Episode 5x11: "The Dark Year"

WELP, CONGRATULATIONS TO EVERYONE WHO BET MONEY THAT IT WOULD BE CANNIBALISM YOU WIN AN EXTREMELY GRIM AND DEPRESSING EPISODE Jump in our Way-Back Machine and return with us to a simpler time, where we can revisit our old friends Kara Cooper, brighter indoor lighting, and Kane's good hair! Enjoy this brief flash of a more-or-less sane Octavia before everything falls to shit again and life is The Worst! Claire now bitterly regrets ever having uttered the words “hey wouldn’t it be dope if Abby and Octavia ever had a storyline together” I’M SORRY GUYS THIS ONE’S ON ME I PUT IT OUT IN THE UNIVERSE AND I CAN’T TAKE IT BACK NOW (. . . kudos to Propkru, though. We're never eating Jell-O again.) Meanwhile, in the future, Jason grants our wish to finally get all three Griffin ladies in the same room, though shit's pretty bleak over there too. There’s lots to love (Abby gets cured! Bellamy speaks Trig! Murphy gets a giant gun! Diyoza wants Kabby reunited as much as we do! Raven and Shaw kiss! Echo is in charge and it’s hot af!) and lots to furrow our brows at in mild puzzlement (if Clarke kills McCreary, aren’t all their problems basically over? Does Madi have Clarke’s consciousness in her head, meaning there are now effectively two Clarke minds in play?). Plus, Professor Erin does both “Robinson Crusoe” and “Paradise Lost”, Claire thinks everyone’s reading that final Kane/Diyoza scene wrong, and we have LOTS of thoughts about Wonkru cannibal ethics. All right, take a deep breath and let's dive in! Trust us, there's not enough vegetable broth in the WORLD to make this bleak and stomach-turning hour of television go down any easier. (Thank God at least Raven is happy.) ------------------------------------------- 0:00 – Maybe the REAL Cannibalism Was the Friends We Made Along the Way 0:16 – The Sunk Cost Fallacy: Blodreina’s Power Thrives on Food Scarcity and Fear 0:30 – Mt. Weather vs. the Bunker: Dehumanization, Complicity, and Bodies as Resources 0:43 – “Marcus Is the Key” – The Patient on the Operating Table Abby Has to Save Is All of Wonkru 0:51 – Would It Have Been Possible For Octavia to Pull a S1 Abby By Telling Everyone the Truth? 1:08 – Survival vs. Deserving to Survive: The Origin of the Kane vs. Octavia Rift 1:15 – “Omon Gon Oson” As Both Propaganda and Devotional Practice 1:22 – Kane, Octavia, and Individual Ethics vs. Subsuming Yourself Into the Collective 1:30 – We Need to Unpack Octavia’s Hypocrisy In Burning the Farm 1:34 – Professor Erin Does “Paradise Lost” 1:40 – Is Season 6 Octavia the New Season 4 Jaha? 1:45 – We Just Have Like . . . Infinity Jillion Flame Questions, Guys 2:27 – Are We Just Circling Back Over and Over to a World Order We Already Dismantled, and Rehashing the Same War? 2:46 – Everything Is Broken and We Want to See These Characters BUILD Something Because We Don’t Think We Can Handle Another Season That’s Just About Destroying Things 2:52 – The Trauma of Madi’s Nightblood Childhood 2:59 – We’re Running Out of Time But Here Are Our Spacekru Thoughts In One Minute 3:00 – CLAIRE THINKS YOU’RE ALL WRONG ABOUT THAT LAST SCENE, DAD KANE DID NOT DOUBLE-CROSS HIS CHILDREN 3:06 - Diyoza Reminds Both Kane and Us That Abby Is Not a Villain (Though We're Bummed She Got Overruled By Clarke About Having to Cure McCreary)