ pleads did the reverse on Clarke. She decided to let Emerson live, much to Lexa’s pleasing. Clarke realizes that letting Emerson live is the worse punishment she could give him. Lexa banishes him from her lands and together with Clarke they demonstrate that violence and blood is not always the right answer. Hopefully the rest of the grounders are buying into the peace policy.

Back at Arkadia, Pike only continues to create more havoc. He has sent Hannah (Monty’s mother) and others from his team to scout the soil and water from the land. Here we see them encounter a grounder kid from sector four and Hannah beckons him closer so that they can shoot him. Octavia is overhearing everything since she’s working as Kane’s intel. When they go to shoot, the kid runs away and they all chase after him since he can warn his village about them. Octavia is able to cut the kid off in the woods and keep him silent for long enough that Hannah and her crew return back to Arkadia. The fact that Monty’s mom was willing to kill a child reveals how ruthless their leadership style is and also showed what a detestable woman she is herself.

They get to the conclusion that sector four has the best land to begin to plant crops since Arkadia will begin to starve in just one year. That doesn’t sound like a bad idea except that sector four is populated by a grounder village and Pike wants to invade and remove them no matter the cost. It goes without saying he won’t hesitate to slaughter the whole village. Kane, Octavia and Miller get the low down on everything since Miller bugged the Chancellor’s office. We also learn in this episode that Monty is on the bad guys team, which was surprising even though his mother is on the team as well. I’m hoping that Monty is there only to try to help since it was evident he wasn’t totally down with killing a whole village.

Octavia decides that warning the village is their best bet at avoiding a war. She’s hoping they will peacefully leave even though as Monty pointed out, they’re grounders and don’t go down without a fight. But Octavia doesn’t think of a better choice since she knows what Lexa’s response to Skaikrui killing more of her people will be: war. The grounders were not friendly towards Octavia and as a thank you for the warning they decide to use her as a trap. Octavia is able to break free right as she sees Skaikrui’s jeep lights driving into the village. She’s able to warn them right as the grounders launch their arrows which ignite flammable tree sap and fill the air with toxic fumes. Unfortunately, Monroe dies in the attack which is sure to fuel Bellamy’s rage. Hannah is quick to point out this is all Octavia’s fault. Poor Octavia is being blamed while she’s also being kidnapped by the grounders. I’m not sure how Octavia will handle her loyalties from this episode forward.

Once they return to Arkadia, Pike speaks to Bellamy about figuring out who was feeding Octavia all the intel, which they both know is Kane. Pike makes Bellamy’s new mission to find proof that Kane has been committing treason. Pike is pinning Bellamy against Octavia, his sister, a bond that no one else on the Ark is able to comprehend. It will be interesting to see how Bellamy will handle this as he is in such a vulnerable emotional and psychological state that his actions now can be so unpredictable.

Jaha was also hard at work during this episode. It seems that after Raven “converted” to the City of Light, A.L.I.E was right when she said that many others would follow. Raven’s pain has completely disappeared and yet her broken leg hasn’t actually being healed which is what perplexes Abby. But the pill does more than take away pain because Raven isn’t acting like her usually fiery self. She peacefully agrees to let A.L.I.E into the Ark’s hardware to find an upgrade of the program that her creator had left behind. She also doesn’t even flinch when Jasper apologizes for stealing and spreading Finn’s ashes on the ground. That definitely showed us that Raven is not being her true self. In another time she would’ve pounced on Jasper.

Abby knows something isn’t right and she stops Jasper from taking the pill. She also demands that Jaha scientifically explains how the pill works. He tells her how it’s silicone based and is able to stop any pain receptors which explains why Raven feels so much better. But when Abby asks Jaha if he would give this pill to his son Wells, Jaha seems stumped at who Wells is. A.L.I.E quickly points out to him that she’s asking about his son but Abby was able to catch that Jaha has forgotten about his own son, whose death really drove him mad for a long time in previous seasons. She confiscates all of the pills and stops his distribution until she can figure out what else they are doing to those that ingest them.

Raven comes back with results from her search on the Ark’s hard drive. Becca’s upgraded program wasn’t found anywhere on the 12 stations. To which Jaha points out that there was a 13th station that was scratched out from the history books because it was blown out of the sky. The real name of the station was Polaris. The episode ends with Titus torturing Murphy for information on the City of Light pill as well as on Clarke. Poor Murphy doesn’t know there’s much more to this story. We see that there’s a piece of the 13th station that has its name on the side with the “A” and “R” erased…which gives us Polis.

We have learned how Polis came to be but now there are so many new questions with this new discovery. Polis and A.L.I.E are going to be making up a new interesting story line this season. This season is going to become very intricate and The 100 is always great at balancing multiple story plots and somehow tying them well together.

Leave your comments below with your theories.