[Episode Discussion] 1.03 Earth Kills

[tassosss]

How this works: for those that want to do a rewatch of the show, we have a weekly discussion post where you can put reactions, links to old reaction posts, questions, thoughts, squee, joy, headshaking and anything else that strikes you. I'll have a prompting question or two to get things going if you don't know what to say but want to join in.

BEWARE! This is a spoiler zone! Unless someone requests a spoiler-free post for each episode, assume spoilers for all aired episodes through the end of season 2.

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In a lovely play on the title of last week's episode, shit gets even realer for our teenagers on the ground. One theme that pops up in this episode is "Having the strength to do what needs to be done," but saying it and following through are different things. Did your impressions of Bellamy and Clarke change after this episode? Thoughts on how their opinions of each other changed? We also get the introduction of Charlotte and a game changing death. When you first watched it, what was your reaction? Has it changed on rewatch?


 

Comments

[tassosss]

Random thoughts crossposted at my DW.

Bellamy is setting up a harsh but fair way of dealing with people. The only rule is that people have to obey him, and when they don't they get punished. Once they're punished it's done and they can go back to the way things were.

Jasper is in pain. So my question is, given what we know of season 2, who speared Jackson - reapers? Grounders? Who strung him up for bait? My thought is that the reapers did all of that, and their stringing Jasper up was as much a warning as anything else.

Charlotte and Clarke - I am such a sucker for kids and older/younger sibling relationships. Clarke comforts her and knows what to do with her here. The ground is a new start but they none of them realize the past they're carrying with them is too heavy to offload. It doesn't work like that.

Bellamy is managing Murphy pretty well here - leaves him behind on the hunting trip but gives him a good reason to stay.

Clarke's parents - both of them pursuing action in her name - thinking of her future.

Clarke with Jasper being a healer - it's funny so many season 1 fics put Clarke squarely in the healer role, no the leader role, while Bellamy stays in the leader role.

The early alliance of Clarke, Finn, Octavia, Jasper, Monty with Wells wanting in with the cool kids. Oh how that changes.

Here at the beginning we see Bellamy the tough guy so determined to make the hard choices. He's a lot like Kane in that respect in the early episodes. He's puffing himself up bigger than he is. Clarke's the one who seems like she's holding on to hope unrealistically. And then at the end of the episode, we see the switch, when Bellamy realizes he doesn't have it in him to make those choices the way that Clarke does. That when she said she could tell the difference between hope and no hope, she was right. This is the scene that is central to this episode. This is the one when you know where Clarke and Bellamy really stand, when all their defenses are down, and it's just them and the choice. Clarke can make the mercy kill and Bellamy can only watch. It changes his entire outlook of her, wins her his respect.

The acid fog is a scary thing. Everywhere is affected, which means that the drop ship is within Mount Weather territory.

"This is Earth. Everything's toxic."

Wells, don't speak for Clarke.

Charlotte kills Wells driven to it by terror and sleep deprivation and bad interpretation of well meant advice. It's tragic, because it's so understandable. She's a mixed up kid who has been horribly traumatized. It doesn't mean she shouldn't pay for her crime, but it seems like it's a case where a little help on the Ark would have prevented her from turning into a killer after going to prison.

Unpopular fannish opinion, I'm sad that Wells died from a Dead Bro Walking standpoint (to avoid they should have cast Wells as white and Finn as black, then figured out Jaha… I don't have a good solution…) but from a story standpoint, it didn't really bother me. As a character, he was a great voice of reason amidst a sea of chaos. He wanted to be reasonable and logical within a group that wasn't going to follow that. It would have been interesting to see that conflict play out. But he's not the main character, Clarke is, and it's her story of being the voice of reason amidst a sea of chaos that we follow