Diyoza's invaders go on the hunt to take over the valley from Clarke and Madi. Raven's crew makes an alarming discovery aboard the orbiting mystery ship.
Tropes in this episode:
- Always Save the Girl: Bellamy, previously unhappy about the possibility of having to kill the Eligius mining crew while using them as leverage to broke peace, flips on a dime when he finds out that Clarke is not only alive, but being held hostage by Diyoza and her crew. She hangs a lampshade on it.Bellamy: How about I give you 283? That's how many of your people are gonna die if you and I can't make a deal.Diyoza: That's far enough. 283 lives for one. She must be pretty important to you.Bellamy: She is.
- Apocalyptic Log: Bellamy and Raven discover the captain's final log before Diyoza killed him.
- BFG: Diyoza has a Mook use one in the opening scene. It seems to fire compressed soundwaves.
- Berserk Button: Mentioned what Clarke would do is one to Bellamy. Murphy mentioning her dying is the only time thus far in the season that Bellamy raises his voice.
- Bilingual Backfire: Subverted. Clarke tries this once captured, but Diyoza sees through it almost immediately.
- Call-Back: A few:
- Clarke's tactics in combating the Eligius prisoners directly mirror the Grounder tactics originally used against the original 100, including impaling a mook in the chest and leaving him as a trap, just like what happened to Jasper.
- When Bellamy, Murphy, Monty, Emori, Echo, Harper, and Raven board Eligius IV, they find out it was a prison ship. Monty explains that the mining missions were dangerous, so they used people they thought were expendable. Murphy intones that this "sounds familiar," referring to the Ark doing essentially the same by sending the 100 to the ground.
- Upon being capture, Clarke tries to pretend not to speak English, just like Lincoln did when captured. However, Diyoza catches on much more quickly than Clarke did.
- After discovering that she is a Nightblood, Shaw mentions he saw something similar for the crew of the Eligius III. Apparently they were mining on a planet with two suns, and the blood alteration protected them. Raven previously mentioned that Becca specifically designed Nightblood for the interstellar miners.
- Chekhov's Gun: Bellamy finds a mug belonging to the captain of the Eligius IV. He later uses it to prove to Diyoza that he has been to the ship and that his threat is real.
- Clarke's Third Law: Invoked by Raven when discussing Cryosleep with Echo, which also functions as a Shout-Out to Clarke Griffin's Real Life namesake.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: The Collar.
- Cool Chair: Murphy gets a kick out of sitting in the Captain's chair of the Eligius IV.
- Cool Starship: The Eligius IV is a more standard version than has been shown previously, although the interior looks more like the Nostromo than the Enterprise.
- Crazy-Prepared: Clarke and Madi have not been idle in the Shadow Valley the last few years. Besides hunting and gathering, they were setting traps for humans, despite supposedly being the only two survivors on the surface.
- Deadpan Snarker: Murphy remains one of the best. His quips are a sign to Echo that the old Murphy is back.
- Exact Words:Shaw: You said you wouldn't kill the crew.Diyoza: I said I wouldn't.
- Eye Scream: Raven attempts to gouge the eyes out of the prisoner who attacks her and Bellamy.
- Good Cop/Bad Cop: Shaw and McCreary, respectively. Shaw is referred to as such.
- Generation Ship: Averted. Bellamy and Raven naturally assume the Eligius IV to be this, before they find out it's a Sleeper Starship.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Raven stays behind to navigate the group from space, knowing there may be no escape route.
- Human Popsicle: The Eligius IV is full of them, having been an interstellar mining ship using prisoner labor. The cryosleep was to help the prisoners and crew survive the journey, which take at a decade each way. All of the prisoners on the ground are now formerly this.
- I Have You Now, My Pretty: McCreary gives off this impression, calling Clarke "feisty" and "pretty." Everyone on the Ark, including Bellamy, though, think he's referring to Octavia.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Clarke and Madi trap one of the prisoner Mooks in a trap that skewers him with two gnarly blades through the chest, yet gruesomely leaves him alive long enough to scream for help.
- Internal Reveal: Several:
- Clarke rebings to tell Diyoza and Shaw how the world ended. A.L.I.E.
- Bellamy and the Ark survivors learn Clarke is alive from Madi.
- Mercy Kill: After Diyoza realizes that even their ships medical supplies can't help a grievously wounded underling, she executes him on the spot with a Boom, Headshot!. From the offhand way she does it, it's clearly not the first time either.
- Mr. Exposition: Monty takes on this role, as he is apparently the only person familiar with any of the history of the Eligius Corporation.
- Noodle Incident: One of Eligius IV's engines has been severely damaged prior to returning to Earth.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: The prisoner on the ship beats the crap out of Bellamy, Raven, and Echo before they manage to take him down.
- Similarly, McCreary starts one on Clarke before Shaw intervenes.
- No One Gets Left Behind: Bellamy's attitude when Raven says that someone has to stay and navigate from space.
- Oh, Crap!: Murphy when he realizes Raven lied about the escape shuttle, meaning he just accidentally trapped himself in space once again.
- The Reveal: Several:
- Diyoza is a former Navy Seal, and Shaw was one of the original crewmen of the Eligius IV.
- The Eligius prisoners don't have a doctor.
- The mother ship in orbit is called the Eligius IV. It's full manifest originally included 300 prisoners, 25 guards, and 12 crewmen. Dioyza led a prisoner revolt that killed most of the crew and guards, except Shaw, but in doing so destroyed one of the engines. Before he died, the captain was unable to disable Cryosleep, meaning the prisoners went back to ssleep during their return trip to Earth, which last the last 100 years, much longer than it would have with two working engines.
- There is no escape pod.
- Rip Van Winkle: All of the Eligius prisoners are effectively this, having been in Cryosleep for 100+ years. They are not happy to be experiencing a Cold Sleep, Cold Future Shaw reminisces to Clarke about riding his Harley motorcycle around Detroit. The reference goes mostly over her head, although she gets the gist.
- Sealed Army in a Can: The Eligius IV has 283 prisoners in Cryosleep waiting to be woken up by Diyoza upon command. Raven and Murphy stay behind to make sure they stay asleep, and to hold them hostage so Bellamy can negotiate with Diyoza.
- Slave Liberation: Something similar happened aboard the Eligius IV. Details are sparse, but it appears Diyoza lead the miners in a revolt against the guards and crew, with the help of Shaw, who was a crewmember. The captain partially disabled the ship before being killed, which forced the prisoners to go into Cryosleep to survive the now delayed journey home, which is why the ship only just arrived.
- Subspace Ansible: The Eligius IV has one, called a Lasercom. It allows for instantaneous communication between the ship and the ground, and can also cut through residual radiation that ordinary radios can't. The ground troops also use it to for communication between eachother.
- Shout-Out: The Eligius IV's design seems to be a cross between the Nostromo and the S.S. Botany Bay.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Several examples:
- Hydrazine is not efficient enough to power an interstellar spacecraft, as it would take far more than a ship could reasonably store. The Eligius IV instead runs a Hythylodium, a much more energy efficient fuel. It's also what the ship was designed to mine for in the first place, meaning it could potentially refuel at the beginning and end of a trip.
- Interstellar travel takes a long time, especially with one of your ship's engines disabled. It took the Eligius IV just over 100 years to get back to Earth from where they started, and they missed a lot in between.
- Zero-G Spot: Raven jokes that Monty and Harper won't be able to have sex on the Eligius IV this way, as the gravitational ring is still functioning.
