The 100 Review: What You Take With You (Season 6 Episode 9)

The 100 Season 6 Episode 9, “What You Take With You,” is an hour of television so emotionally devastating that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to watch it again.

Written by Nikki Goldwaser and directed by long-time The 100 Stunt Coordinator, Marshall Virtue, “What You Take With You” packs a heartbreaking punch that leaves me with a lot of complex and conflicting feelings. 

JC’s brain continues to deteriorate as she and Bellamy search for Gabriel, Octavia discovers an almost too-late path to redemption, and Kane’s story meets a cyclical and horrific end. Let’s get into it. 

I WON’T LET YOU DIE

I have to admit that five episodes after Josephine stole Clarke’s body, I am beginning to feel burnt out by this storyline. I miss Clarke Griffin. The trip inside her mind was incredible, and Eliza Taylor’s performance as the two very different characters has been incredible to watch, but I just want the show’s actual protagonist back now. 

Josephine is fascinating, funny, and she has a wealth of backstory that I’m invested in learning more about. But she’s also a sociopathic, selfish person who only really cares about herself. I can’t root for her, I can’t share in her joys or triumphs, nor her pain or her losses. She is a character that I’m interested in, but she isn’t one that I can love. She isn’t Clarke.

Josephine: I’ve been in love with Gabriel for 236 years, the last 70 of which he’s been trying to kill me. You know, relationships. 

Right now the most compelling thing about Josephine is her history as a Prime and how her relationship with Gabriel has shaped this society. Unfortunately, we’re still at least a week away from that epic reunion and most of the conversation here is filler to get us there. 

Don’t get me wrong, Eliza Taylor and Bob Morley do a wonderful job bickering back and forth through Bellamy’s determination to save Clarke, and Josephine’s bleak outlook at their dire situation. But we already know Josephine loves Gabriel and that Bellamy will do whatever it takes to get Clarke back. All of these connections have been well established through The 100 Season 6. 

I know that Josephine is technically the villain/antagonist of this season, and we’re supposed to dislike a lot of the things she says, but her open mockery of Clarke’s determination to be a good person stings in a way that just doesn’t sit right. Especially in juxtaposition with Clarke’s first action upon getting her body back is to go on a mini-murder spree. Sure it was a bit of an emergency, but I really had hoped we were past the whole kill or be killed phase of The 100. 

Josephine: All that time spent building a sanctuary for the human race and he destroys it because of the most human thing of all: love. 

I had begun to believe that Season 6 of The 100 was truly delivering a new and beautiful twist on the fight for survival narrative that has always been at the heart of the show, but with the events of “The Old Man and The Anomaly” and “What You Take With You” I’m beginning to fear a much darker turn than the one I anticipated. 

Even the triumph of Clarke gaining control is short-lived. We know her brain is rapidly deteriorating, and we’re immediately left to wonder if she and her friends can ever actually break the cycle.

Sure, Sanctum had more its fair share of societal problems before they landed, but just once I would love to watch these characters build a home with each other without aiding in the destruction of another in the process. 

Yes, what they do here is wrong. Yes, this is a society that probably needs to be torn down and rebuilt. However, I don’t want Clarke Griffin’s (or anyone else’s) story to keep coming back to the belief that there are no good guys. I want to believe in the good guys. 

A good guy doesn’t have to be a perfect person–perfect people don’t exist. A good guy is a person who keeps trying, and learning, and growing, a person who looks at each choice as an opportunity to be better than they were before. The characters that The 100 has gotten us to love over the last 6 years are good people, and I want to see them succeed.

I simply can’t accept that the moral of this story is that we’re all survivalist animals, and that trying to be anything more is a waste of time.  

BLODREINA NO MORE

Octavia’s story fares similarly to that of Bellamy and Clarke’s, in that we go on a much-needed introspective journey with her, but we still seem no closer to understanding the Anomaly. 

What Octavia learns about herself on her little acid trip is revelatory, important, and so necessary for her to move past the horror of who she became. But again, it just feels wrong that this long-overdue self-realization had to come from some strange space drug. The end result points her in the direction that we’d hoped for, but how we got there feels hollow. 

Marie Avgeropolous delivers an incredible performance as she bounces between the extremes of Octavia’s persona. She takes us all the way back to the scared little “girl under the floor” that has always been trapped inside the walls of Blodreina the warrior queen. “What You Take With You” also gives The 100 fans a nice surprise return of Mike Beach as Charles Pike. 

Pike haunts Octavia with honest words of wisdom and a forceful clarity demanding that she examine who she really is. 

Pike: We are what we’ve done and what’s been done to us. 

Octavia has done terrible things, some more justifiable than others, but it’s still horribly painful to watch her be so aggressively confronted by her own self-hatred. In her fever dream, Octavia does choose to stand up for the girl she used to be against the monster she became, literally facing down her biggest demons in Pike and Blodreina. 

I’m proud to see Octavia take an opportunity to be the good guy, even if it’s in her own head. And I’m saying that as someone who still defends what she and Abby did inside the bunker.

I’m glad to see Octavia reach this turning point, but the hastening of her getting here through this single dream is such an abrupt change that it somehow feels like this should have happened a long time ago. It also makes Octavia’s newfound path to redemption feel unearned. 

Octavia: The Anomaly gave me a second chance, and now I need to earn it. 

I still have a lot of hope and faith in where Octavia’s journey is going, and I am excited to see what happens next for her. I want to learn the truth about The Anomaly, I want to see her be the hero she’s always been capable of being, and I want her to finally become someone that she likes. I just wish that she’d gotten here on her own, and not as the result of some alien shrooms.  

I LOVE YOU MORE THAN I EVER THOUGHT I COULD LOVE ANYONE

I’m going to be honest with you–I don’t want to write this section. I don’t want to face it. I’m having a really hard time believing that this is the way that Marcus Kane’s life ends. But this is the way it ends, and I know that there are so many external factors that influenced the direction this story ended up going. However, that doesn’t make it hurt any less. 

I understand that Henry Ian Cusick got hired to do different shows. I understand that the writers had to write out Marcus Kane in a way that fit their current narrative. I do not understand how anyone thought that this was the best way to tell that story. 

Having Kane float himself for the greater good brings his story and his relationship with Abby to a very cyclical end. It brings everything back to the start, and he even brings up her words to him from the pilot.

The scene is moving and emotional, the dialogue is heartbreaking, the acting across the board–especially from Paige Turco–is utterly devastating. You cannot watch this scene without feeling the absolute soul-crushing weight of it.

 It is, for all intents and purposes, a tragic ending in its purest form. 

However, none of that makes it a satisfying ending. None of that convinces me that this is something that a character I have loved for years would actually choose to do. Marcus Kane’s story was about second chances, both literally and figuratively. It was about fighting to become a better person and encouraging those around you to do the same. This ending is such a hollow imitation of that. 

Abby: The man I fell in love with, the man who risked his life for his people time and time again, the man who found redemption for his sins, and gave all of us hope that we would find redemption too, that’s who you are. 

The Marcus Kane that I know would’ve fought against the new body, sure. He would have made the decision to fight back against the Primes and their barbaric systems. But that Marcus Kane never would have done this to the woman he loves. 

There was a way to have written out this character that didn’t end in suicide. There was a way to have done this in a way that didn’t re-traumatize Abby Griffin with the horror of watching the man she loves get sucked out into space, on a show that’s already had her say that she literally can’t do that again. 

The return of Indra is also now tinged with the bittersweetness of her first act of Season 6 being to assist in the death of her dearest friend. At least Indra immediately understood exactly why Abby saved Kane this way, and expertly highlighted the concept of glass houses when it comes to bloodshed. 

Kane: Why is my life worth more than this man’s?

Indra: Because she loves you. 

There are so many levels of heartbreak to this story. There is no way that I’ll be able to touch on or even comprehend all of them. Kane floating himself doesn’t save Abby, and it doesn’t bring back Gavin. It does so much more harm than good. It sends a horrible message both to Abby and to the audience: sacrifice is for nothing, having hope is pointless, and fighting for love isn’t worth it.

That’s the story you’re telling me when you have a character like Kane so recklessly choose to do something like this. You’re having him tell the audience that his loved ones are better off without him. What a horrible message that is to send to anyone. I can’t speak in-depth on all of the ramifications of having Kane choose to commit suicide, but I know in my heart that this is wrong. 

It’s all the more devastating to know that The 100 can do better. While not every character has received an emotionally satisfying ending, after watching Monty and Harper exit in Season 5 in such a beautiful and impactful way, we know that The 100 can tell those kinds of stories. The fact that it chooses to tell the ones that hurt like this instead just twists the knife. 

Abby is so strong, Kane is right about that. She’s so much stronger than him, but she shouldn’t have to be. She’s been so strong for so long and the minute that she has him back and is able to rest, he’s ripped away from her all over again. She shouldn’t have to keep being strong all of the time, and her strength isn’t an excuse to leave her on her own. 

Kane: If I lost you and I could get you back, I’d probably do the same. 

Kane and Abby had one of the greatest love stories on television that I’ve ever seen, and while this isn’t the ending they’d earned, it doesn’t change what they had. They still loved each other more than anything, and that meant something to a lot of people. 

This is far from the last time I will write about this relationship and these characters. Their story impacted my life in so many ways that I will always be grateful for, and I’ll come back to their love over and over again. 

I am so thankful that Abby’s story doesn’t end just because Kane’s had to. I am both scared, and (against my better judgment) hopeful about what the next part of her journey will look like. She can find her humanity again, and she can carry him with her while she does it. 

Abby: I need you, I love you. 

Kane: I love you too. I love you more than I ever thought I could love anyone. 

THOUGHT DEBRIS: 

• If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts, know that you are loved. Call the National Prevention Hotline here: 1-800-273-8255
• If I hadn’t just hung up my clown shoes, this is where I would tell you that Kane’s original body is still on the ship and all of my crackpot theories about how to save it still have legs. But it’s probably safer for all of us if I take my hopes and dreams and toss them in a cryo pod until the end of Season 6. 
• If Raven says another mean word to Abby in the entire rest of the series I’m going to lose my mind. I can’t take it fam, let them rest. 
• Indra and Raven giving Kane the Traveller’s Blessing broke me as a person. Watching Abby be utterly broken and traumatized also broke me as a person. I would love to be exaggerating when I tell you I’ve been crying about it for 24 hours. 
• What was in the green box?
• WHAT HAPPENED IN THE ANOMALY? I hope Diyoza and baby Hope and Kane are having a nice chill time in there right now. 
• You’re really telling me Kane couldn’t have just yeeted that canister out the airlock on its own? Okay, sounds like a bald-faced lie but okay. 
• As hurt as I am by the overall narrative choices made on this episode, it was beautifully written and beautifully filmed. Kudos again to this show’s incredible staff, cast, and crew; you’re all incredible.
• I can’t accept that The 100 is telling me that love can only ever be destructive. I won’t accept that. Be the good guys, dammit. 

 

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

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