The 100 – “Survival of the Fittest” Review

I understand that Octavia knows the most about the grounders and their culture. It makes sense considering her connection to Lincoln and the time that she’s spent with the people. of all the sky people, she’s the most accepted out of all of them. The problem is I find it hard to believe that in so little time she’s become such the expert that she has. She’s been injured, busy, and otherwise occupied. There’s no way she is so  good at understanding their culture.

This all, however, led to her own plot this episode. The sky people and the grounders were training together, but the training was separate. The grounder training was considered too difficult. Indra warned Octavia from trying to fight with them. Octavia refused to give up, eventually she was obliged the opportunity to continue to fight. it was an enjoyable fight sequence as we saw Octavia refuses to give up. She got her licks in, but Indra ended up being right. She wasn’t able to fight on par with the grounders, at least not yet. Even though she lost, she saw it as nothing more than an opportunity for her to live more. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Octavia may have lost, but she is proud of her accomplishment. It was that drive that moved Indra to offer Octavia the chance to be her second. A great honor for Octavia.

This week we saw the arrival of our first real beast. Sure, in the first episode we learned that animals had mutated, but we hadn’t encountered anything like this. When we heard the sounds we knew whatever it was was extremely large. By the fear the grounders had we knew it was dangerous. I don’t know what it was that I expected, but it wasn’t a giant gorilla. Some of the CG in this section was abysmal. it looked like a doll was thrown at the wall rather than a person. Tat said, it was nice to see a non human threat stand against these people.

In Clarke’s escape from the gorilla with Lexa, we got more time seeing the two strong young women bond. Lexa has really been a stand out since her introduction. She is fierce, intelligent and despite her penchant for being heartless, there are traces of sympathies in her. She’s a character of layers even if she doesn’t want anyone else to see it. Locking the two women up was a good chance for them to further discuss the differences between the two groups that is lost in Octavia’s interactions as she just wants to be one of them. We learned for example that should Lexa die, her spirit will select who will be the next commander of the grounders. There is something that is growing between Clarke and Lexa. that friendship is something that will be interesting to see.

I have to mention that Bellamy went in with Lincoln. However, no sooner that they got in did Lincoln give in the the temptation of the drug, leaving Bellamy on his own. Bellamy is now the inside man, but he’s strung up for harvest and essentially useless.

What did you think of the episode?