The 100 Review: The Flock (Season 7 Episode 9)

This season makes me want to break out into a chorus of Rocky Horror Picture Show‘s “The Time Warp.” Because once again, we’re going back and covering some old ground. 

The 100 Season 7 Episode 9, “The Flock,” takes us back to fill in some gaps and show us exactly how Echo, Octavia, and Diyoza became devote disciples. The trouble is, this all occurred in an order that feels so disjointed that we can’t make heads or tails of how this is all supposed to fit together. 

Following the introduction of the Shepherd on The 100 Season 7 Episode 8, “Anaconda,” I expected the answers come from him–maybe a little more movement on the idea of what the final battle is. After all, he is the one that the humans on Bardo serve. 

Say what you want about the “for all mankind” stuff, they serve the Shepherd. He’s the one who cultivated this society.

Taking a long view, this episode serves a few functions. It shows us exactly what happened to the Bardoans, but doesn’t really give us an answer as to what they were fighting.

The more Anders and the rest of the humans on Bardo talk about the great war I am starting to think it’s all theater; the frustrating kind of theater where you wonder why this play is three hours long. 

Is the enemy climate change? Or are the plants going extinct and the Bardo bunker is running out of air? I am really starting to think this enemy isn’t an enemy at all.

Walking away from “The Flocks” it feels like an hour-long set up for a larger, yet to be revealed plan.

The key takeaway is really that these are the circumstances that get Hope sent to Penance for five years alone, but there has to be more to it. Levitt mentions that he told Octavia to go to the surface because it was survivable for an hour or two and he needed to think of a next step.

It doesn’t seem out of bounds to think that setting Hope up to fail is that next step. After all, he was conducting the final tests. It’s unclear how much he can control in those scenarios, but I am sure it’s a lot. 

Hope is the weakest link, and it’s because of her upbringing. There’s never been a larger whole for her to belong to. She’s only known small family units: her mom and Octavia, Dev, and Gabriel and Echo.

There’s never been a larger whole she’s had to think of. That mentality was commonplace on the Ark, and the desire to protect their own people has driven Octavia and Diyoza from the beginning. 

What Anders is suggesting sounds foreign to Hope on even the most basic level, let alone factoring in the concept of detaching emotion. That part sounds odd to all four of them.  

This weakness can also be Hope’s strength. If Levitt is going to help them, there has to be a larger plan to set up something. Separating them from Hope will either get eyes off of them, or give them another point of entry. 

That being said, it’s hard to believe that this particular episode was necessary. While it does show us some of the culture on Bardo, it would be more surprising if any laid plans unfolded without us seeing them. The one caveat being is someone is eventually going to run into Hope on Penance.

Interspersed with this plot, we have Sanctum. Given how far removed Sanctum is from Bardo and the whole “final battle” scenario, I am starting to think that Shadheida must be the real “key.” I still have so many questions about the final battle, and how this is all supposed to fit together. 

However, the death of the Prime facade and the slaughter of The Faithful has resulted in Shadheida’s cover being blown. With that, I can’t imagine anything good is going to happen in Sanctum and I am worried about the characters there. 

There is still time to save this season, and I do hope for an upswing, but the longer we go without any definitive answers the more frustrating this becomes. 

Stray Thoughts:

• Finally, someone mentioned that Gaia is missing! My guess is it’s another two or three episodes before anyone even figures out that she’s not with Clarke and the others given how slow this plot is going. By then we’ll be saying “What? Wait? What happened to Gaia?”
• I keep trying to reason out why Echo was given Hope to kill. All that I am landing on is that she may have had an easier time killing Octavia or Diyoza. With Octavia and Diyoza I can see why it was Hope. They spent ten years trying to protect her.
• The scene on the surface of Bardo is pretty, too bad it would kill people. 
• Madi’s concern is touching, but her role in the plot is diminished without Clarke and the Flame. There’s definitely a role for her to play at the end of all this, but the inchworm progress the plot makes obscures it. 

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

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The 100 airs Thursdays at 8/7c on The CW.

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