At first, I watched a few episodes and it was good and dark but it didn't really get me, though I do like the characters: Bellamy the guy who would sacrificed everything for his sister, Octavia. Clarke, the logical and sensible girl who has a really good head on her shoulders and was on point on their mission. Then there was Octavia herself, the girl who was raised under the floor because there was a one-child limit in the Ark, the space ship they were on.
After a few episodes, I dropped the series and continued to greener and much more exciting pastures.
Then season 2 happened, and of course because of tumblr, I would start getting gifs of scenes that made me curious, so I started on it again. And holy shit, it got better.
But first, let's start from the basics.
There was a nuclear war or something like it and the Earth got so destroyed we had to escape to space. We built spaceships and then combined all of them, we named it the Ark, appropriate no? We intended to wait out the radiation to disappear from Earth so we could live in it again.
But as the years go buy, the resources that we earlier had and the spaceship itself began to crumble away, little by little. Food, even air. We start to punish people over the smallest things to enforce order, also to have a reason to throw people in the airlock so the air would last longer.
The ark could no longer sustain our numbers, so the council decided to send people down to Earth, to asses whether Earth is livable or not. Who do they send? 100 of their juvenile delinquents. They are equipped with bracelets to judge their health and detect their heartbeats.
To make a long story short: they landed on Earth, then fought on who would be in charge: Bellamy representing anarchy, and Clarke representing order and mission.
They fight, they explore--
--they found out they're not alone.
Grounders, people who had been living there, a warrior-rich culture. Reapers, people who eat other people. The Mountain Men, the people who were survivors of the nuclear war and had been living in bunkers among old riches and luxury.
One of the quotes that describe the series are, "Who we have to be to survive, is not who we are".
This series is dark! I'm not kidding. The choices these kids had to make again and again. The things they had to do was hard and soul-corroding. There's no black and white, and sometimes they are only black and white. It's always the extremes and never middle-ground.
There was a scene where Bellamy had to kill his friend that was hit by yellow fog (the acid fog), he was burned and in pain and past saving, but Bellamy, who had been encouraging anarchy, violence and a no-rules community couldn't do it. Instead it is Clarke, who took the knife from Bellamy's hand, hummed and brushed this dying boy's head and pierced his carotid artery, giving him a merciful death. I was HOLY SHIT, I did not expect that. I did not expect for Clarke, who has been the one who preached order and logic, to do such a thing. We see that echo of our surprise in Bellamy's face, and the respect to go with it.
This is where I turned believer for these series.
This is where I turned believer for these series.
There was also a gruesome scene where murder happened, and this one guy (who has been a violent asshole the whole time) was accused and they formed a lynch mob. But it wasn't her, it was actually a little girl, who killed the teenage boy because her father was killed by his. She ended up chased by Murphy (the one who almost got lynched) but ended up jumping to her death.
The writing of this series has been amazing. Every character has that perfect line, have a purpose to jumpstart the story. The characterization itself is layered and rich, not one character is just one thing, even those that we would love to hate; we understand them, and there is at least one thing from them that we admire.
Also, I LOVE that this show is riddled with kickass females. From Clarke who emerged to be a good leader for her people: who learns to make and live with the hard choices, to both be soft and strong. Who earned the respect of her people by being a good leader which is not as easy as you might think.
Octavia who felt like she never belonged anywhere until she met Lincoln, who taught her the way of the Grounders and grew to be this awesome warrior. And I love that Lincoln respects that strength in her. It showed that when Bellamy said, 'You're good for her. You make her strong." And Lincoln said, "She was always strong."
There is Anya and later Lexa, the commander for her people and Indra, a warrior and head of her village.
Out of every one of these characters there is something that we could respect. And I LOVE these characters despite that I do not always understand their choices.
And the relationships, the bromances, and the romances and the familial are written is such an intricate and human way that it is just SO GOOD.
I just...have so much LOVE for this show.
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