The official site of The 100 on The CW. By using this site, you agree to the. 'The 100' showrunner Jason Rothenberg breaks down the biggest twist from Tuesday's Season 6 premiere. Weigh in with your thoughts.
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Tuesday’s long-awaited premiere of The 100 didn’t just kick off the show’s sixth season; it also cracked open “book two,” setting our heroes on a dangerous new path that already claimed the life of a beloved character in its first hour.
I’m speaking, of course, about Miles Ezekiel “Zeke” Shaw (played by Jordan Bolger), who died after crossing a radiated barrier while exploring a dangerous new planet. “Tell Raven she deserves happiness,” he told Clarke as he took his final breaths. “She doesn’t think she does, but she does.” Clarke, who was not affected thanks to her Nightblood, did everything she could to save him — but it was too late.
“The truth is, we lost the actor,” showrunner Jason Rothenberg tells TVLine about the decision to kill off Shaw. “Jordan got a job on another show. He’s incredible, and I would have loved to keep him around, but we had a situation where we were losing him. The reality of production and people’s careers and people getting other jobs factors into the equation. We then have to think, ‘OK, how do we write a character off this show in an emotionally satisfying way?’ It’s not satisfying that he dies — it’s tragic and heartbreaking — but there aren’t a whole lot of options. It’s not the kind of show where a character takes a job in Seattle and moves. There’s pretty much only one way out.”
Rothenberg acknowledges that he could have simply left Shaw in cryosleep, but he opted for the more dramatic twist. “That’s the truth of it,” he says. “It sucks,” adding that “the universe apparently doesn’t want Raven to be happy. She can’t catch a break.”
Of course, if we’re being honest, it doesn’t seem like any of our favorites are going to catch a break now that they’re attempting to inhabit a planet that turns its inhabitants into murderous psychopaths during eclipses.
Other premiere developments worth discussing…
* Kane nearly joined Shaw in The 100‘s great beyond when the ship ran out of algae serum and his body couldn’t handle another surgery. Fortunately — or not, depending on how you feel about Kane — Abby was able to return him to cryosleep and prolong his survival.
* Speaking of Kane, Octavia — who was awoken by Nylah — was less than thrilled to learn that her blood had been used to save Kane. “You were too weak to do what had to be done, and then you ran, became a traitor and made a deal with our enemy that you knew they would never keep.” (Honestly, I’m not sure whose side I’m supposed to be on right now.)
* More internal conflict: Despite Abby’s attempts to apologize (“What I did to you with the collar was unforgivable”), Raven wasn’t about hear it. “Mind if we don’t talk?” she said after asserting that “some of us never lost [our humanity].”
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We've only got a little longer to wait until The 100Season 6 to premieres, and we've made good use of the long hiatus between seasons by accumulating all the spoilers and sneak peeks you could ever want!
When we last saw our heroes in the Season 5 finale, they were on the brink of a new world after traveling for more than 100 years — while in cryo-sleep — to a new planet across the galaxy. So far, Clarke (Eliza Taylor) and Bellamy (Bob Morley) are the only ones awake — if you don't count Harper (Chelsey Reist) and Monty's (Christopher Larkin) son Jordan (Shannon Kook) — but something tells us not everyone will be excited about this sudden turn of events.
But what can we expect in Season 6? Well, thanks to the Season 6 trailer, some new photos, and a little detective work, TV Guide has compiled everything we know so far about Season 6 of The 100. Check it out below, and come back soon because we'll be updating this regularly whenever new information is announced.
Eliza Taylor, The 100Photo: Katie Yu, KATIE YU/THE CW
It will premiere in April.The 100 Season 6 will premiere Tuesday, April 30 at 9/8c on The CW. This means the show will run through the summer, most likely airing its season finale in August.
This new world is a total change from what we've seen before. While the photos we've seen may look like the all too familiar woods of Vancouver, everything about this new planet and the culture that our heroes will discover there will be 'unlike anything they've experienced and unlike anyone they've experienced' before, creator Jason Rothenberg told us. Not only are there two suns in the sky of this new plant, the Season 6 trailer mentions 'eclipse induced psychosis.' Something tells us that is going to make it really hard for our characters to be the good guys as promised.
Clarke and Bellamy will face a new ruler. Some of the people they meet on the new planet have a leader named Russell, played by J.R. Bourne. According to the casting announcement, Russell will be 'a visionary and pioneer' who presides over a peaceful society on this new planet.
J.R. Bourne, The 100Photo: The CW
Jordan will carry on Harper and Monty's legacy. While Harper and Monty may have died in the Season 5 finale, their now-grown son Jordan will help carry out their wish to be the good guys this time around. However, going to the new planet will be a major learning experience for him, given that he has lived his entire life on the transport ship with only his parents for company. 'Everything he experiences in Season 6 is going to be new and fresh and he's going to be wide-eyed and excited and horrified,' Rothenberg said.
The trailer is absolutely bananas. The official trailer for Season 6 shows off a technicolored world that isn't as safe as it seems. Snakes with barbed tongues? Masked killers lurking in the woods? Eclipse-induced psychosis? Yeah, this planet is definitely not the safe refuge our heroes hoped for.
Not everyone is waking up right away. The first photos of Season 6 reveal that Clarke, Bellamy, Echo (Tasya Teles), Murphy (Richard Harmon), Emori (Luisa D'Oliveira), Miller (Jarod Joseph), Jackson (Sachin Sahel), and Shaw (Jordan Bolger) will be in the first group of explorers on this new planet, but Rothenberg revealed to TV Guide that it will take a little while before the rest of the survivors from Earth awake from cryo-sleep.
Bellamy and Clarke will team up as leaders again. After spending much of the back half of Season 5 at odds, Bellamy and Clarke will get on the same page again in the new season. Of course, before they do that the pair will have to find a way to forgive each other and work through everything that went down during Earth's final days.
'This season starts with a little bit of a reckoning of some of the things that they went through last year, especially from Clarke's side of things. She left Bellamy to die and things like that,' Rothenberg said. 'So they'll definitely deal with that, but I think they both turn the page and figure out a way to be together on the same page. That's when good things happen.'
Bellamy and Echo are still a thing. If you were hoping a 125-year nap would change the relationship dynamics on this show, think again; Bellamy and Echo will still be very much in love (and very cuddly in Season 6 photos published by TVLine) when things pick back up, so for now, it's Becho or bust.
The 100Photo: CW
The Blake siblings will eventually get back to a good place. After all the cannibalism, dictatorships and poisonings last season, Bellamy and Octavia (Marie Avgeropoulos) are understandably still at odds with one another when Season 6 picks back up. 'That's a big rift, for sure, and it will take some work to get back to a place where the Blakes are tight,' Rothenberg told TV Guide of that relationship. 'We'll put them through that wringer and we'll get them there eventually, but it's going to take a while. That's not something that you get over too quickly.'
We'll get some of Echo's backstory. Bob Morley revealed that we'd be digging into Echo's past a bit next season, and 'Bellamy's obviously involved with dealing with that emotionally.' We don't know much about her past beyond her time in Mount Weather and the fact that she was an assassin for Azgeda, but it's probably not all sunshine and daisies.
Indra will find her loyalties tested. Although Indra (Adina Porter) spent the majority of the series being loyal to Octavia, she turned against Octavia in order to do what was best for Wonkru in Season 5. So will Indra now be a loyal follower of Madi's given that the young girl has taken the Flame? Not necessarily. 'I think that Indra believes more in what — she's a team player and her loyalty is to her tribe, not necessarily the leader of the tribe,' Porter said. 'Indra would sacrifice the relationship, herself for her people, whoever her leader happens to be.'
Kane is still alive... for now. Putting Kane is cryo-sleep essentially put him on ice, keeping what would have been fatal injuries from killing him. Henry Ian Cusick confirmed to reporters at the Television Critics Association summer press tour that he'd be in Season 6 of The 100, and we've seen him awake and seemingly recovered in the trailer. Cusick will also be splitting his time filming a new show, The Passage, so for that reason alone, Kane's future is still very much up in the air.
Clarke will embrace Madi's position as commander. Though they fought (and fought and fought and fought) about Madi's role as Commander in Season 5, Season 6 will see Clarke trying to embrace her daughter's responsibilities as Heda. Now, Rothenberg says it will be up to Madi (Lola Flanery) to prove that she's worthy of that approval.
Bob Morley and Eliza Taylor, The 100Photo: The CW/Netflix
Bob Morley is directing an episode. For the first time in The 100's run, an actor will be stepping behind the camera to direct an episode. Though details are sparse on the episode (Season 6 Episode 11), the cast and producers were all very supportive of Morley as he took on this role in Season 6. Morley tweeted his thanks to the cast and crew after filming on his episode wrapped, writing, 'Sometimes the gratitude you feel for others overwhelms you, and platitudes don't cut it. Wrapping as a director on #The100 I cannot even come close to the heartwarming love I feel for the crew, writers and cast of this show. Be kind, be well.'
The Season 6 premiere will be screened early at WonderCon 2019. If you want to catch the Season 6 premiere a full month before it hits TV, you better start looking for WonderCon badges ASAP! In addition to the cast Q&A, which will include Eliza Taylor, Bob Morley, Marie Avgeropoulos, Richard Harmon, Tasya Teles, Shannon Kook, JR Bourne, and Jason Rothenberg, Warner Bros. TV will also be screening the Season 6 premiere for fans on Sunday, March 31 at 11:00 a.m. PT.
Bellamy still has a lot of trust to rebuild with both Clarke and Octavia. After all the betrayals and bad blood between Bellamy, Clarke, and Octavia, Morley told reporters on a recent set visit that they've all got a long way to go until their bonds are repaired. 'I think that the Blake sibling relationship is a real barometer of how Bellamy's feeling in any given season or where he's going. I don't think it's something that they can walk away from that easily. That old adage of blood is thicker than water definitely rings true for them, but it's just — there's got to be a lot of water under the bridge before they can kind of develop into something more. But it's not something that the two of them would happily walk away from, so there's a lot of work to be done.'
As for Bellamy and Clarke, the betrayals on both sides will still be fresh in their minds when we pick back up. 'They still have to kind of resolve what went down last season with Madi. Putting the chip into Madi, being left in the fighting pits, and being on opposite sides of warring factions,' Morley said. 'So that's something that definitely is touched upon, and they have to figure out a way to be able to get through that. But it's really taking in that mantra from Monty, 'do better and be the good guys,' that they're both trying to adopt and work upon. It's a work in progress, as it is most seasons. The challenge of trying to do the right thing, and even trying to define what the right thing is, and the 'good guy' terminology is in a new planet where everything's new basically.'
This may be Murphy's best season yet. At WonderCon, Richard Harmon was hesitant to share details about Murphy's storyline this year, but he did say that Season 6 was his favorite Murphy season yet. In the trailer we see Murphy speculate, 'I'm pretty sure I'm going to hell,' which sounds like a seriously compelling direction for his character to head in!
Octavia will have to face her demons. The theme of the season is 'face your demons' and no one will struggle with that journey as much as Octavia Blake. After the atrocities she committed in the bunker last year (cannibalism and fighting pits, oh my!), Octavia will have a lot of owning up to do if she wants to come to terms with her past. Unfortunately, Octavia's not quite ready to beg for forgiveness.
'She knows redemption needs to happen in order to heal her heart and a lot of relationships,' Avgeropoulos said earlier this year at WonderCon. 'But is that something she's willing to do? I guess the fans will have to find out. Octavia did a lot of things in the bunker that were needed for survival, but she did have a lot of counterparts that assisted her in doing so, so she's not totally to blame... I don't think she's really ready to let sleeping dogs lie.'
Season 6 won't be the last. The 100 has reinvented itself several times over the years, and The CW hopes it will continue to do so for several more. A week ahead of the Season 6 premiere, The CW renewed The 100 for Season 7, which will likely air in the spring of 2020.
The 100 returns Tuesday, April 30 at 9/8c on The CW.
(Disclosure: TV Guide is owned by CBS Interactive, a division of CBS Corporation.)