[Episode Discussion] 1.07 Contents Under Pressure
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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The first time I watched this episode, I had a recurring case of Oh, Bellamy, no, and Oh, Clarke, no. In Contents Under Pressure lines are crossed. Reactions? Thoughts on who handled the pressure best?
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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The first time I watched this episode, I had a recurring case of Oh, Bellamy, no, and Oh, Clarke, no. In Contents Under Pressure lines are crossed. Reactions? Thoughts on who handled the pressure best?
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I want to start with Kane here because this is where we see the beginning of the other side of his arc. When we open, Abby is being charged and found guilty of all sorts of shenanigans, but being spared because of her value as a doctor. Kane is so smug here, so in control as he reads her crimes, so confident when he denies that the flares are a definitive signal from the Hundred on the ground. He has three alternate explanations on the tip of his tongue. His confidence is annoying bordering on hubris, but there's also a damn good reason for it. He's been backing a play that meant killing 300 people, and saw that plan through to fruition -- how do you live with that unless you are damn sure it's the only path forward? He's been priding himself on making the hard decisions, and he made one, and he's fine with it -- as long as he knows that it was the only option they had for the greater good. His face in Earth Monitoring, when they hear Raven and Clarke on the radio, when they learn that grounders exist, that's the first crack.
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One of my favorite tropes is an unprepared person having to perform surgery while someone talks them through on the radio.
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People I don't care about include Diana Sydney.
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Of all the episodes, this is one of my favorite for the interplay between Clarke and Bellamy. Here, Clarke is allowed free range, Bellamy never tries to shut her out, and when they talk about what a bad idea it is to keep Lincoln tied up, Bellamy doesn't shut her out of the discussion either, instead trying to talk her around to the fact that they're at war.
Bellamy is definitely being the belligerent male here, trying to show his power and strength by taking a prisoner and acting like he's going to get all the answers he needs. And I'm sure he plans on beating them out of Lincoln at some point; he'd have to to save face with the boys who follow him. But when it comes down to it, he doesn't do anything till Clarke orders it -- that's the moment when I felt like I finally understood what this show was, and how much I loved it, the first time I watched. Clarke is the one who is calling the important shots, or she's becoming that person.
I think there's an interesting distinction to be made between Bellamy and Clarke also, in that based on the deaths of the kids killed already, Bellamy is ready to capture and torture Lincoln to help their case. For Clarke, it's not until the very personal reality of Finn dying in the next ten minutes happens that she's willing to go that far. Is this a case of Bellamy caring more about the rest of the kids than Clarke? I think he knows them better, is in a position to call them friends more than Clarke, who's been part of a smaller group. But then Bellamy didn't have as much compassion for Jasper either, who was not part of his group. How people act is dependent on how close the threat strikes them, I suppose. Perfectly human.
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Another backstory I want is Kane and faith. When he goes to section 17, where the memorial is with the tree and mementoes, he's not wearing his coat, he's been drinking, and he's in a daze, wracked with guilt. He feels like he's betrayed his own people. That's not a good place to be. I want to know how his faith as a kid shaped that sense of responsibility that he feels so keenly.
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Bellamy's face right before he strikes Lincoln, unguarded, like he doesn't want to be doing this. Like he's not the kind of person that tortures people, despite what he says.
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I still don't care about Diana Sydney. But oh, that moment when Jaha says, "I lost my son!" breaks me every time.
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The final torture scene is so intense. When I first watched, I kept up a steady mantra, of this won't work, because torture never does. I flinched like Clarke did when Bellamy shoves the handle thing through Lincoln's hand. I was stunned at Raven's ferocity, at her being the one to turn so quickly to such strong violence in order to save Finn. But most of all I love Octavia being the one to put a stop to it all by offering up her life to make it worth it to Lincoln to give them the antidote. It wasn't torture that worked in the end, it was changing the game of who's life was on the line.
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That moment when Clarke sends Raven off, all calm as you please, and then quietly falls apart when no one can see. None of it in her voice when her mom comes on the radio. Oh Clarke.
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Forgiveness for terrible things is the note the episode ends on. Do ends justify the means? Because the means are tearing up Kane and Clarke and Bellamy. It's a question this show constantly asks.
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The last moment between Clarke and Bellamy, when he says "it's not so easy being in charge," is one of my favorite moments, because it's another moment of them sharing the burden. They are the two who will be deciding Lincoln's fate (officially, if officially exists on among the Hundred).
I feel like the preceding moment when Bellamy says "who we are and who we need to be to survive are different things" needs a little deconstructing. On the surface it sounds like saying "we are doing terrible things to survive but we ourselves are not terrible." That's my initial interpretation anyway. It's a away of justifying the horrible actions they have to take, i.e. ineffectively torturing a man, without taking on the weight of them on their worth as people. Now, we know that both Clarke and Bellamy struggle with this -- it doesn't sit well, they both feel awful about what they've done, they both question their own worth over it. The fact that they struggle with it, is what makes them less of the monsters they could be. But they still did them. In a civilized society, they should "know better" and even with the best of intentions, they'd be punished for it (in a just world, which we don't actually live in, but generalities here). But with survival on the line does it even matter? If survival is the one goal, then what consequences matter if that goal is achieved? It gets back at the "deserving to survive" that Abby represents, and holds to through both seasons till the end. I'm not sure I have answers for that.