April7739

I’ll have to wait until the next episode to see if Octavia remains at #6 on my favorites list or if she shifts. I feel like it’s a very precarious position and anything could happen. Not sure if I’m getting Lexa vibes, as she seems darker. But we’ll see.

Bellamy is reminding me of Kane, too, Becks.

Did you guys like the Clarke/Madi and Bellamy/Octavia parallels? Because I did.

a little chaos

I actually hadn’t considered that til now! I did also feel like Clarke was more of a big sister to Madi.

destroyer of worlds

I'm lazy to post new comments here but I'll just say that I loved Clarke (my badass queen ), Clarke/Madi, Murphamy, Spacekru! It feels like a fresh start to the show which I think is needed after 4 years. Still the show we know and love (hopefully) but in a different way.

I'm super worried about Octavia too ... she's concerned me since season 3 but I feel like this will be an even more terrifying journey for viewers when it comes to her.

a little chaos

I feel like Octavia will either die or be the reason someone major dies during this season.

destroyer of worlds

Hmm, I definitely see something big happening at the end of the season so I wonder if that might be it. TBH, I'm not so attached to Octavia but I'd feel most for Bellamy if that happened and also feel super sad for Paula/Laura.

April7739

I feel like Octavia will have a major part to play at the end of the season. To be honest, I hope she kills Echo. Doubt that will happen, but if it does, I’ll have to look back to this post and say, “I knew it!”

a little chaos

The thing that makes me think they won’t kill Octavia is that they did the whole “commander dying” thing so maybe they won’t.

I also hope she doesn’t kill Echo

The one I always worry about is Raven, I also wouldn’t rule out a Murphy or Bellamy death this season. If they’re going for shock value Bellamy would be the biggest. I don’t see Clarke dying though.

April7739

Bellamy dying?!?!?! They’d be crazy.

kiss the wind

Bellamy dying would just be asking for cancellation.

April7739

It really would be. I hate to say it, but it really would be.

Out of the Fab Five of Clarke, Bellamy, Octavia, Raven, and Murphy, Octavia is the one I’m most nervous for in terms of survival. But I’m basing that on absolutely nothing other than Bob using the trig version of “Red Queen” as his word to describe the season.

But I could see Echo or even Kane dying, too. I think Madi is safe.


ETA: Same review I posted on the other board.



5x01. Here we go.

Clarke: I mean, this was really Eliza’s premiere tonight. Her improvement as an actress from the first season until now is really astounding. Wow, she nailed it. I had heard that about the first half would be focused on Clarke, and I was looking forward to it, but I still was eager for some SpaceKru stuff, too. It was a bold decision to spend this much time on Clarke, and I think it paid off. I don’t really feel like we will need many more (if any) flashbacks to her time spent alone, because this episode did a really great job of showcasing it in an emotional, cinematic way. I felt the anguish of being by herself, and I felt the relationship between her and Madi right away. Although the fireside scene seemed more big sister-y to me, the scene where she went to defend Madi against the Eligius men felt very mama bear.

Some standout moments to me included the way she was yelling at her mom. That was heart-wrenching. Oh, and just her driving the rover with that awesome music. All I could think about was how Eliza hates driving. Of course the scene where she found Jasper’s stuff, as you all know I was a huge Jasper fan, and I was glad that we finally actually saw Clarke’s reaction to that, as we never got the chance to in season four, and we never saw her reaction to Lincoln’s death, either. It was nice to see her actually just grieve for a bit. When she pulled out that gun in the desert, I just thought about the scene of Jasper nearly killing himself, and it literally had me shaking, even though we know she doesn’t go through with it. Visually, it was very haunting.

Loved her radio communications with Bellamy, of course. I think one reviewer wisely pointed out that, while Clarke doesn’t NEED others to survive, those conversations just go to show that she misses them. I wasn’t ready for the whole part where she talked about wishing she knew he was alive and being able to see him again. There couldn’t really be much Bellarke in this premiere due to the separation, but the radio conversations (plus the transition from her looking up at the sky to him looking down) were a nice way to show the connectedness of those two, even though he thinks she’s dead. I wonder if he’ll ever find out that she radioed him so much.

It’s just incredibly sad and such dramatic irony that he’s looking down on that green spot of earth, not knowing she’s there.

Overall, brilliant hour for Eliza and a great Clarke-centric episode. I think almost everyone in this frenetic fandom can agree on that much.


Madi: I like her so far. Little feral Madi was cute yet terrifying. I love that Clarke drew her and how it took them a little time to warm up to each other.

The Octavia parallels are strong with this one. I mean, she literally has a hiding spot under the floor, and Clarke promised she wouldn’t let anything happen to her, just like Bellamy promised that to Octavia. Madi seems to really look up to Octavia, even though she’s never met her. I wonder how that will play out as the season moves forward, because Octavia is . . . well, she’s not this straight-up hero that Madi probably envisions her to be. I can see that causing some tension between Octavia and Clarke.


Bellamy: Oh, my boy Bellamy. Or should I say man? Because it’s very clear that he’s grown up a lot. It saddens me to see some people in the fandom lashing out at him just because of who he’s with now. He’s still Bellamy; we just have to get to learn this new Bellamy, just like Bob did.

I love how he still really wants to get down to earth. Makes sense, as he knows his sister is down there. While some other characters might not mind staying up in space, Bellamy wants to get back down, and I want him to get back down, because obviously I’m very eager to see him reunite with Clarke! And Octavia, and Kane, probably all in that order.

LOVED the Murphamy scene. I just love any Murphamy scenes, and I imagine Bob and Richard had a great time filming it since Richard literally got to jump on him and then they got to fight. The scene had a definite big brother/pesky younger brother vibe, which was awesome!

Let me just touch on it while I’m here . . . the Bellamy/Echo stuff. Sigh. I have a lot of thoughts.

Okay. I saw it coming a mile away and was bracing myself for it, but I still screamed when I saw that scene. I mean, I’m not freaking out like some of the Twitter fans are, but still . . . it’s not fun to see your absolute favorite character paired up with a character who’s definitely in your top 10 least favorite characters list. (I really liked Tasya—she was super sweet—but I just don’t like this character.) So I’m not shipping it, and I never will be. I’m not even supporting it. #sorrynotsorry That’s just how I am when I ship. I support frequently but ship so infrequently that, when I go all in on a ship, I am ALL in. I can’t just see something else and embrace that, too. It is what it is.

I don’t get the sense that the show gave us that scene as a way of saying, “Alright, this is the new ship you should be rooting for now!” I mean, you can if you want to. That’s fine. But with the foreshadow-y line about nothing changing once they’re on the ground and the fact that they waited until the end of the episode to show it, to be more emotionally gut-wrenching to a very large fanbase of this show, leads me to believe that it’s more of a, “Here’s a new relationship, and we know a lot of people aren’t going to be happy about it, but that’s part of dramatic storytelling.” Now I don’t think the show is going to go the love triangle route (since it only did that back in season one), but could this cause some tension and angst for Bellamy and Clarke? Yeah, of course. Will this cause some tension with Octavia? Well, it was pretty blatantly foreshadowed that it would. Is it going to be tossed aside right away? I doubt it. I’m prepared to go the entire season enduring this if I have to, but . . . relationships that happen off screen aren’t typically the relationships you’re meant to be super invested in. Which is why I’m glad that Clarke and Bellamy didn’t go into space together. I didn’t want to miss out on six years. (And hey, at least they said it took three years for Bellamy to forgive Echo.) But Bellamy, in terms of relationships . . . “You’re going the wrong way.” (Thank you, Raven.)

I didn’t wish for Bellamy to be lonely or sad all those years . . . but I also didn’t wish for him to be with Echo. So it’s kind of a bitter pill to swallow right now. And while I don’t see it fizzling as fast as some fans would like or merely being an “obstacle” for Bellamy and Clarke, I do think that, ultimately, things WILL change once they get on the ground and this relationship will be one of them. I feel like they’ve probably found a solace in each other, and to be honest, that’s probably a step in the right direction for Bellamy’s character, as he’s struggled with forgiving grounders in the past, and if he can forgive the one person who betrayed him (arguably) the most, then that’s very big of him. But I still don’t ship it or support it. Nope.


Echo: We lost Roan and got Echo. Sigh. Not what I would have preferred.

I have never liked Echo, and we haven’t seen any of her redemption, so I still don’t like her. So right now, while I understand that years have passed, as a viewer, I’m still associating Echo with the chick who tried to kill Octavia twice, betrayed Bellamy, threatened both him and Clarke . . . so it’s tough. She was relatively bland to me in this episode, not really a factor at all until that scene towards the end. She doesn’t seem to be very eager to go back down to earth, and why would she be? She finally feels like she has a place where she belongs, and she has Bellamy. For now.

I can accept that Echo has changed. I can also accept that, regardless of how much I am NOT shipping this new ship, this might actually be an opportunity for her to inch her way off my least favorite characters list. (It might happen, it might not.) If they tie all of her story to Bellamy, that’s pretty shallow redemption, though. And overall, I do feel that this show does a far better job with redemption arcs of Skaikru characters than it does with its grounder characters. So while she’s still on my least favorite characters list, I’m open-minded to seeing some different aspects of her, even though that won’t change my view on the ship. Does that make sense?


Murphy: Oh, I love Murphy so much! How the hell did this guy get half of the ship? Leave it to Murphy to do a self-imposed exile in a place where there’s no way out. I didn’t get the line about him liking being the hero, though, as I’ve never even gotten the sense that he cared the slightest about being a hero. The whole “After this, doing the right thing can kiss my ass” line comes to mind. But anyway, it was interesting that he and Emori were no longer together. I didn’t anticipate that. He and Raven seemed to have formed a friendship, which I love, as I have always seen a definite chemistry between the two of them, and to be honest, I’d love it if they got together. But I also like him with Emori, too, so he’s an easy one when it comes to ships for me. But right now, I’m feeling this Murven thing so much!


Emori: Girl seems to have found her place in this new group for sure. That’s really cool to see. It’s cool that she and Raven are so close now and that she’s so tech-savvy. She’s a quick learner, so it’s not surprising to see, but it’s great nonetheless. Man, what did Murphy do to her, though? Selina’s interpretation that she found her place and no longer needed Murphy as her “home” anymore seems legit to me. Like he couldn’t handle her integrating more fully with the group and finding her identity outside of her relationship with him?


Monty and Harper: Even though I thought this ship came out of nowhere in season three, I really do like them now, and I’m happy they’re still together. Harper in particular is just a character I really adore, in part due to how much I adore Chelsey, I suppose. But really, it’s great to see her character looking so happy after all she endured in season four. And it was interesting that Monty was the only one besides Echo who wasn’t super eager to head back down to earth.



Raven: We didn’t really get much from Raven in this episode, but I liked seeing her fight (and beat Echo ). I imagine it’s difficult feeling like you’ve let the group down and are a year and seven days late fulfilling your promise to get them back down to earth.


Octavia: Only one glimpse of her at the end, but it was pretty chilling. I am super nervous for who Octavia has become, and I feel like I’m going to see her through Bellamy’s eyes a lot this season. I had hoped that Octavia could be that person to unite everyone, and maybe for a while she was able to. But now . . . this just looks horrific, and there she is presiding over it all.


Eligius Group: Not much to say about them yet. They were the weakest part of the episode for me, none of them have been given a distinct personality yet, and I don’t have many opinions other than that I think the guy who plays Zeke is really good-looking.


Overall, a great premiere, probably the strongest premiere yet, I’d say. Yes, there was the one thing I didn’t like, but there was so much more that I did like, and it has me interested to see where the season will go! I need Bellamy and Clarke to get reunited, though. I need it so badly.


I’m making a change to my top 10 favorite characters list. I’m switching Miller and Harper, just because we didn’t really see a lot of Miller in season 4. But depending on what we see of him in season 5, he could move up a spot or two.


1. Bellamy
2. Murphy
3. Clarke
4. Raven
5. Kane
6. Octavia (still feels pretty precarious, so we’ll see)
7. Jasper
8. Harper
9. Lincoln
10. Miller

a little chaos

Just read your review I totally get what you're saying about the Echo thing and I know you've never been a big fan and I do hope that could change in season 5. I also hope they don't tie her redemption to Bellamy and we really get to see her grow as a character. I do think they're gonna try and use Bellamy's popularity as a tactic though. But we'll see.

Can I ask you this though, if Murphy can be atoned for the thing's he's done and people can now ship him with Raven, surely Echo can be atoned too? I get that with characters like Bellamy and Murphy it's different cause they're the originals and they're our POV characters, but what frustrates me as a viewer sometimes is that people are harder on certain characters for doing no different from other characters, I get that there's certain characters we gravitate to more so we're willing to overlook what they do cause we love them.

But all I'm saying is, Echo has done some crappy things, but ALL the characters have, they're all responsible, they're all killers, as the show likes to point out, there are no GOOD GUYS, only survivors. So that's why I hope people can give Echo a chance. And that's not me saying people should ship Becho, cause that's a whole other thing, but Echo as a character I think deserves a second chance, if people can detach her from the ship.

Let's compare:

1. Clarke
2. Bellamy
3. Lexa
4. Murphy
5. Roan
6. Octavia
7. Echo
8. Niylah
9. Raven
10. Aden

April7739

Yep, I get what you’re saying, Becks. We just haven’t seen her do a whole lot to atone for her past yet. So right now, it’s hard for me. Like I said, I’m open-minded enough to accept and even appreciate some positive growth from her. Will she ever move off my least favorites list? Maybe. Possibly. I mean, the ironic thing is, despite how much I’m not shipping this ship, it does give her an opportunity here to show that she’s changed. Will she ever make it to my Top 10 favorites list? No. I mean, I can already say that with certainty. She won’t. There’s too much guttural dislike I have towards her for that to ever happen. And that’s okay. At least I’m not Finndifferent about her, I suppose.

a little chaos

That's true, the opposite of love is indifference after all

loppabelle

April, you said exactly what I feel about Echo, just maybe slightly better. Octavia too. Oh hell, I agree with the entire post.

destroyer of worlds

I agree, Becks. The problem I currently have with Echo is that they shoehorned her into a relationship which meant that viewers will struggle to see if we can like her, outside her relationship with Bellamy. That's all we see now. I'll be happy to be proven otherwise, that she is redeemable but it just irks me that I'm expected to buy that she's changed, that Becho makes sense ... all without actually seeing how it got to that point.

And the fact that it's making me side eye Bellamy isn't good either. I mean, joking around about her almost killing your sister? Come ON now.

I still don't love Murphy TBH but I accept that he's grown and I find him likeable now for sure, though I won't even say that I like him right now.