The 100 Review: The Garden (Season 7 Episode 2)
Coming away from The 100 Season 7 Episode 2, “The Garden,” I’m reminded of a phrase from another sci-fi series. On Battlestar Galactica (2003), a chorus of “All of this has happened before and will happen again,” often echoed the seasons and plots.
“The Garden” wastes no time drawing parallels to Octavia and Hope’s upbringing in isolation with minimal human contact.
This episode has outstanding performances from Shelby Flannery, Tasya Teles, Marie Avgeropoulos, and Ivana Milicevic and weaves together an engaging backstory plot, and it’s their dynamics that drive this forward.
The story in the anomaly serves as Octavia’s redemption arc. The reign of The Red Queen and the actions she took in the bunker during The 100 Season 5 have haunted her, but the quiet life that she’s made in the garden with Diyoza and Hope has given her perspective.
In some ways, “The Garden” is similar to the first act of The 100 Season 5 Episode 1, “Eden,” when Clarke was roaming the wasteland and found Maddie. During Season 5, Clarke’s perspective changed, and she went from constantly fighting for a greater good to focusing on her daughter.
Octavia’s time in Skyring meshes that with finally understanding how Bellamy took care of her all those years. Much like how her mother would make Bellamy think of Octavia, Diyoza reminds Octavia of the consequences her actions have for hope.
While the family unit they cultivate is idyllic, it ends with a sad truth: that parents cannot protect their children forever.
The final scene where we see Hope emerge from the cottage is a heartbreaking one. While it does set up for this idea of a young woman having to take on an unknown world, it comes in a little too late in the series run.
Knowing that The 100 is tying up it’s season and now giving us a new heroine to follow feels shortsighted.
If Skyring wasn’t connected to the Eligius missions, I’d wonder why were suddenly going off to explore different worlds. Earth is already destroyed, Sanctum is a powder keg close behind it. It’s starting to feel like this show is banking on their always being a Planet B. (And let’s face it, it’s fiction, there will always be a Planet B.)
Gabriel and Hope are two new characters, and it is hard to be invested in them on the outset. Had this story only unfolded in just the present day this episode would have been very out of place, and just a plot-driven infodump. Octavia and Diyoza’s story is what brings the narrative to life and grounds it to the story we’ve known and loved.
It’s hard to get on board with the Skyring plot. It provides much-needed backstory about Hops’s upbringing, but I am really hoping that this ending doesn’t involve our characters escaping to yet another planet.
There has to be a sense of peace at the end of this season and finding new worlds where there are potentially going to be more problems won’t solve that.
Stray Thoughts:
- Honestly Gabriel! You didn’t pack a writing implement? What the heck happened to your charcoal? The fact that the tablet is broken and you have to find another way to Bardo is on you!
- Did anyone else cheer when Hope asked what it was about Bellamy who made otherwise capable women suddenly act irrationally?
- Really looking forward to the time dilation explanation that will hopefully come once we see Bardo. Working with three worlds on different time tables has the potential to be headache inducing so I am hoping the writers find a good way to explain that.
What did you think of this episode of The 100? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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The 100 airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW.
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Lauren Busser
Lauren Busser is an Associate Editor at Tell-Tale TV. She is a writer of fiction and nonfiction whose work has appeared in Bitch Media, Popshot Quarterly, Brain Mill Press Voices, and The Hartford Courant.