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Season 1 Episode 2
Earth Skills
Hello, Beautiful.
Chancellor Jaha recovers and learns of his son Wells' supposed fate. Abby recruits Raven, a zero-gravity mechanic, to fix a drop pod to send herself to the ground. Meanwhile on Earth, Clarke, Wells, Murphy, and Bellamy set out to rescue Jasper, who was taken by the Grounders after being attacked. They find Jasper tied to a tree and manage to return to camp with him, in addition to a panther they killed prior to his rescue. Bellamy forces the 100 to trade their wristbands for food. Clarke manages to keep hers. As the Ark watches more wristbands going offline, a figure watches the 100 from above the camp.
Tropes
- Badass Pacifist: Wells. He successfully defeats Murphy in a knife fight with relative ease. Later he manages to kill a panther with Bellamy's pistol, while it is mid-jump to boot.
- Big Brother Instinct: Bellamy takes it a bit too far this time, hanging Atom by his wrists from a tree in the middle of the woods overnight, for the crime of making out with Octavia.
- Bioluminescence Is Cool: Another addition, along with the glowing fungi, Octavia and Atom discover a flutter of hundreds of beautiful glowing blue butterflies.
- Bottomless Magazines: Averted. Wells uses up Bellamy's entire clip of ammo in the process of killing the panther, leaving them with just a single empty pistol to defend 99 people.
- Due to the Dead: Wells buries the two delinquents who died on impact. He's apparently the only person in the camp to care enough to do so.
- Establishing Character Moment: Raven Reyes. A reckless mechanic who comes in hot with a spacewalk, begins taking off her helmet before the airlock is fully pressurized, and immediately starts asking why there is no damage from the Drop Ship being ejected. Then she immediately guesses the Drop Ship was deliberately launched, and strips down to her underwear in front of everyone, changes, and tries to visit her boyfriend in lockup. So far she is a Thrill Seeker, Wrench Wench, and Ms. Fanservice. Later she graduates to being Genre Savvy.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: Bellamy's hairstyle has completely changed since the pilot, going from neatly slicked back to a tangled mess of bangs. It makes him look considerably more rugged and helps with his Mr. Fanservice vibe.
- Faking the Dead: Bellamy continues to convince the others to remove their wristbands.
- Genre Savvy: Raven is the only person on the Ark to realize that the 100 are deliberately taking off their wristbands, not dying of radiation poisoning.
- Good Angel, Bad Angel: Abby and Kane take on this role for Jaha, with Abby advocating waiting to cull members of the Ark until they have more data from the 100, with Kane advocating the culling begin immediately.
- Iconic Item: Two:
- Clarke and Finn find Jasper's goggles during their search and rescue mission.
- Raven Reyes has a distinctive metal necklace, naturally in the shape of an origami raven.
- Ironic Echo: Finn throws that the idea that there are no rules in Murphy and Bellamy's faces when they try to force him and Clarke to remove their wristbands in exchange for food. Turns out the idea of no rules really is Insane Troll Logic and they let him take the food.
- Just a Flesh Wound: Jasper's spear wound. It helps that the grounders took efforts to treat his injury with an antibiotic algi.
- Just Friends: Clarke and Wells have this relationship, although especially strained because of Wells' supposed betrayal of Clarke. Bellamy successfully guesses that Wells is still crazy about Clarke though.
- Kick the Dog: Twice:
- Murphy, when he holds a girl over an open flame. He claims that it was to make the Ark think that they are suffering from the radiation.
- Bellamy mocks Wells for being in love with Clarke.
- MacGyvering: Wells manages to build a functional shovel and backpack out wreckage of the Drop Ship.
- No-Respect Guy: Wells continues to be this, with Bellamy frequently attacking his self esteem, despite the fact that he continues to be the most rational and level headed of the group.
- The Reveal: Raven's unnamed boyfriend who is a member of the 100 is Finn, and he made her raven necklace. He later makes a two-headed deer necklace for Clarke, implying he's edging closer to infidelity.
- Revealing Cover Up: As part of the plan to disguise the failure of the oxygen system, the Ark government claims the Drop Ship was ejected, not launched, due to a dangerous malfunction, and the 100 are still in their cells. They stage a sickness outbreak in Lockup and quarantine it to disguise their absence. Raven doesn't buy it for a second.
- Robbing the Dead: A respectful version. Wells salvages all he can from the bodies of the two delinquents who died when the drop ship landed (including a blue t-shirt), before giving them a respectful burial. He intends to doll out the supplies as needed to members of the 100, but ends up getting robbed by Bellamy and Murphy. Bellamy later is seen putting on the blue shirt.
- Second Episode Introduction: Raven Reyes, the resident Wrench Wench aboard the Ark.
- Ship Tease: Between Octavia and Atom.
- Spikes of Doom: A hidden pit of these guards a wounded Jasper. Clarke falls in, but Bellamy manages to save her before she is speared.
- The Starscream: Played with. Jaha and Abby both suspect that Kane deliberately set up Bellamy to assassinate Jaha, so that Kane could become chancellor. Kane denies it, but admits that he thinks Jaha is too weak to make the necessary choices that come with the job. His guilt is left ambiguous.
- Take a Third Option: Twice
- During the vote of the Ark Council, Jaha is given the task of breaking the tie, choosing either to cull over 200 members of the Ark, or to do nothing. Instead he abstains, automatically forcing the council to vote again in 10 days to break the tie, so that Abby can gain the necessary time to establish contact with the 100 on the ground.
- Abby, upon deciding that the Ark literally has no way to contact the 100 from space, decides to go to the ground herself, using an antique escape pod. However, it's nowhere near space worthy, and she gives Raven 9 days to get it ready.
- Title Drop: Wells mentions that Finn took a class called "Fourth Year Earth Skills", which gives him the ability of Sign Cutting, letting him do a bit of basic tracking a find Jasper.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: Bellamy spends a good portion of the opening act shirtless. He's definitely Mr. Fanservice.
- You Remind Me of X: Abby, with regards to Raven. It's what endears Raven to her, despite her hostility towards Abby.
