The 100 Review: The Children of Gabriel (Season 6 Episode 3)

The 100 Season 6 Episode 3, “The Children of Gabriel,” has me feeling a little bit like Jordan must be feeling–complete sensory overload. Building a whole new world means new mythology, and when it comes to The 100, a heart-racing way of delivering it all.  

I am thrilled to report that this season is continuing to deliver an exciting new story without forgetting for a moment where these characters come from, what they’ve seen and done, and the conflicts they all continue to carry with them. 

Clarke and her friends are immediately put on the defensive as the invaders from Earth. For much of the show, our protagonists on The 100 have been genuinely in need of a place to live, a way to survive, a way to get their people back, and as a result, they’ve been forced to make questionable decisions while fighting for those they love.

This time around, they’re working hard to make sure that the journey to saving the people they love doesn’t turn them into the bad guys. 

WELCOME TO SANCTUM 

Russell Lightbourne, seventh of his line, a royal prime–and clearly the revered leader of Sanctum–immediately recognizes Clarke as the leader of the Earthlings. It’s a position she’s taken naturally since Season 1 of The 100. But unlike Season 1, Bellamy immediately and unwaveringly supports Clarke taking charge. It’s the smart move, and his choices here really highlight how well Clarke and Bellamy can work together when they are focused on the same goals.

Instead of getting bogged down in their differences, they’ve learned to use those differences to their advantage. Clarke is recognized as the leader and stays behind, even though her heart urges her to go after Madi. Bellamy is just as much a natural leader here; he picks up the decision making where Clarke leaves off, choosing a team with high intelligence and strength to go after the ship.

Russel: You don’t strike me as disposable. 

Clarke: None of us are.

Clarke’s determination to live up to Monty’s expectations is really working for me. In comparison to Season 5’s use of “acceptable losses,” this new angle is heartening. These people matter. Their lives mean something. Each of them has good and bad inside of them. They’ve all got blood on their hands, but they all have a deep capacity for love. 

None of them are expendable, not to Clarke and not to the audience. 

At her core, Clarke has always had this kind of mentality. She may have more blood on her hands than most, but she has always looked for the solution that keeps the most people alive, much like her mother. 

Clarke and Abby share some of this episode’s most touching moments, and each scene between these two incredible women feels earned and rooted in the heart of the show. Their relationship was the first one we were ever introduced to on The 100, and while it has not always been smooth sailing, it has always been an emotional anchor. 

They’ve gone through the difficult growing pains of a mother/daughter relationship all while surviving the end of the world multiple times. The playing field has now been leveled, and Clarke and Abby see the good at the heart of each other, allowing them to work together as equals with their bond stronger than ever before. 

Clarke: I would’ve done the same thing. I’m surprised [Madi] listened to you. 

Abby: She reminds me of somebody I know.

The Griffin women are one of my favorite pillars of The 100, and adding Madi to the mix has only made me love this family more. Each of these women is brilliant and badass in her own way, and they have some of the biggest hearts on the show. I am so excited to see them all in the same place, without the threat of war or overdose looming in the distance. 

THE HEAD/HEART SCALE

Clarke is often touted as the “head,” leading with logic and strategy over emotion, but she is also clearly her mother’s daughter. Abby has always lead with her heart, and over the past two seasons, Clarke has come to find more balance between her own heart and head, making her the perfect person to lead her people, as both are essential to survival.

Too much “heart” and a leader can become reckless and dangerous, acting based on pure instinct without thinking through all of their options. Too much “head” and a leader will sacrifice their own humanity in the face of the “smart” choice, in order to do what has to be done.

The 100 does an excellent job of showing both in most of their characters, especially those in positions of power. Their best leaders find a way to utilize both logic and emotion, either within themselves or with the help of those around them. 

If the head and the heart were a sliding scale, each of these characters has moved along it over the course of their journey.

Clarke and Bellamy now each sit comfortably at the middle. Octavia sacrificed her heart in the name of logic without emotion, and strategy without compassion–isolating herself from anyone who tries to bring her back from that extreme. Kane and Abby have each gone to both ends of this spectrum, but they always bring each other back to the center. 

Abby: Marcus is the diplomat, not me…Be yourself. Don’t tell them more than you have to, and don’t lie.  

Abby gives Clarke quality advice regardless of her diplomatic skills. Unfortunately, Clarke’s supposed advantage of being unknown on this planet goes out the window with Jordan’s curious nature and desire to be liked. 

WE CAN CHANGE

It’s fascinating to see Clarke have to defend the choices she made on Earth to a third party. As the protagonist, Clarke has usually had the audience on her side, but from other perspectives, some of her choices have held devastating consequences. It’s easy to see why the people of Sanctum would not want to be the next group of people that stands between Clarke Griffin and the people she loves. 

Clarke doesn’t try to downplay what she did, and while she doesn’t say whether she would do it again now, she stands by the decisions she made at the time. Not entirely unlike Octavia later in this same episode, for Clarke saving the people she loves has been enough to justify the bloodshed.

She is determined to break the cycle of violence that she found herself in throughout Book I. Her pleas for a second chance echo Bellamy’s speech to Madi on the Season 5 finale, as he urged her to be better than they were in the past.

I am very invested in seeing if The 100 is just as determined to break that cycle in their storytelling. Can people really change? Can humanity break the cycle and call upon our better angels? Are we our own worst enemies? Those seem to be the questions that this season is setting up and I am waiting with bated breath to see what their answers will be. 

Russell: Please understand, violence is a contagion. I’m truly sorry but I can’t let your disease wipe out what we must now presume to be the last outpost of humanity in the universe. 

Russell’s story about the dog who maybe shouldn’t have had a second chance is chilling for multiple reasons. The way he tells it, the ominous ending that you can see coming from the moment he begins and the insulting comparison to Clarke all contribute to the uneasiness of this moment. 

However, this story seems to mask something much more sinister lurking beneath the surface of the people of Sanctum. On “Red Sun Rising,” we saw Russell Lightbourne-Prime murder his entire family during their first Red Sun, and now this entire society is built around worshiping him and those other original settlers. 

His intolerance for second chances is unsettling given that he has created a whole culture on the foundation of his own second (or seventh) chance.  

We learn a lot about the people of Sanctum on “The Children of Gabriel,” as we’re given bits and pieces of their customs, protocols, rituals, and mythologies. It appears they’ve been passing down the consciousnesses (try saying that five times fast) of the primes through nightblood children. 

Becca didn’t invent the flame until these people were well on their way to Planet Alpha, so how exactly they go about this process remains to be seen. But given that she created their nightblood, and the tech for their missions, it’s possible that they’ve created their own version of consciousness storing software or a new way to transfer it entirely.

Delilah is a nightblood, or as the people of Sanctum call her, a host. We meet her on the eve of her “naming day” when she will become one of the primes. I’m about to be really uncomfortable if this is a society that just completely erases who a person has grown to be so that they can “host” the memory of someone who would’ve naturally died a long long time ago. 

Because of the chaos that took place in this episode, Delilah may get to remain Delilah a little while longer. I think we’re dealing with a group of people that are no better than Clarke (and the other characters we love) when it comes to making questionable decisions in order to keep your loved ones alive. 

What may have started as a way to bring back what was taken from the first settlers on this moon has now evolved into something with far less moral high ground. Sanctum’s mythology is absolutely fascinating, especially as a foil to the history The 100–how far is too far in the name of survival, in the name of saving what you love?

The 100 has set up a whole world in just a few episodes complete with a mysterious past, compelling rituals and religions, and a blood feud based in the morals of science and humanity. They’ve struck a perfect formula of revealing huge pieces information while making each new revelation spark questions in tenfold. 

THE CHILDREN OF GABRIEL

We met Gabriel Santiago in the flashback on “Red Sun Rising;” he and Russell Lightbourne-Prime were some of the only survivors of the first bi-solar eclipse. The 100 is planting the seeds of this origin story by showing us these two men when they first landed here and what they (or their legacies) have become two-hundred years later.

Meanwhile, how they reached the point of becoming two warring cults remains a mystery we are waiting to unravel.

Right now, both of these groups of people seem more bad than good, even with the colorful, peaceful illusion that covers everything in Sanctum. The 100 delivers the information about all of them through the eyes of the characters we came here with, giving us our own biases as we begin to put the pieces of this story together. 

One of the best things about The 100 is that they can throw just about any combination of their ensemble characters together and create a compelling story with multiple perspectives. The shining example of that on this episode is Madi, Gaia, and Diyoza. 

Episode writer Drew Lindo must be a Star Wars fan because this opening scene with these three feels like a deliberate homage to Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Han Solo as they traveled to the Death Star in A New Hope. 

Gaia spouts mythology with confidence as they mystical flame-keeper, trying to lead her novice Heda in the ancient ways. Madi bounces between sarcasm and genuine interest in “the force” as she learns to harness the power of the flame. And Diyoza plays the skeptic, finding all of their mumbo-jumbo utterly ridiculous. 

Gaia: You think this is funny?

Diyoza: No, sad. She’s a child, you should let her be one. 

By the end of this episode, however, Madi is impressed and almost attached to Diyoza after watching her use strategy to gather intel and keep them safe while the Children of Gabriel raid the ship. 

While Madi makes connections on this episode, Bellamy breaks off his longest running relationship on the show. Bellamy is very reasonably still frustrated beyond measure with who Octavia has become and her constant refusal to change.

Echo wants to give Octavia the chance to earn her brother’s forgiveness because she knows how important that relationship is to Bellamy. Unfortunately for them all, Octavia takes that opportunity and simply proves Bellamy right in his reasons for icing her out.

She is belligerent and unflinching as she falls back into her warrior/Blodreina ways, refusing to recognize her brother as a leader and taking matters into her own hands. She acts on instinct and blood lust, making reckless choices in the face of better options. 

Bellamy: Are you out of your mind? You didn’t have to kill anyone!

After her blood bath, Bellamy makes the decision to leave Octavia behind. I can’t blame him for making this decision because everything he says is right. Octavia needs to find balance again and learn why she can’t just go around killing everyone who stands in her way. 

The choice to leave her behind could be exactly what they both need–Bellamy can have the space to heal without feeling responsible for Octavia, and Octavia can go on a much-needed walkabout to figure out who she really is. 

This also works as a great storytelling tool, allowing us to see the goings on both inside and outside the radiation dome. 

Leaving Octavia could also turn out to be a huge mistake.

If she aligns herself with these people, against those that Bellamy and Clarke have aligned themselves with, we could find ourselves right back in the middle of the same old war. The 100 is twisting a lot of its own past narratives on their heads and I hope this is an avenue where they will do the same. Break the cycle, be better than us, be better than them. 

Octavia: We saved Madi, Gaia, and Diyoza. We got the damn ship back. We lost no one. How is that a bad thing?

Bellamy: Until you can answer that yourself, you’re on your own. 

Everything we know about The Children of Gabriel as of right now leads us to believe they’re clearly the more violent and brutal of these two factions. They cut the heads off of the bodies of Kaylee’s family, they chant “Death to Primes,” and use “Death is Life” as some kind of jus drein jus doun/may we meet again/omon gon oson ritual phrasing.

However, something tells me their belief system just might have slightly better morals than the ones lurking beneath the surface inside Sanctum. 

SANCTUARY IS CONDITIONAL

The 100 is setting up some pretty interesting themes this season: second chances, who is worthy, facing your demons, the ability to change or break the cycle, judgment for one’s sins, and so on. 

Everyone on this show has done bad things, to save themselves, to save someone they love, to take down fascist regimes, or survive in the face of extinction. Season 6 capitalizing on that inner conflict in a way that feels like a breath of fresh air. 

Abby: At the end of our lives we’re not going to be judged for the things we did to survive. We’re going to be judged for the reasons that we did them. 

Murphy: What if the reason was to save my own ass?

Along with not forgetting the history between its characters, The 100 isn’t forgetting the world history they’ve been building in the background over the last two seasons. Our post-apocalyptic group may not have known who she was outside the few exposition articles Raven was able to pull on the noted terrorist, but these people certainly know of Charmaine Diyoza. 

Clarke’s heroic save with Delilah (and more likely her black blood) have earned her and her people a temporary home inside Sanctum, but that kindness doesn’t extend to Diyoza. Sanctuary in this place is very obviously conditional based on a variety of factors, most notably: violence. 

It’s tricky territory deciding who does and does not deserve a second chance. What happens when one of our own steps out of line?

THOUGHT DEBRIS: 

• Picasso the dog is an absolute legend. I’ve only had her for a day but if anything happens to her I will kill everyone on Sanctum and then myself. 
• Jordan is really out here falling for the first pretty girl he sees who isn’t his “family.” He’s definitely living up to his namesake. I hope Jasper, Monty, and Harper are looking down on him and smiling. 
• I would protect Jordan and Delilah with my life. 
• Jordan is going to have to deal with the complicated feelings that come with his actions having far bigger consequences than they ever have in his life. 
• Kabby Watch 2k19: Kane may be out of commission for now, but this relationship is still very much part of the story. Paige Turco is killing it, and Kabby fans are clearly in for an emotional journey this season with Abby Griffin at the helm, fighting to save the man she loves. 
• Was the thing Clarke ate made with the cotton candy berries? Can we get a Sanctum cookbook STAT?
• Whomst the hell is the Sheidheda and what is he trying to show Madi? I am not a fan, Sam I am. I’m glad that Madi isn’t shouldering the burden of being the leader of these people at 13 years old, but that we are getting to use the flame to continue building out this world and the one of the past. If The 100 plays their cards right, this could be a really interesting storytelling tool. 
• There were 12 original primes, excluding Gabriel, who must have taken the photo hanging in the tavern. The Children of Gabriel cut the heads off of 3 of their “hosts” and captured a child of “royal blood” preventing her from becoming one of the primes. All this to impress “the old man.”
  • Is Gabriel still alive 200 years later? Has he outcast this group of rebels? Or are they referring to Russell, who has rejected them from Sanctum? 
• They planned that heist pretty quickly, given that the past two days were Red Sun days. Have they discovered a way to be immune to its effects, or are they just really good at plans?
• Another shout out to Tree Adams for punctuating this new world with all new sounds that really squeeze every drop of emotion from these scenes. 
• MURPHAMY RISE!!! Murphy may have been self-flagellating throughout this entire episode, but he knows what Bellamy did during the eclipse was out of his control and instantly forgives him. 
• I’m ready to fight for Rose’s mom to be completely honest. I know she’s technically going to be just as bad as Russell, but also I don’t care. I just like her okay!
• I am so ready for Octavia to adopt Rose and save her life. It’s probably going to go horribly wrong, but for now, I’m excited about it. 
• Abby is so protective of Diyoza’s baby and I’m here for it. 
• Why not lock Diyoza in jail rather than risk her teaming up with The Children of Gabriel? Is jail not a thing here?
• Clarke clarifying she was actually born in space makes my heart really happy for some reason. 
• I was right about that snake!
• I’ve got a lot of suspicions about Josephine Prime (the Seventh). Russell’s story about her dying from “a fall” seems like a lie. And given our IMDB clues, Josie is also played by a much older woman. What if she didn’t die? What if she left?

 

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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