Recap / The 100 S 02 E 01

Back To Recap Page

Season 2 Episode 1

The 48

Welcome to Mount Weather.

"Where the Hell am I?"

—Clarke

---

The episode opens with Clarke being watched through security camera footage in her room at the Quarantine Ward in Mount Weather. Clarke looks at the painting on the wall and then notices that Monty's room across from her is now occupied by an individual in a hazmat suit decontaminating/cleaning out the now vacant room. Worried for her friends, she screams at the person but there is no response, so she smashes the window of her room, cutting herself in the process. She unlocks the door and crosses the hallway to enter Monty's old room. She picks up a piece of glass and uses it to threaten the individual in a hazmat suit. She rips the mask off the person's face, revealing it to be a young girl who's wearing a pair of earphones. The frightened girl screams, "you'll get me contaminated!" Clarke further threatens the now crying girl with a shard of glass to her neck and forces her to take her to where her friends are being kept.

The girl leads her into a dining hall filled with many people eating. They're shown to be relatively civilized, all wearing nice clothes and eating good food. A woman looks over and sees Clarke holding the girl hostage and screams out in fear that there has been a containment breach. This causes widespread panic with many covering their faces as they run from the dining hall. A group of guards with full body suits and masks emerge with guns pointing towards her. Clarke looks around at the chaos she's just caused and asks, "Where am I?" in confusion.

Bellamy is running through the forest when he comes across Monroe and Sterling. Bellamy explains that they knew the fire was coming so he and Finn ran but were separated. They tell him that they saw the Ark come down and allegedly wanted to see if they could bring back help for the battle. They then see Finn and another delinquent being dragged along by Tristan. Tristan stops and kills the delinquent because he can't walk. He justifies the act by saying that three hundred of his people had died because of the delinquents. However, he leaves Finn alive to talk to the Commander.

Lincoln is helping Octavia learn the Grounder language. He comes and takes the arrow out of her and tastes it, only to discover that it's poisoned. He tells her he doesn't have the antidote because he gave it to Finn to help Raven. He says it's too far to go back to the dropship, but Octavia counters that it's further to the sea. She tells him that they can't go back to his village because they'll torture and kill him for being a traitor. He remembers that the antidote is made from bugs and goes to search for them instead.

A Grounder is seen inspecting the bodies outside the dropship. He walks inside the drop ship where he sees Raven. Presuming she's dead, he flips her over but she shoots him instead. She hears someone coming and gets ready to shoot before seeing it's John Murphy. He asks her not to shoot but she pulls the trigger multiple times anyway, however, there aren't any bullets left. He comes and sits down and says, "I would've shot me too."

Clarke is introduced to Maya, the girl she threatened earlier, who says she won't press charges. Clarke is then taken to a bed in the medical ward. Dante Wallace says he knows she's the leader (like him) and also a painter (like him). He tells her they're not prisoners. She says they wants to leave but he tells her it's safe here. She tells him about the Ark and he assures her he'll bring any survivors in too. He has a wardrobe brought out for her to choose from and leaves her to get dressed. She picks up a shoe and snaps the heel off, concealing it up her sleeve as a weapon.

Dante tells Clarke it is dangerous outside. She says it is survivable but he says not for everyone, not for the people in Mount Weather. He explains that the Sky People survived because the solar radiation in space is higher. She's about to go up to meet the rest but he stops her and tells her to give him the heel and she does so. When she meets up with the other 47 Delinquents inside Mount Weather, they tell her that Raven, Bellamy, and Finn aren't there.

Raven asks Murphy why he's there and he responds, "Dying, the same as you." She starts to cough up blood and he rushes to her, trying to help her get on her side. When she asks why he's helping her, he says, "I don't want to die alone."

Bellamy, Monroe, and Sterling are following Finn and Tristan. He tells them he'll distract Tristan while they free Finn and tries to encourage them by reminding them that they're warriors. Bellamy runs out and confronts Tristan, throwing a spear at him, but Monroe and Sterling abandon him. Tristan beats up Bellamy and takes him captive, too.

Lincoln is digging up the beetles for the antidote when he hears Octavia screaming. He runs to her and sees her trying to get away from something. He asks her what she saw and she says she saw a "monster" but he says it was probably the poison and tells her she's burning up. He picks her up and carries her away, saying he knows what he has to do.

Monty and Jasper are enjoying their food when Clarke comes in. She says it's weird that they gave them a map without any exits. She also refuses to eat their food. They dismiss her as being paranoid. Jasper goes to talk to Maya and Clarke also comes over and apologizes to Maya before leaving. Maya realizes that Clarke stole her access card and she and Jasper start to chase after Clarke. An alarm goes off and Clarke sees guards running towards her. She runs and makes her way through a restricted area, locking a door behind her and breaking the lock. She finds herself at a set of stairs leading up. Once she gets to the top, she finds a massive, sealed door. She figures out how to unlock the door and is about to pull the lever that will open the door when Jasper and Maya appear and beg her not to open it. If she does, then all the Mountain Men will die from radiation exposure. Maya even goes so far as to get a gun out and is prepared to kill Clarke if she opens the door. Jasper pleads with her, telling her that she saved lives when she pulled the lever that fired the rockets and to not make a mistake by pulling this lever now. Clarke allows herself to be taken into custody.

Murphy apologizes to Raven for shooting her. She asks him about his past and how he ended up as a murderer. He reveals that his father stole medicine for him to keep him alive, medicine that wouldn't have worked anyway. His father was caught and floated and his mother started drinking herself to death. Before Murphy found her dead, she had told him that it was his fault his father was dead.

Monroe tells Sterling they are warriors and they run, screaming, after Tristan to try to free Bellamy and Finn. As Tristan is coming after them, he is shot from behind by Kane. He comes out of the woods with other Sky People who had made it down to earth. Kane tells Sinclair to split up and go to where Alpha Station crashed while Kane and Abby go with the delinquents back to the drop ship.

Lincoln is carrying Octavia and trying to keep her busy by making her repeat Grounder phrases. She asks where they're going and he lies that he's taking her to the sea, asking if she can smell it. She says she can't smell anything and she's scared. Lincoln picks up the pace and begins to run.

Bellamy and Finn lead the others to the drop ship but know something is wrong when they see it is too quiet. They're made to wait outside the fence but they evade the guards and run around to the side entrance of the camp to see what is going on. Kane helps carry Murphy outside and when Bellamy sees him, he attacks him. They both get arrested and Kane tells them that they're not in control anymore. Raven tells Abby that Clarke's gone and that she got shot. Abby leaves a message for Clarke on the drop ship before they leave the drop ship to go meet up with the other Ark survivors.

Lincoln takes Octavia to the Abraham Lincoln statue near his village. She is upset with him because he'll be killed if he gets caught. Lincoln tells her that he won't get caught and to stay quiet until he can come back soon with the antidote soon.

After Clarke is arrested, she is taken to Dante Wallace. He is busy painting the outside world and tells her how he got to see the outside once when he was seven for five minutes. The Mountain Men saw the first of the Outsiders and thought the earth was survivable but it wasn't for the Mountain Men. He also tells her that they have found no survivors from either the drop ship or the Ark but he'll keep searching. He asks her to give herself time to grieve and that he doesn't want her to try leaving again. Later, in the delinquents' dorm, she opens an envelope addressed to her with a painting set from Dante. They go out to the Mess Hall and Clarke allows herself to finally eat their food.

Meanwhile, up in space, Jaha has been trying to reach any of the Ark survivors on earth but is unable to get through. He shuts off the power in the Communications room and is resigned to his fate. Then he hears a baby crying.

Tropes

• Actually Pretty Funny: Murphy smirks after Raven doesn't hesitate to pull the trigger on him.
  Murphy: Yeah, I would'a shot me too.
• Alas, Poor Villain: The unnamed Grounder who discovers the carnage at the Drop Ship, and is killed by Raven Playing Possum. He takes a moment to mourn the dead and retrieve a Tragic Keepsake. It helps set the tone for how the season will continue to muddy the waters of Gray-and-Gray Morality.
• Arrested for Heroism: Bellamy attacks Murphy on sight in full view of Kane. Kane promptly arrests him for assault, despite Murphy's crimes.
• Artistic License – Biology: Dante explains that both the Grounders and the Sky People were both able to adapt to the high levels of radiation on the Ground and in Space due to natural selection weeding out the people who couldn't. This hasn't happened for the Mountain Men because they have been totally shielded from the radiation this whole time. This is unlikely in real life, as for both the Ark and Ground to have the populations they due in the present, a huge portion of the past populations would already need to be immune to the radiation, but such a mutation would be completely random, and the possibility of enough people on the Ark developing it is absurd.
• As You Know: Octavia explains to Lincoln how his people will punish him for his treason. Apparently it involves Death by a Thousand Cuts.
• Back for the Dead: Tristan appears in two scenes before Kane and his contingent of guards kill him.
• Big Damn Heroes: Kane and his team of Guardsman rescue Finn, Bellamy, Monroe, and Sterling from Tristan.
• Cardboard Prison: Justified, as it's not a prison, it's a quarantine zone. The Mountain Men always intended to let Clarke out once she was decontaminated, but she escaped her cell before that could happen.
• ForeShadowing: Maya is forced to get a "Treatment" using transfused blood after her attack by Clarke. We aren't shown where the blood comes from.
• Cliffhanger: The episode ends with Jaha alone on the Go-Sci Ring. Then he hears a baby crying.
• Freudian Excuse: Raven accuses Murphy of trying to hide his malevolent behavior with the excuse of not having loving parents. Murphy reveals it's a bit more complicated than that.
• Genre Savvy: Dante immediately picks up on the fact that Clarke broke the heel in order to make a weapon.
• Gilded Cage: Clarke immediately perceives Mount Weather as this, as the map of the facility they gave the 48 has no exits.
• Good All Along: Played with. The Mountain Men appear to be this, what with removing the 48 from war zone where they were under constant threat from the Grounders, treating their wounds, and welcoming them into their community. Jasper buys it almost immediately. Clarke doesn't.
• Heal It With Fire: How Lincoln treats Octavia's wounded leg.
• Hidden Depths: Murphy turns out to have some, choosing to help Raven when he could have easily abandoned her.
• Hollywood Healing: Lincoln takes off running to save Octavia after realizing she was poisoned, less than a week after getting an arrow through his side. Later he picks her up in a fireman's carry and sprints with her.
• Iconic Item: A passed out Raven holding Jasper's goggles immediately alerts Finn that Jasper has been captured, as he would never willingly leave them behind.
• Immediate Sequel: Season 2 picks up right where Season 1 ended, with Clarke in quarantine.
• Improvised Weapon: Clarke rips apart her IV stand and uses it to break the glass of her cell, then attacks Maya with a shard of said glass. Later, she breaks off the heel of a stiletto shoe and hides it just in case.
• Malevolent Masked Women: Subverted. Maya initially comes off this way, what with her Hazmat Suit with an opaque viewport. Then it turns out she is only trying to help Clarke while following protocol, and is shocked and distressed when Clarke takes her hostage.
• Meet Cute: Maya and Jasper bond over all chocolate cake, art, and Vitamin D of all things.
• Mind Screw: The prologue is this. Clarke has no idea where she is, and the people who took her prisoner are more scared of her than she is of them.
• Monumental Damage: Lincoln's home village turns out to be in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial, although the building surrounding the statue has since crumbled.
• The Mountains of Illinois: The Lincoln Memorial is portrayed as being in the middle of a densely wooded area. The Real Life Lincoln Memorial was built on top of swampland, as was most of Washington DC.
• Negated Moment of Awesome: Combined with instantly proven wrong. Bellamy gives a brief pep talk to Sterling and Monroe to get them to help him rescue Finn from Tristan, calling them warriors. The instant he starts the ambush, the other two chicken out. Bellamy promptly gets curbstomped by Tristan.
• No One Gets Left Behind: Averted. The Mountain Men left only the wounded Raven at the Drop Ship and kidnapped the rest of the survivors.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Twice:
  • President Wallace tries to bond with Clarke over both of them being artists, and being leaders of their respective people.
  • Fridge Brilliance gives us this for Murphy and Raven. He reveals to Raven that his mother was an alcoholic. Raven's mother was too, but she doesn't reveal this to Murphy.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: At least two:
  • Bellamy, Finn, Sterling, and Monroe all escaped the blast radius of the Drop Ship, despite being surrounded by hostile Grounders. Tristan pursued them and escaped too, although his face is badly burned.
  • Raven woke up after passing out from blood loss, got a gun, and kills a Grounder by Playing Possum. She's very much a Handicapped Badass.
• Oh, Crap!: Maya really wasn't expecting Clarke's escape attempt, or her hostility.
• Pet the Dog: Murphy helps Raven get into the safe position as she is coughing up blood. Note, Murphy was the one who shot Raven to begin with. He claims this is because he doesn't want to die alone. Later, his first words upon seeing Abby is to beg her to help Raven. Raven later returns the favor by not telling Kane and Abby who shot her.
• Ragnarök Proofing: Mount Weather takes it to a new level. It's still in immaculate condition after nearly a century of use, and they have a lot of stores of food and supplies still. They are even able to manufacture chocolate cake.
• Real After All: Octavia starts screaming to Lincoln that she saw a monster of a man in the woods, which he takes to be a hallucination caused by the fever and the poison. Then it turns out there really is a deformed man in the woods.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Two:
  • Placed with with President Wallace, who is kind and hospitable to Clarke, yet won't tolerate any threat of danger towards his people. But then he lies to Clarke's face and tells her there is no evidence of any survivors from the Ark or the 100.
  • Kane rescues Bellamy and the others, but makes a point that they are now back under the Ark rule of law, and promptly arrests Bellamy when he tries to be a Cowboy Cop. He also helps Murphy walk despite his crimes, as Bellamy and Finn's accusations are just hearsay until they can be proven.
• The Reveal: Multiple:
  • Lincoln reveals that only the warrior caste of the Grounders are bilingual in English and Trigedasleng. The rest only speak Trig. Lincoln starts teaching Octavia Trig in order to compensate.
  • The residents of Mount Weather are The Remnant of the US Government, forced underground by the Nuclear Apocalypse. They can't go above Ground un-aided, as unlike the residents of the Ark and the Grounders, they haven't adapted to the high levels of radiation still present.
  • We get some of Murphy's backstory. While on the Ark he got the flu, and his father stole medicine to help him, but ironically the medicine wouldn't have helped him anyway. His father got floated for the crime, and his mother fell into alcoholism and accused Murphy of being responsible for killing his father.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Clarke and the rest of the 48, thanks to the showers and new clothes provided by Mount Weather.
• Shout-Out: The President of the world underground is named Dante.
• Slashed Throat: How Tristan kills the unnamed delinquent he took prisoner along with Finn.
• Soft Glass: Played with. Clarke is able to relatively easily break the glass in her cell window, but she badly cuts her arm reaching through it.
• Took a Level in Badass: Clarke almost immediately escapes from her cell by attacking the guard and taking her hostage.
• White Shirt of Death: It doesn't take long for Clarke to bloody up her immaculate white outfit.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Dante relates a story to Clarke about how his father came to believe the ground was survivable 56 years previously, when the Mountain Men encountered the Grounders for the first time. He promptly opened the doors to Mount Weather, killing 56 people, including Dante's mother and sister.