Written By Avani Goswami
The 100 Season 7 Episode 9 titled ‘The Flock,’ gives us a look at what Octavia (Marie Avgeropoulos), Diyoza (Ivana Milicevic), Echo (Tasya Teles), and Hope (Shelby Flannery) have been up to on Bardo for the last three months, before they meet Clarke (Eliza Taylor) and the others. Tensions also rise in Sanctum, making for a mess that’s getting harder and harder to clean up.
We are immediately thrown into a flashback from three months ago on Bardo as it catches up to present time. The women are beginning to train as Bardo soldiers, but when they begin it is immediately obvious that they are already skilled and need no further fighting practice. When faced with Disciples, they all defeat their opponents in a matter of seconds. Levitt (Jason Diaz), who is watching over their training, warns them that Anders (Neal McDonough) will try to mess with their minds, which he does at every possible occasion. Levitt also suggests to Anders that he show the girls what Bardo is really about, instead of making them go through this useless training.
Anders shows them that embryos are made in labs and raised by Bardo collectively. The training teams bring up the children, who have no parents, to get rid of “selfish bonds.” Apparently the children in the labs are also crafted to be perfect and without any “defects,” which is uncomfortable to hear and feels incredibly dystopian. Then Anders puts them all into simulations, testing their response to their own bonds. For example, in Diyoza’s simulation, someone is about to kill her baby, but Anders hurts the killer and saves Hope before saying that this isn’t Diyoza’s baby and that it belongs to the cause. Diyoza of course is upset about this, as that is her child, and when she wakes she finds out that Octavia and Hope failed their simulations too. Anders makes it clear that they have a choice: follow the Bardo way and do away with their selfish bonds, or be sent to Penance one by one where they will spend their time alone before dying.
The four of them go to lessons with the children on Bardo, where Hope feels Anders is brainwashing them into loving the Shepherd. Back in their room, she voices her strong opinions against the Bardo way, but Echo and the others say that she needs to suppress her real emotions and get through this if she doesn’t want to be sent to Penance. They train some more and shoot blindfolded, where Anders says the first to hit the target wins. Echo shoots the others with the non-lethal substance and hits the target first since everyone else is down. Anders is pleased as this clearly shows Echo’s devotion to the cause. Throughout her time training, Echo has easily become loyal to the cause. I’m not sure if it’s an act or not, but I think she’s definitely more dedicated than the others and is actually beginning to integrate as a Disciple. This definitely shows us her Ice Nation side again and the cunning qualities she’s consistently shown.
Levitt also visits Octavia to tell her she needs to pass the last test and they make out, which has felt like a longtime coming. I expected it, but I’m glad it finally happened since I’m actually rooting for them and hope we see more of Levitt’s personality soon.
Then we see the final simulation, a test to decipher whether or not the women still have their selfish bonds. Hope tells Echo that she has a plan to burn the oxygen farm, killing everyone on Bardo, which will let them get revenge for their people. Echo stops her with a knife to the knee, then to the throat, and wakes up, finding out she passed the final test. Diyoza and Octavia pass too, both of them killing Hope in their own simulation, but Hope cannot kill Diyoza in her simulation and says that Bardo deserves this for what they did to them. I think it’s really interesting that all of them feel closest to Hope, since each of them have to kill her in the simulation, but she cannot kill her mother and thus faces punishment. Apparently Anders thinks Echo should dole out the punishment and Echo sentences Hope to five years on Penance, which I can definitely see taking a toll on Hope. But it seems like Diyoza and O are not on board with this, though they do nothing to stop it, so maybe they aren’t all loyal to Bardo as Echo seems to be.
Back on Sanctum, Nikki (Alaina Huffman) and Nelson (Lee Majdoub) threaten to kill Emori (Luisa D’Oliveira) if Murphy (Richard Harmon), Russell a.k.a. Sheidheda (JR Bourne), and Raven (Lindsey Morgan) don’t come down to the room within twenty minutes. Indra (Adina Porter) returns from searching for the others and says she found none of their people by Gabriel’s camp. They’re clearly short on time and Indra and Murphy actually listen to Sheidheda for help, who shows them a secret tunnel. One of his loyal and faithful devotees leads Wonkru through the passage as he and Murphy try to save Emori and buy time for Indra to show up.
Nelson says they have to tell the truth about who they are: not Primes. Murphy tells everyone, then Emori does, and Nikki gets really angry because Raven isn’t there and continues to threaten Emori. Sheidheda then says he isn’t Russell, which causes even more chaos. Then Murphy tries anything to get the gun off of Emori and onto himself, but Indra comes through the passage, saving him from that fate.
Yay, Indra! Until she locks everyone in the room with Sheidheda, assuming the Primes’ followers will be so mad that they’ll kill Sheidheda themselves. It turns out that a devotee unlocks Sheidheda’s chains and he kills everyone there himself. Oops. The guards won’t open the door because Indra told them not to, even as Murphy pleads with them outside. Murphy lets it slip that the person occupying Russell’s body is Sheidheda, and he speaks Trig to the grounders, telling them to open the door. They do it and bow to Sheidheda who is surrounded by the dead bodies of everyone in the room.
The 100 Season 7 Episode 9, ‘The Flock’ was a wild ride and exposed a lot of future problems I’m hoping they can tie up. I liked seeing the women train on Bardo and am excited to see what becomes of Hope. But I’ve gotta say I’m a little more nervous for the crew on Sanctum as they have to scramble to make a plan with no help. On top of all of this tension, I hope we get to see more of Clarke, Bellamy, and Raven since I’ve been missing them this season, and that we find out once and for all where in the world Gaia is.
