The 100 Season 4 Episode 11 Review: The Other Side

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We lost a major original character on The 100 Season 4 Episode 11, and the show will never be quite the same.

If you haven't watched "The Other Side" yet and don't want to be spoiled, don't keep reading after the jump.

Also, what are you even doing here if you haven't watched? Go watch it first, silly!

So, Jasper died, and it was easily one of the most gut-wrenching scenes in The 100's history. And for this show, that's really saying something.

Specifically, Jasper chose to end his own life via drug overdose, as did every other member of the group who remained behind in Arkadia, except for Harper and Monty. After seeing Riley accidentally (or maybe not accidentally?) OD earlier in the hour, Jasper had the idea to slip peacefully into the abyss.

While nothing about Jasper's decision was particularly shocking – he'd arguably been on this long rode to suicide since Maya died on The 100 Season 2 Finale – it was brutal and more than a little disturbing. I'm uncomfortable with the way the show fore-grounded Jasper's insistence on "peacefully" killing himself – but I suspect that's the whole point.

This show loves to make us feel uncomfortable and to experience various moral quandaries. 

To be clear, I don't think Jasper made the right decision. And damn it, I feel so bad for my poor Monty. (I really love Monty, I may have mentioned that here in a review past, once, twice, a couple dozen times.)

Christopher Larkin and Devon Bostick nailed Jasper's death scene. I'll readily admit that I was in tears throughout it. And how crushing was it that Monty didn't say "I love you" to Jasper (as Jasper begged him to) until it was too late?

I'd like to believe that Jasper heard him before he went, but I don't want to think about it too much or I'll start sobbing all over again. For now, I'll just remember Jonty like this:

Jasper and Monty — The 100

Season 1 babies!

The one bright side that came out of the Arkadia plot was the emotional reunion between Monty and Harper.

Chelsey Reist did a phenomenal job running the gamut of emotions, first going along with Jasper's group suicide plan, then purposely pushing Monty away so that he would save himself, and finally changing her mind and choosing to live with him.

Do I have to spell it out for you? You're not enough to make me want to live. And I am not worth dying for. Save yourself. Let the rest of us go.

Harper

Harper harshly telling Monty that she didn't love him was another brutal moment, but I'm so glad that they're going to ride off into the sunset together.

Oh, wait a minute, that's not a sunset – it's a radiation-soaked landscape. Oopsy.

Time will tell how they'll react when they get to the bunker only to find out that they may or may not be on the list of 100 Skaikru people who get to stay inside.

Marper — The 100 Season 4 Episode 11

Meanwhile, on Becca's island, Raven followed a similar trajectory to Harper. But rather than finding inspiration to survive from another person, she found it within herself.

When we last saw Raven, she was fully prepared to die and even had that emotional farewell with Murphy. Clearly, Raven's brain wasn't ready to let her go gently into the star-flecked sky, because in the midst of brainstorming how to get into space with "Becca," it conjured up a competing hallucination of "Sinclair."

Of course, it wasn't really Sinclair, but it was still great to see Alessandro Juliani again, if only for a few brief scenes.

Raven's hallucinations of Becca and Sinclair acted as personifications of her competing urges to fight and survive or to give up and have one last hurrah among the stars. In the end, Raven's survival instinct won out.

I don't choose pain. I choose life. Let's get to work.

Raven

Have I mentioned lately that Raven Reyes is the series' #1 badass? She singlehandedly rigged up a contraption allowing herself to literally die for a few minutes and then come back to life, effectively "rebooting" her brain.

It was a crazy, outlandish plan, but I'm totally fine with suspending my disbelief here because it allowed Raven to survive and to fix her brain injury. Yay!

This is Raven Reyes. And I'm alive.

Raven

Much like Monty and Harper, Raven will be heading into a situation next week that she doesn't fully comprehend – she doesn't know about Octavia's deal to house only 100 members of Skaikru.

Finally, the rest of the installment dealt with Bellamy and Abby fighting against Clarke and Jaha to open the bunker door.

Technically, this plot was the most "important" in the grander scheme of things, but it was also the least exciting in the strictest sense – mainly because it went exactly how I thought it would go. There was nothing twist-y or surprising about it.

That's not to say that there weren't great things about these portions of the hour.

For one, Eliza Taylor did a great job of keeping Clarke as sympathetic as possible, despite the hideous decision she made at the end of The 100 Season 4 Episode 10. She played it perfectly the moment Bellamy made contact with Octavia and realized she'd won the conclave.

Clarke's horror, guilt, and regret was plain all over her face.

Abby was also amazing, fighting for Kane and needing only about three seconds of convincing before she decided to team up with Bellamy to open the bunker door.

This exchange with Jaha had me cheering like a wild woman:

Jaha: I am sorry for your loss, Abby. Marcus was a good man.
Abby: He still is.

Kabby forever, y'all.

There was also the general awesomeness of literally everything to do with Octavia. I can't overstate how much I'm a fan of her newly-minted leadership, how self-assured and confident she is in all of her rulings. Everyone is just accepting her decrees, because she's kind of amazing at being a leader.

Nothing formal happened, but she appears to be acting as the commander now. I dig it – let's keep Commander Octavia!

Even Echo fell in line behind her, though that may have had more to do with Echo knowing that Bellamy would do anything for his sister than her own confidence in Octavia's leadership abilities.

Of course, that didn't work out so well for Echo in the end – once Bellamy opened that bunker door, O turned on her, declaring that Echo would not be allowed in because of her treachery during the conclave. Roan's banishment of her would be upheld.

Finally, the moments immediately before and after Bellamy opened the bunker door were two of the strongest of the hour.

First, Clarke held a gun on him and nearly killed him in order to keep everyone inside the bunker alive. We all know that Clarke is willing to sacrifice almost everyone for the greater good, so the fact that she didn't shoot Bellamy is hugely significant.

Bellamy: Clarke, what are you doing?
Clarke: What I have to. Like always. Now get away from the door.
Bellamy: No. This isn't like shutting the dropship door or pulling the lever in Mount Weather or in the City of Light. We knew what we were stopping then. Now, we know nothing.
Clarke: We know that if that door stays shut, the human race survives. Please.
Bellamy: You're gonna have to make it a kill shot. It's the only way you're gonna stop me.

Not necessarily because she has feelings for him, but mostly because she knew, deep down, that he was right and she was wrong. She was reacting out of fear, and it was coloring her judgment.

Bellamy talked sense into her, which is something I love about their friendship. They're very good at talking one another down.

Of course, Bellamy's reunion with Octavia was the other moment that brought tears to my eyes. Marie Avgeropoulos perfectly portrayed O's exhilaration, relief, and happiness when she realized that Bellamy had, indeed, come through for her. It was such an emotional moment.

Octavia: I knew you'd come through.
Bellamy: I love you so much.

Now, there just remains the question of who will be allowed to stay in the bunker – which I expect will be answered on The 100 Season 4 Episode 12. Only Bellamy appears to be safe for sure, since O issued a decreeing saying he has to get one of Skaikru's 100 beds.

Stray thoughts:

  • I was so relieved to find out that Clarke and Jaha had at least sent out people to retrieve Kane and Octavia in addition to Bellamy. Of course, it doesn't make what they did okay, but it softens the blow a bit.
  • RIP, Riley. You were... well, you were pretty useless and annoying, to be honest, and now you're dead.
  • Murphy joked "Try not to kill this one" when Abby went in to tend Bellamy's wounds. I can't for the life of me remember what he's referencing. Anybody recall?
  • I really love that Niylah is still around, and her cuddle/therapy session with Clarke was very cute, but if she's going to stick around next season, can we maybe develop her character a little bit beyond that?
  • Murphy has grown so much as I character, but I did fully believe he was the best person to watch over Bellamy. He may have grown to be a better person, but he'll still unapologetically look out for #1 first (himself and now Emori).
  • Jaha is going to die so hard, isn't he?

What did you think of "The Other Side"? Share your thoughts by commenting below, and remember that you can watch The 100 online anytime here at TV Fanatic.

The Other Side Review

Editor Rating: 4.25 / 5.0
  • 4.3 / 5.0
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User Rating:

Rating: 4.2 / 5.0 (19 Votes)

Caralynn Lippo is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.

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The 100 Season 4 Episode 11 Quotes

Clarke: Yesterday we were right. Today we have to live with being wrong.
Abby: We're back on the Ark. Killing our own people so that we can live.

I must have missed the election that made you chancellor again.

Bellamy [to Jaha]