The 100 Review: Red Sun Rising (Season 6 Episode 2)

The first five minutes of The 100 Season 6 Episode 2, “Red Sun Rising,” may be one of the best cold opens in the show’s history.

With a deadly flashback to the original settlers on Sanctum, a rough case of Eclipse Induced Psychosis for our team on the ground, and a hostage situation in the sky, “Red Sun Rising,” written by Jeff Vlaming, is a thrilling hour of television that doesn’t let up. 

We learn a lot in this episode, while still being able to dig into the gritty conflicts that have carried over from the previous seasons. The team on the ground faces their inner darkness, while the group in space makes first contact with the people that live on this mysterious moon.  

BLAST FROM THE PAST 

We begin “Red Sun Rising” by taking a trip to the past–236 years in the past, to be exact. While we’re here, we get an overload of information from the Lightbourne family when they experience what I’m assuming is their first bi-solar eclipse. 

First up, we meet Josephine Ada Lightbourne herself, author of the Red Sun Rising children’s book/warning that Clarke and Bellamy found on “Sanctum.” How exactly she comes to write that book is a pretty huge question, since we also see her get brutally murdered by her own father within minutes of us meeting her. 

Josephine Lightbourne is bright, funny, and intuitive–not terribly unlike 17-year-old Clarke Griffin when she first stepped off the dropship. Actually, if you took The 100 Season 1 Clarke and Octavia and wrapped them into one person, you would probably get Josie.

She appears to be a zoologist with a pretty big crush on their geneticist, Gabriel. The life on this planet includes things she is able to categorize as insects, rodents, and reptiles, as well as some pretty freaky alien life she makes up a new taxonomic category for. 

Josie: Crickets go silent when they feel threatened, right before they swarm.

This could just be pure information about the life on this planet, but I’m hoping this line, in particular, could turn into a metaphor for any group of people on The 100.

Her father appears to be their leader/astronomer of the team, and her mother is a doctor of some kind. They all seem happy enough, joking playfully and delighting in life on this planet to varying degrees. 

Alas, our glimpse into the past comes to an abrupt halt when the eclipse does its thing and brings out the worst in Papa Lightbourne causing him to murder his wife and child, as well as a number of the other settlers, giving us a pretty grim look at what’s in store for our team.  

Gabriel, who manages to escape the massacre, mentions “the embryos” are for populating the colony. Are Gabriel and Papa Lightbourne able to bring back the people he just murdered? What kind of hinky science stuff were these people forced to resort to after this disastrous eclipse? And how has it shaped the society Earthkru has just walked into?

The next episode is titled “Children of Gabriel” so I’m definitely going to need some more of these flashbacks!

TOXIC PLANTS THAT TURN PEOPLE WHO LOVE EACH OTHER INTO HOMICIDAL MANIACS

Back in the present, Clarke and Bellamy are blessedly quick learners and they figure out that they need to protect themselves from each other. They use the restraints they found on “Sanctum” and break off into three pretty interesting groups–Echo stays with Emori, both grounders, Miller and Jackson go together because boyfriends, and Clarke, Bellamy, and Murphy end up together as the original leaders of the delinquents. 

From what I gather watching “Red Sun Rising,” the way that the toxin works is that it brings out the very worst of what is already inside these people. In the flashback, Josie and her mom joke about her father being megalomaniacal, and then when the toxin gets to him he is focused entirely on his own power and screaming: “SANCTUM IS MINE!” as he murders everyone in sight.

For our group, it brings out similar reactions in some, while heightening others’ worst fears. Emori is the first one to suffer from the effects of the eclipse, and her symptoms stay consistent throughout this episode. She’s manic and sadistic, laughing when Echo begins to lose her mind, and she even circles back to John in the end. Luisa D’Olivera is a delight to watch as Emori seems to revel in her own insanity. 

Echo’s psychosis takes on a very personal note as we hear the voices in her head–voices from her past giving her orders and shaping her into a spy, a killer, a monster. Earlier this year at Unity Days, Tasya Teles teased that we’ll be getting to see more of Echo’s backstory and this little taste is a great start. She ranges from vulnerable to enraged and terrified to logical.

Director Alex Kalymnios makes excellent use of the fisheye lens here, and throughout these scenes on the ground, to really take us inside the heads of each of these characters while they lose their minds. 

For Miller and Jackson, the toxin seems to prey on their fears and take advantage of their relationship. Miller begins to spiral, thinking that he’s dying the same way his friend Obika did on Season 5. His terrors feed Jackson’s as he watches someone he loves suffering while being unable to provide aid or care–his primary mission as a doctor. 

The dynamic between Clarke, Bellamy, and Murphy is the most interesting on this portion of “Red Sun Rising,” which comes as no surprise as the relationships between these three characters have been complex since day one of The 100. 

What interests me most about this group is that, at least at the beginning, their arguments don’t seem to be motivated by the eclipse at all. Murphy has been taking jabs at Clarke since they woke up, so the fact that he continues to do so here flows naturally. In fact, Murphy’s go-to defense system has always been to take jabs at others in order to avoid his own flaws or his own pain. 

Pretty much everyone on The 100 has made mistakes and choices that lead to people getting hurt or dying, but most often it’s Clarke that carries the blame for everyone’s suffering.

Murphy brings up a highlight reel of some of Clarke’s worst transgressions, and she simply owns up to it. She’s not pretending to be anything other than exactly what she is–a person who tried her best at the time and got people hurt in the process. 

Clarke: What the hell do you want from me, Murphy? I’m sorry, for all of it! I never meant for you to get hurt. But no matter what I do someone always does. Is that what you want to hear, that I’m the bad guy? Fine, I’ll be the bad guy. 

Murphy seems to respect Clarke more when she reaches points of emotional outburst. He knows most of these people are just as messed up as he is, and I think he just wants everyone to start admitting that. 

For a long time, Murphy was the outsider among the main group, having been isolated because of his own actions which caused his friends not to like him, and then later isolating himself because he thought he deserved it as the “useless” member of the team. While her journey with isolation went in the reverse of Murphy’s, Clarke is practically in the same position. 

Much like with Abby and Octavia, The 100 has an opportunity to really use the commonality between Clarke and Murphy to drive the narrative. It would be really interesting to see Murphy be the one who helps Clarke become an integral part of their group once more. 

Murphy also has one of the most interesting reactions to the eclipse toxins, in that he doesn’t appear to be affected by them at all. Sure he calls out Clarke, escapes and takes the guns, and then shoots at his friends, but none of that is wildly out of the ordinary for Murphy. 

Murphy: Okay, they’re all crazy. You’re okay. 

Here’s why I think he never actually gets sick: He shoots at Clarke and Bellamy but he doesn’t hit either of them and he only does so when it’s clear they’re turning on each other–he breaks up the fight.

He took all the weapons so no one else could use them on each other. He never intentionally hurts any of his friends and spends the majority of the episode trying to de-escalate the problem and save them from themselves. 

Let me know if you think Murphy was affected by the toxins in the comments! 

What is it about Murphy that makes him able to resist the effects of the eclipse? Murphy has been on a pretty steady character arc of becoming one of the “good guys” and he really shines on this episode. He saves Clarke from herself and comes up with the plan that saves them all. 

A younger Murphy would’ve let Bellamy’s taunts get to him, but even throughout their physical fight, this Murphy keeps his head. 

Bellamy, on the other hand, is very much affected by the toxins as they turn his role as the group’s leader into something twisted, angry, and ugly. He feels responsible for everyone and his psychosis manifests in a way that makes him think he needs to tell everyone what to do, and that he has to “save” them from themselves–even if that means killing Murphy and Clarke. 

While his dark thoughts are not entirely untrue, they are things that Bellamy would regret saying in his right mind. 

Bellamy: Maybe you haven’t noticed Clarke, but I don’t need you anymore. 

He loves Clarke and Murphy–they’re both a part of his chosen family–but they’ve also both caused him hurt in one way or another. So it makes sense for the psychosis to encourage his negative side to destroy theirs. 

Where Bellamy’s reactions manifest outwards, Clarke’s are more internal. Check out Selina Wilken’s review of “Sanctum” at Hypable for an excellent breakdown on how that has always been the dichotomy between how Clarke and Bellamy carry their guilt. 

Like Echo, Clarke’s psychosis causes her to hear voices in her head, her mother’s voice to be exact. We know it can’t actually be Abby because she’s a little busy being a hostage. Abby is also one of the few characters who would never talk to Clarke like this. 

But after hearing Murphy, Emori, Shaw, and Raven tell her what a horrible person she is for the past two days it’s no wonder this is where Clarke’s mind goes during the eclipse. She can handle this kind of criticism from her friends to an extent, but hearing it from the voice of her own mother has a much more devastating effect. 

It’s even not the first time The 100 has hinted that this kind of self-loathing is lurking in the back of Clarke’s mind; ALIE used similar tactics to get a rise out of her on The 100 Season 3 Episode 11, “Nevermore.” 

Clarke has always felt responsible for keeping everyone alive. She’s always made the difficult decisions that no one else can face, and she has always tried to do the right thing. But like she points out on “Red Sun Rising,” no matter what she does someone always gets hurt. 

Clarke’s biggest fear is that she does more harm than good–that she’s the problem–even when she is always trying to help. 

Toxin!Abby: There are good guys, Clarke, you’re just not one of them. 

As much as her friends are angry with her, they can’t possibly punish Clarke more than she already punishes herself. This is a heartbreaking look inside Clarke’s mind, and I honestly hope that whatever she faces on The 100 Season 6 helps her to see that she is definitely one of the good guys. 

The chaos of the climactic scene on the ground builds and builds as Bellamy and Clarke’s psychoses begin to overlap while Murphy serves as the straight man.

Everyone’s performances here are absolutely incredible. Bob Morley sinks deeper into Bellamy’s Batman voice and takes on an expression of pure maniacal rage. Eliza Taylor delivers Clarke’s warring inner voices beautifully as she bounces between listening to the toxins and screaming for them to shut up, adding to the frenzied feeling of the scene.

And Richard Harmon makes you want to love Murphy, even if you never have, as he brings a sincerity to the action as a man desperately trying to save his friends from themselves. 

Most characters on The 100 could benefit from a solid therapy session, and while this is a lot more violent than talking out your feelings on a soft couch, it’s also probably as close to that kind of release of emotion as we can expect from this kind of show.

Because no one dies, the eclipse might actually work in favor of our heroes. Now that all of their personal demons are out in the open, when they come back to their right minds, maybe they will be able to finally start dealing with them. 

THE QUEEN IS DEAD

While all hell is breaking loose for our friends on the ground, the people on the mothership are ambushed by whoever stole the transport ship at the end of “Sanctum.”  Usually, our guys are the ones accidentally making the bad first impression, and while Diyoza definitely maintains their lethal reputation, it’s the people from the ground who make sure this diplomatic relationship starts out on the wrong foot.

It’s driving me a little bit nuts that at the end of “Red Sun Rising” we have no idea what these people wanted when they boarded the ship and started taking hostages. And I, like Madi, have a lot of questions. 

Thankfully, the internal emotional conflict of this half of the episode is so rich that, for now, I can let those questions wait.

We open on Octavia and Niylah making good on the sparring date they made in the second episode of last season, and it almost feels playful at the start. You can tell this is something they probably did many times in the bunker. We know from last season that sparring is one of the few harmless pastimes that Octavia seems to take pleasure in.

Unfortunately, as with most things surrounding Octavia these days, the moment turns sour pretty quickly when she smashes her hand into a medkit and proceeds to bash against it to the point of turning her knuckles bloody and raw. It’s clear that Octavia is very much not okay. 

Since Lincoln was killed, pain is basically the only thing that makes Octavia feel alive. And her rule as Blodreina has only heightened that. Being unable to lead her people to salvation has sent her into a destructive tailspin as she seeks to inflict pain on everyone around her as well as herself. 

Much like Clarke, Octavia hates herself as much as anyone else hates her–unlike Clarke, she is carrying around an extreme amount of hubris making her almost intolerable. 

She comes into this hostage situation thinking that she is still in charge, that she still has supreme authority over everyone awake because, aside from Jordan, they were all her subjects in the bunker. She tries to wield that same level of power and bend these people to her will, and it backfires immediately. 

Like Kara Cooper was for Kane and Abby on The 100 Season 5 Episode 2, “Red Queen,” all of these people act as a physical manifestation of the consequences of Octavia’s actions, and they aren’t going easy on her. 

Meanwhile, Abby’s willingness to own her mistakes and the fact that she’s never sought power for personal gain make her an authority figure that the Skaikru people naturally look to in this crisis. Because these people are from the Ark, it makes sense for them to defer to Abby as a benevolent leader they recognize, whereas most of their knowledge of Octavia comes from her time as Blodreina.

Abby: We don’t need an engineer in here, because we have one out there. 

Despite their conflict from the previous episode, Abby has complete faith in Raven as their man on the outside. She knows Raven is clever enough to solve this problem and morally good enough to find the best way to save her people. It’s just a small moment, but I’m glad to see this relationship headed in a positive direction once more. 

The 100 is giving me exactly what I want by continuing to delve into the massive conflict between Abby and Octavia, using the fact that they are two sides of the same coin to explore the different ways they are both processing similar trauma. 

Abby steps up to handle Octavia because she is both unafraid of her and she seems to have a desire to help Octavia come back from the monster she is partially responsible for turning her into. 

Octavia: They blame me for their sins, even though it was your idea. 

Abby: Yes, the difference is is that I regret it. You only regret having lost. 

This conversation dives deeper into the foundation that was laid in The 100 Season 5 finale.  Abby does not shy away from the responsibility of what they did during The Dark Year, embracing her role and admitting regret, while Octavia leans even harder into passing the blame and claiming an almost divine decree to excuse all of her own sins. 

Paige Turco and Marie Avgeropoulos play off of each other with an intensity that is absolutely breathtaking. Avgeropoulos puts her whole body into Octavia as she spirals out of control, while Turco’s microexpressions deliver all of the conflicting emotions coursing through Abby. 

Octavia with no power is desperately lost. She is angry with her brother for leaving her behind, she is angry with Abby for betraying Wonkru in the valley, and she is angry with herself for all of the blood on her hands that she can no longer justify. She wants to find a way to be the savior of her people and be valued as a leader again; if she can’t have that power, she would rather just be dead. 

Her ramblings about her own power are almost understandable…until she calls Monty Green a coward. It’s obviously a ploy to push the people stuck in the mess hall with her into beating her up, and it is exactly the line she shouldn’t have crossed for the audience as well. 

As several of them pile in and beat her bloody, Octavia delights in the pain and encourages it, wanting these people to make her feel something or put an end to her suffering. Niylah’s undying love for Octavia pushes her to be one of the only people actively trying to save her, but she has no real authority here. 

Abby is the only one who can stop them from killing Octavia. Her hesitation makes total sense–Octavia nearly killed the man she loves not once but twice now. But Abby rises above all of the bad blood between them and saves her life, if only because she knows for Octavia that will be the greater punishment. 

Abby: Let her live with what she’s become. 

Meanwhile, outside the mess, Raven wakes Diyoza and creates one of the greatest action duos we never knew we needed. Diyoza is in the running for the most badass entrance so far this Season, that is until they wake up Madi. 

Seeing Diyoza in full terrorist mode is a revelation. She is quick, clever, and 100% ruthless. It’s now no stretch at all to imagine her committing treason on Earth or taking control of the mothership the first time around. Raven balances her out with her “soft” side and her commitment to morality. 

Diyoza brings up Shaw, which gives the audience an uneasy feeling as we already know he’s dead and Raven has no way of knowing. 

Working together they come up with a plan that combines Diyoza’s no-holds-barred approach with Raven’s resourcefulness. The plan almost goes sideways as these people are not to be fooled, but Madi descends from the air duct and saves the day. It’s a seriously badass move, and if you didn’t already love Madi Griffin, this might change your mind. 

I am dying to know what these hostage takers wanted in the first place. Why did they come in so hostile if they have always been expecting someone to come back for them and take them to Earth? How exactly did these people know the ship so well, and have the skills to fly the transport ship perfectly if the original members that would’ve had those skills landed here over 200 years ago?

And WHAT is up with their obsession with “the bodies” of their dead? I understand burial rites and rituals, but their concerns border on pure fear and paranoia. 

ARE YOU HERE TO TAKE US HOME? 

So much happens in this episode that every minute feels like information overload, up to and including the last five minutes. Now with a hostage of their own Abby and Raven take a team to the ground to find out what happened to the people they love. 

Blodreina decides to stow away and she’s not listening to anyone that tries to keep her from Bellamy. 

In one of my favorite lighter moments from this episode, Abby keeps her word to protect Madi and sends her back aboard the ship with Gaia. Then she sasses known terrorist Charmaine Diyoza right back up there too with a smile on her face. I have all the time in the world for a friendship between these two ladies, and to see their leadership roles swapped from last season is really refreshing. 

Raven continues to stay soft, treating their prisoner with more kindness than she probably deserves. She then finds out her boyfriend is dead in what is probably the worst possible way. Raven’s devastation is palpable and it’s also the first question out of her mouth when they’re reunited with Clarke and the others. 

I’ve been dreading the confrontation between Clarke and Raven since we saw it in the Season 6 trailer last month, and frankly now that we know the context, I’m dreading it even more. Clarke did everything she could to save Shaw, but he died anyway. Raven is still raw from Clarke’s betrayal in the valley, and I sincerely doubt she’s going to have much sympathy for her efforts here. 

Abby and company find Clarke, Bellamy, and Murphy exactly as we left them. I’m so grateful to see the Griffin ladies reunited so soon as they’ve spent most seasons of The 100 separated from each other for one reason or another.

In true The 100 fashion, the final moments of this episode leave us with our jaws on the floor. Murphy may not have been sick during the eclipse but he certainly is now–thank goodness Earthkru’s best doctor and known miracle worker just showed up. 

Next thing we know, we’re greeted by the children of this world who, for some reason, think that Earthkru is here to take them home. Rose, sweetie, I have some bad news. 

This season doesn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon, and I certainly don’t want it to. The 100 is weaving this year’s mystery with an impressive level of intrigue and an embrace of classic science fiction that I can’t get enough of. Each episode so far leaves me wanting to know more about the people on this moon, eager to see the characters we already love keep mucking through their messy conflicts, and excited to see where it all goes next. 

THOUGHT DEBRIS: 

• Josie and Gabriel heard some kind of sonic anomaly before their eclipse. Why didn’t our team hear it last week?
• Octavia goes for the weapons lock up as soon as they’re gassed by the invaders. I love that little detail. 
• Why aren’t the bodies safe on the ship? Who is on the other side of that radiation fence and what do they want with the bodies of the people who live inside it?
• Abby and Jordan continue to be the soft besties that I never knew I needed. 
• Diyoza feeling Hope kick the minute she wakes up is everything. That kid wants out of there!
• The music over Raven seeing Shaw’s grave is beautiful and haunting. The music over the moment where the kids come running up the stairs is hopeful, soft and pure. Kudos to Tree Adams for absolutely killing it this season. 
• This episode’s MVPs: John Murphy and Abby Griffin. I’m excited to see them together next week! 

What did you think of this episode of The 100? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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The 100 airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on The CW.

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