Sexy Teens with Dumb Names in the Post-Apocalypse, Part 2 of 100

Previously on Lost . . .

A plane carrying a group of improbably attractive main characters and several dozen disposable extras crash-lands in a jungle. Suffering only superficial injuries, the survivors look for leadership from a male character who invents a talismanic credo that will serve as the basic morality of this fledgling society: “Live together, die alone” I mean “Whatever the hell we want.” Meanwhile, the hot brunette wastes no time in taking off her clothes and the main minority character meets with contempt and violence from some of the castaways for past transgressions he had no part in. All is not what it appears in this seemingly idyllic place, however, as our heroes are confronted with strange animals and beset by monsters. After one of their group is attacked and killed by an unseen tribe of hostile natives, someone helpfully announces, “We’re not the only people on this island and we all know it!”

Also Desmond is there.

Dramatis Personae

BELLAMY BLAKE, a sexy bad-boy teen, wants to rule the 100
OCTAVIA BLAKE, a sexy brunette teen, hidden under the floor by her parents
DESMOND FROM LOST, vice president of humanity, wants to kill hundreds
ERIC, Bellamy’s teen enforcer
CLARK GRIFFIN, a sexy blonde teen, no-nonsense personality and messiah complex (the hero)
CLARK’S MOM GRIFFIN, Clark’s mom, mastermind behind the 100 Project
ASIAN GUY, a technological whiz kid, Jasper’s best friend
KELLY HU, Desmond’s girlfriend
JASPER, a terrible hipster named after a terrible hipster vampire
THE PRESIDENT OF SPACE, well-meaning but ineffectual Obama stand-in
PRESIDENT JR., his teen son, well-meaning but ineffectual love interest for Clark
FLYNN RIDER, another sexy bad-boy teen, rebel with a heart of gold

Episode 2 opens with Clark, Octavia, Flynn Rider, and Asian Guy running through the jungle, freaking out over Jasper’s comically violent death. They stop to catch their breath and notice a skeleton just lying there on the ground. Clark picks up the skull, which is a perfectly natural thing to do, and they see that it is elongated and malformed and looks like E.T. The gang discusses in hushed whispers the possibility that humanity did not die out on the planet but lived through the nuclear holocaust as mutated troglodytes. Suddenly their attention is drawn by a faraway scream. Clark immediately recognizes it as Jasper, despite the fact that Jasper’s dead and it was just established that there are other humans in the area. They head back toward the river anyway and find only a pool of blood where they left Jasper’s body. Unfortunately no one throws a spear at any of them this time.

On the Ark, Clark’s mom and the other scientists are still deliberating over the increasing number of the 100 whose life support monitors have gone dark. Everyone thinks they’re dying from the radiation but Clark’s mom insists there must be some mysterious other explanation. Why can no one figure out that they’re just taking the wristbands off? It’s not a fucking Pip-Boy, you just have to kind of pull at it a little bit and it comes right off. Living in their stupid suburban space satellite, driving their stupid space minivans, working stupid nine-to-five space jobs, are these people just too stupid to figure out kids these days? Actually that probably goes without saying. Space President comes in and acts all broken up over his son’s monitor being blank, even though he was the one who sent President Jr. to his certain death in the first place. Space President and Clark’s mom rehash plot exposition from the first episode and Desmond is like, “Let’s cut the bullshit, the earth is clearly still a radioactive wasteland so can we start killing people now please?” and oh my god did Clark’s mom just say Space President’s name is “Thelonious”? WTF Bellamy, Clark♀, Octavia, Thelonious. Was this show originally written for Fanfiction.net?

Later, Thelonious Monk and Desmond From Lost discuss the option of murdering countless civilians. Desmond tells the president that he was shot by Bellamy Blake, who then stowed away on the dropship with help from unknown agents. So since no one knew Bellamy was on the ship, did they actually intend to send only 99 teenage hooligans to Earth? But they were already using the term “the 100” even before he stowed away. So should the name of the show actually be The 101? Whatever, for the sake of my own tally I’m just going to assume they were rounding up from 99. The writers didn’t care enough to clarify it so I’m not going to care either. Space President blames Desmond for the attempt on his life regardless, and for trying to kill Clark’s mom out of revenge. Desmond protests that he was just following the law, to which Space President replies, “This job requires more than simply following the law; it requires knowing when not to.” They should have just called him Thelonious Obama and let the viewer connect the dots.

Meanwhile, the 98 have been on Earth about a day and a half and are still more concerned with picking fights over a shirt than with eating. President Jr. is trying to maintain order at the camp while Bellamy continues to encourage anarchy, because I guess that advances his plan somehow? That guy whose name I thought was Eric but whose real name is apparently Murphy is trying to torture some girl into removing her wristband by pushing her face into a campfire. President Jr. flies to her rescue and despite his wounded leg manages to batter Eric into submission, but then Clark shows up all outraged and demands that President Jr. let him go. What the hell, you stupid bimbo, just let him kill that dork. Jesus, is she really supposed to be the hero of this show? It’s like Dino-Riders all over again.

All the misguided heroism, none of the awesome.

Anyway Clark and the rest of the A-Team have returned to camp for supplies and reinforcements before they set out to rescue Jasper, because they’re convinced they heard him scream once. He’s dead, just leave him! Clark makes an impassioned speech about how all the people taking their wristbands off are idiots and how the 98 and the people on the Ark are depending on each other for survival. “Don’t listen to her, she’s one of the privileged!” Bellamy argues, which is apparently a lot more convincing than Clark’s warnings about all the perils lurking in the jungle. “The Grounders should worry about us!” Bellamy proclaims. Faced with her complete and total failure to score any points in favor of civilization or rationality, Clark concedes the debate by wandering off to go look for Jasper again.

President Jr. volunteers to go with her, pointing out that his leg is practically healed and that he MacGyvered a backpack and a stretcher out of rubbish from the crash, but Clark shoots him down because she’s a racist. She also refuses Asian Guy’s help, putting him to work trying to turn the wristbands into radio transmitters, because sure, why wouldn’t that work? Asian Guy was “raised on Farm Station and recruited by engineering,” whatever that means, so they’re depending on his knowledge to save them all, says Clark. In other words they’re completely screwed.

It turns out that Clark’s plan to go back to camp for reinforcements was really just a plan to ditch everyone but Flynn Rider, presumably because all the girls on this show want to jump his bones. Flynn wants no part of this suicide mission within a suicide mission, however, and points out that they all have to be nuts for wanting to risk their lives looking for a loser like Jasper. Clark retaliates by insulting Flynn’s manhood, and Asian Guy tearfully tells him that Jasper looked up to him. Did Jasper even know him for more than like ten minutes?

Despite just telling President Jr. he can’t go with her, Clark does nothing to stop him from going with her. On their way out, Clark bullies Bellamy into joining her party by saying that everyone will think he’s a pussy for not going. Confounded by her logic, Bellamy and his goons agree to help out. Eric asks why they would waste their time on this bullshit rescue mission and Bellamy explains that he intends to get Clark’s wristband, even if he has to cut off her hand to do it. Before they leave, he assigns another of his henchmen to stay behind and keep Octavia from following them or having sex. I thought the guy’s name was ADAM, but apparently it’s actually “ATOM,” which is just

At some point in all this teen drama we are introduced to a new character, a smoking hot space mechanic chick named EBONY DARK’NESS DEMENTIA RAVEN WAY. While floating around outside the Ark doing space mechanic things, she notices that a certain section of the station is undamaged. The space government had said that this nonexistent damage had resulted in the accidental launch of the ship that, unbeknownst to the Ark’s populace, carried the 100 to Earth. The government has been lying to its people! Then she goes to visit her boyfriend in juvie.

I wish this was a screencap from this show.

Clark’s mom turns her away at the door, however, saying that the prison is quarantined due to some sort of virus. “The council’s hiding something, and I’m gonna find out what it is!” Ebony declares angrily, then storms off to her next scene. Clark’s mom’s friend, some guy who I thought was Lieutenant Gaeda from Battlestar Galactica but is actually just some guy, tells Clark’s mom that Desmond has been trying to persuade the rest of the Space Council to support his vote to start killing people and maybe they should do something to convince them otherwise. But Clark’s mom is all “whatever, just keep trying to magically turn those blood pressure monitors into iPhones or something.”

Back on Craphole Planet, the show starts to retcon itself two episodes into its first season. “You don’t survive a spear through the heart,” Bellamy argues. “Jasper screamed when they moved him,” Clark replies. “If the spear struck his heart, he’d have died instantly.” Because, yeah, a spear thrown 300 feet with enough force to physically lift him up off the ground, carry him several feet backward through the air, and embed itself deeply enough in his chest to remain sticking out of him at a 90-degree angle is nothing to worry about, just as long as it missed his heart. His one weak spot! Attention, writers: if you wanted to end your pilot episode with one of the main characters being shockingly murdered in a very graphic and brutal way, you can’t immediately bring him back in the next episode just because “it missed his heart.” Either have him stay dead or don’t write the scene like that in the first place. Otherwise it’s fucking cheap.

Unless we’re talking about this Jasper.

Bellamy has had enough of this shit and pulls his gun on Clark. He tells her to take off her wristband, but she says no and he just gives up and never tries to get it again during the rest of the trip. Flynn Rider shows up because he is a rebel with a heart of gold, and while Clark goes off to flirt with him Bellamy commiserates with President Jr. “We both came down here to protect someone we love,” he says. “Of course, for you it’s worse. With Flynn around, Clark doesn’t even see you. It’s like you’re not even here.”

Meanwhile, Atom locks Octavia in the crashed spaceship. “Is this all you got?” she shouts, pounding on the door. “They locked me under the floor for sixteen years just for being born!” In case we forgot. She has a scene with Asian Guy, who is also in the ship, wherein we see that Octavia also has a heart of gold and really isn’t such a bad girl after all, but I don’t care because Asian Guy’s bro love for Jasper has irrevocably tainted his character for me. Atom comes back and lets Octavia out. “You’re too hot to be my brother’s bitch,” she says. “I’m no one’s bitch,” Atom replies dangerously. Why are all the kids today such hot bitches? Why can’t they just play baseball in the vacant corner lot and smile shyly at one another from across the classroom and run down the street after the ice cream truck on hot summer days?

Meanwhile, Clark’s mom’s friend is still trying to get Clark’s mom to focus on this kind of important vote they have coming up but she keeps blowing him off. Ebony suddenly falls out of an air duct. Clark’s mom’s friend wants to have her arrested for spying but Clark’s mom ignores him because Ebony claims to know why the 98’s wristband signals keep going dead. “They’re taking them off,” she deduces immediately. Hey, idiots! I tried to tell you that last episode! You could have saved a lot of time if you’d just listened. “Why would they do something so reckless?” wonders Clark’s mom’s friend, utterly flabbergasted. Clark’s mom answers with a smile of understanding: “Because they’re twelve.” “Because we told them not to.”

Meanwhile Bellamy calls Clark “Princess” twice.

“I am not a princess and where did I get this scarf?”

The Space Council convenes to discuss what to do about their impending doom situation (there are four months of oxygen left and it will take six months to fix the life support). The council consists of Space Obama, Desmond, Clark’s mom, some fat guy with a beard, and three other people. Desmond, of course, is all about committing genocide ASAP, but Clark’s mom argues in favor of giving the 98 more time to not die of radiation poisoning. “Data indicates that the violent criminals in the group are eight times more likely to have terminated signals,” she explains. “What the hell kind of data is that?” asks Fat Guy. “How would you even determine something like that? Do you at least have a graph or something?” No I’m just kidding, he says nothing.

Desmond points out that every day they delay is an additional ten people who will have to be executed to prolong the oxygen supply. He demands an immediate vote. The council votes immediately and is split down the middle, leaving Space Obama to break the tie. He gives some weak-ass little speech that doesn’t have anything to do with anything. Everyone ignores it and Fat Guy demands to know how he votes. Space Obama surprises them all by abstaining, meaning that the vote will be tabled until the next council meeting ten days later. Desmond throws a fit over having to murder an additional 100 innocent people and storms out, but I like to think he was smiling on the inside. “You have ten days,” Space President says to Clark’s mom. Yeah, just shoot anyone into space who threatens the status quo, but when it’s time to make a decision that affects everyone on the station, that’s when you get squeamish. Not my president!

That night, far below all this intense political drama, Atom takes Octavia to this grove filled with blue bioluminescent butterflies. Thousands of them start flying around, filling the forest with wonder and enchantment and I was so psyched for this flock of mutant butterflies to suddenly turn vicious and start attacking them but the writers didn’t go that way. Wasted opportunity. Anyway I guess Atom and Octavia are in love now or something, since they’ve called each other hot bitches and all. He tells her how lucky she is that her brother loves her. He’s envious of her, even though she had to live under the floor for sixteen years. No, dude, check your priorities.

I guess we have to go back to Clark’s group now. As they hike toward where Jasper disappeared, Flynn muses about the circumstances of their attack. “They waited for us to cross [the river],” Clark realizes. “It’s a boundary.” Good theory, except the spear came from the side of the river you were already on YOU DIP. Why would the “Grounders,” as you call them, arbitrarily choose that random river as the outer edge of their murderzone and then attack you from a location that would drive you farther into their territory? So after discussing how to cross the river is to take your life in your hands, they get to the river and cross without incident. Well, almost. Flynn pauses to playfully pull Clark into the water and she whines at him that they don’t have time for fun. The life of some hipster douchebag everyone hates is at stake!

Flynn starts to psychoanalyze Clark’s character arc and how her inability to save her father drives her need to save everyone else, but forget all that bullshit because it’s time to find Jasper crucified on the Tree of Woe.

Not worth it.

They hurry to cut Jasper down and stupid Clark falls into a pit full of spikes. Bellamy manages to catch her by the hand but (awesomely) considers letting her fall to her death anyway. He hesitates too long, however, as President Jr. and Flynn rush over and pull her to safety. Now considering the possibility that the mortally wounded dude strung up as live bait could have been left there as part of a trap, they more carefully proceed to bring the (unfortunately) still breathing Jasper down from the tree. Suddenly a black panther, which is what I assume the Grounders were trying to catch for some reason (wouldn’t it be easier to hunt the mutant two-faced deer from the pilot episode?), comes charging out of the underbrush. Everyone freezes in terror until Clark shrieks for Bellamy to shoot it. Bellamy reaches for his gun, only to find it missing. He looks over to see it in the hands of President Jr., who empties the clip into the big cat, stopping it literally dead in its tracks, because a lifetime aboard a pressurized space station has given him ample time to hone his marksmanship. No but it is kind of a badass moment though. Despite being a naïve dork, President Jr. is fast becoming one of my favorite characters, probably because he’s one of the few who doesn’t seem like a complete idiot. Also he just killed an apex predator with a handgun, and as an American I am compelled to give him the maddest props for that. Clark gapes at President Jr. in awe and slight arousal. “Now she sees you,” Bellamy tells him, vindicating Elliot Rodger’s theory on gender relations.

On the Ark, Clark’s mom pays a visit to Ebony the hot space mechanic. They have ten days to prove that the earth is inhabitable or else Desmond is going to murder hundreds of people, she explains. Since Ebony is “the youngest zero-g mechanic in fifty-two years,” she is the only one who can repair this busted-up old escape pod and get it ready to survive reentry. Clark’s mom is going down to the planet to find the 98, and Ebony agrees to help on the condition that they both go so she can find her boyfriend. I wonder who it could be!

In the final minutes of the episode, Clark’s party finally returns to their camp, Jasper’s unconscious body and the dead panther in tow. Bellamy offers the panther up to the rest of the 98 as food, because I guess they finally realized that they hadn’t eaten in days. The price of a meal ticket, however, is the removal of their wristbands. Clark whines about this, so Flynn just walks up to the barbecue and brings her back a piece of cat meat. Eric confronts him: “What, you think you play by different rules?” “I thought there were no rules,” Flynn responds, his eyes twinkling keenly. Flummoxed by this irrefutable rebuttal, Eric and Bellamy are forced to let him get away with this effrontery. Some random dude walks up and tries to pull the same trick and Bellamy beats the shit out of him.

Bellamy goes looking for Octavia and finds her making out with Atom. As punishment, Bellamy and his gang crucify Atom by stringing him up from the branches of a tree. “I won’t be disobeyed,” Bellamy tells him sternly as they walk away and leave him hanging there. Way to pussy out, Belamy; the Romans used nails. But little do they know that the Predator is watching from the treetops . . .

“Any time . . .”

So other than introducing the hot space mechanic character and marginally advancing the Ark plot by setting up Clark’s mom’s trip to Earth, not a lot happened in this episode. Most of the Earth plot was spent undoing the big event from the end of the previous episode. There were a few little character moments sprinkled throughout, but they mainly just elaborated on character traits and relationships established in the pilot. Some shows will slow down a little in the first episode after the pilot, repeating a lot of the information given in the previous episode and giving the audience a chance to absorb it all and make sure they’re on the same page before continuing on with the main thrust of the season. Which is fine, whatever, but The 98 already has one huge unforgivable sin against it in the resurrection of Jasper; I don’t know how much more heartbreak I can take.

Desmond continues to be awesome but underused, the president continues to be a clueless asshole, Octavia continues to be the Girl in the Floor. So far it’s just more of the same, but we’ve got three or four different love triangles brewing right now so my hopes remain high for future developments.

Seriously, though, fuck Jasper. Fuck him with a spear, his main love interest at this point.

Sexy Teens with Dumb Names in the Post-Apocalypse, Part 1 of 100

This is a show in which sexy delinquent teens are sent to wild Earth, far away from their stupid parents in their stupid suburban space satellite. There is love, there is death, there is an older generation who just doesn’t understand. It’s the teen adventure of a lifetime. Come along with me, won’t you?

It’s 97 years after a nuclear apocalypse rendered the earth uninhabitable and the remnants the human race live aboard a giant space station called the Ark, which they presumably borrowed from the Autobots because they are giant space robots who can survive in radiation, or maybe from John Cusack at the end of 2012. Or maybe from Noah. Is the Ark even a viable allusion anymore?

In the series’ first (and, as of the end of this episode, only) nod to scientific accuracy, the station is made of giant rotating wheels, which create artificial gravity for the people living inside them. One of those people is our lead character, a pretty blonde girl named CLARK, which is a terrible name for anyone whose last name isn’t Kent so right off the bat I have high hopes for this show. She fills us in on the back story of the series via voiceover narration while drawing a mural on the floor with colored chalk. It will take another 100 years before the earth’s radiation level subsides enough for humans to live on it again, but they’re going to do it anyway in about three minutes.

Some tough-looking dudes in uniforms burst into Clark’s room and it turns out Clark has been locked up in juvie for the past year. She starts whining at them that they can’t kill her because she’s only 17, hoping they won’t notice that she’s clearly 25. Clark beats up the two burly security guards . . . somehow . . . and escapes, but then CLARK’S MOM appears and tells her that she and the other prisoners aren’t being executed, they’re being sent to Earth! Then someone injects Clark with something and she passes out.

“Pretty but vacant” is the defining characteristic of a strong female young adult protagonist in any medium.

After the title sequence, Clark and the Ark’s 99 other juvenile delinquents awaken on the spacecraft carrying them down to the planet. A pre-recorded message from the PRESIDENT OF SPACE, an African American Arkian (?) gentleman played by the guy who was fired from Grey’s Anatomy for being a homophobe, plays on a TV, telling the eponymous 100 what an important thing they’re doing for the future of their species. The president’s son, PRESIDENT JR., is sitting next to Clark. He explains that he somehow got himself arrested so he could apologize to her for turning her father in to the police and getting him executed, and he hopes she’s not still mad at him for that. Clark tells him to fuck off.

Some of the kids take off their seatbelts and start floating around in zero-g, even though everyone’s hair is hanging normally around their faces. Clark whines at them to strap back in but then the ship crashes for some reason (srsly I have no idea why) and two of them are killed instantly. So five minutes into the first episode the show’s title is already out of date. The CW should have just used the title as a running tally of how many characters are still alive and updated the title card and promotional material every week to reflect that. As far as I’m concerned The 100 is now called The 98.

After ten minutes of breakneck exposition, the show finally pauses to take a breath and introduce some more of the main cast. There is BELLAMY BLAKE, a bad-boy rebel who stowed away on the ship to reunite with his sister, OCTAVIA BLAKE, a sexy brunette who was imprisoned for violating the one-child-per-family law (as we are informed by unseen characters shouting “That’s the girl they hid under the floor!” and, twenty seconds later, “That’s Octavia Blake, the girl they found hidden under the floor!” in what may be the worst sound mixing ever to air on TV). There is FLYNN RIDER, another bad-boy rebel, who was arrested for stealing oxygen for “an illegal space walk.” He instigated the redshirts who died in the crash but he might secretly have a heart of gold . . . if he can decide which of the two leading ladies it belongs to! There is JASPER, a hipster doofus who wears goggles as a fashion accessory, and his friend, ASIAN GUY, who is good with computers, because of course he is. They were arrested for smoking weed. Also there is some guy whose name might be ERIC, who has it in for President Jr. for some reason I can’t remember but might be because Space Obama had his parents killed too. Apparently this society has a habit of killing people’s parents and then sending the kids to jail because they don’t know what else to do with them. It’s good to see the American justice system is still alive and well after the atomic holocaust.

Octavia Blake, 28-year-old teenage sexpot/girl in the floor.

Bellamy Blake starts trying to force the spaceship’s door open so they don’t suffocate or burn to death but Clark whines at him about the radiation. Bellamy is all like, “Bitch, no,” and opens the door anyway. The 98 step outside and set foot on Earth for the first time in what I would think would be kind of a solemn moment but then Octavia, overjoyed at being sent to a slow death by radiation poisoning, screams, “We’re back, bitches!” and Imagine Dragons’ “Radioactive” starts playing, because contemporary pop music is the most appropriate soundtrack for a post-apocalyptic science fiction show.

Meanwhile, back on the Ark, we are introduced to DESMOND FROM LOST, the vice president and apparently the antagonist of the show. It’s weird hearing him talk with an American accent, his voice sounds way higher and thinner than it did on Lost. Someone alerts Clark’s mom that Space Obama was shot by Bellamy Blake earlier that day and I guess they just found out. Clark’s mom immediately starts shouting this disastrous information at everyone within earshot. Jeez, lady, you think you might want to keep that one under your hat for a minute? Seriously though I hope he dies so Desmond can take over. Desmond’s friend/adviser/minion tells him, “Desmond, now that you’re president you can start killing people immediately.” One of the perks of the job, I guess. But Desmond’s like no, if we’re going to kill everyone we have to wait for Space Obama to die so we can do it legally.

“I’ll see ya in another despotic regime, brotha!”

On Earth, two characters call Clark “Princess” entirely independent of one another.

Back in space, Clark’s mom is a doctor I guess and she breaks the law by giving Space Obama too much blood, so Desmond has her arrested because in the future “all crimes are capital crimes.” KELLY HU, Desmond’s adviser?/assistant?/girlfriend?, makes an impassioned plea for her life because they are BFFs, and damn now that Desmond’s basically president you’d think he could afford some nice shirts that haven’t been gnawed at by space moths. All the kids on Earth look like they just walked out of an Abercrombie & Fitch. (I am glad though that the one resource we won’t be short on after the apocalypse is hair product.)

“You all think I’m the bad guy but I’m the only one willing to do what it takes to save us,” Desmond says with a condescending smirk, because he’s Desmond From Lost and he’s awesome. He then orders his guards to fire Clark’s mom’s ass out an airlock. Clark’s mom has been trying to devise a way to communicate with the 98 via the vital signs monitors in their wristbands. As she is dragged away to her doom, she shouts instructions at some scientist guy for how to continue the operation and tells him “Nod if you understand!” Um, why couldn’t he just answer her normally? Desmond’s standing right there watching, none of this is getting past him. The guy nods anyway though and Clark’s mom is about to get “floated” when Space Obama comes staggering down the hallway in his hospital gown and officially pardons her for wasting valuable medical resources to save a single person’s life. So he can just do that, huh? And he just let his son get arrested and shipped off to Earth anyway. Not to mention executing Clark’s dad for, as will later be revealed, doing nothing wrong. Space Obama is kind of an asshole.

On Earth, everyone looks tan and healthy despite living on a space station for a hundred years. Clark has salvaged a map from the crash and is trying to plot a course to Mount Weather, the site of the old government bunker they were supposed to land near. “Where’d you learn to do that?” Flynn Rider asks her. What, to draw a line on a map? Clark starts whining at everyone that they need to gather food and hike to the mountain so they can tell Space Obama that it’s safe to send more people down. Someone needs to tell this girl that she’s never going to get ahead giving head to the man. “Let the privileged do the hard work for a change,” suggests Bellamy Blake, founding member of Occupy Post-Apocalyptic Earth. Realizing that an unsupervised group of delinquent teenagers may not be the most altruistic people she could ask for help, Clark resolves to head off by herself.

President Jr. attempts to follow her but is confronted by that Eric guy who is about to beat the shit out of him until Flynn Rider steps in and points out that President Jr.’s leg was injured in the crash. Since murderous thugs are known for nothing if not their strong sense of honor, Eric backs off. “Hey, Space Walker,” Octavia says to Flynn. “Rescue me next.” This dialogue.

Flynn Rider, dreamboat.

Clark heads out and is joined by Flynn Rider because he wants to bang her, Octavia because she wants to bang Flynn Rider, Jasper the Hipster Doofus because he wants to bang Octavia, and Asian Guy because he’s Jasper’s wingman I guess. At least if they get lost they can just follow their trail of pheromones back to camp. After trading arrest stories, one of the dynamic duo asks, “What’d they get you for, Octavia?” Dude, were you not paying attention?

As they trek across the wilderness, they behold the majesty and wonder of this brave new world, such as a mutant two-faced deer covered in tumors. They come across a river and Octavia strips down to her underwear, prompting Jasper to exclaim his love for Earth because lmao he’s so horny. Before the others can join Octavia in the water, however, she is eaten by a giant catfish. Oh wait nvm, she survived, the catfish just smeared some red paint on her leg. Jasper pulls her out of the water and is rewarded for his heroism with a brief hug, giving Asian Guy the opening he’s been waiting for to joke, “Note to self: next time, save the girl.” Everyone laughs.

Back at the camp, President Jr. is further harassed by Eric and his crew but fends them off by making fun of a spelling error in their graffitied death threat. They are then recruited by Bellamy to serve as his enforcers. Bellamy abducts President Jr. at gunpoint and marches him out into the woods where the goon squad holds him down and pulls off his wristband while President Jr. screams like he’s being gang raped instead of just getting his bracelet stolen. Bellamy has decided to make himself the leader of this fledgling non-society and the easiest way to maintain their isolation is by getting everyone to remove their wristbands so the people on the Ark will stop receiving their vital signs and assume the radiation levels are still too high for humans to survive. To celebrate their independence, the 98 minus Clark’s party throw a big pep rally around a bonfire. I don’t know how they have the energy for this since they all belittled Clark when she suggested they look for food earlier that morning. Shouldn’t they all be busy starving to death right now?

As Clark’s gang journeys on toward Mount Weather, we get yet another scene of expository dialogue wherein Clark reveals that her father was an engineer on the Ark who discovered that they were running out of oxygen far more quickly than was generally believed. He thought the station’s citizens had a right to know the truth but Clark blabbed to President Jr., resulting in her father’s arrest and execution before he could tell anyone. Clark was then incarcerated in solitary confinement for a year but instead of losing her mind she just came out of it looking like a girl on a CW show.

They come upon another river but rather than risk attack by another mutated creature that the script calls a snake even though the animation didn’t look anything like a snake, they decide to swing across it on a vine, which is apparently just hanging down directly from the sky rather than any of the nearby trees. Flynn Rider is about to go first because he’s the daredevil, but Jasper convinces him to switch places with him so he can impress Octavia. Jasper swings across and discovers a conveniently placed sign for Mount Weather lying on the ground right where he landed. The celebration is cut short, however, when, with a cry of “DIE, HIPSTER SCUM,” a wooden spear comes hurtling out of nowhere and strikes Jasper directly in the chest, lifting him off his feet and carrying him backward through the air to collide with a tree. Finally. The only way this scene could have been better is if the spear had impaled him directly through his stupid goggles. Clark and the others take cover behind some logs and Clark announces forebodingly, “We’re not alone,” which is the least helpful thing anyone could say in this situation. Cut to title card, end of Episode 1.

It was all worth it.

I came off this episode feeling pretty high but the preview for the next episode already spoiled that Jasper is apparently, improbably, still alive and that they find E.T.’s skull so now I don’t know what to believe. Suffice it to say that, based on my expectation of CW programming, The 98 did not let me down. The premise of the show has potential, which I don’t expect to ever be fully realized, and the cast, while kind of bland, is serviceable for the subject matter and acceptably pretty. The writing is atrocious but no one expects good writing from TV, a.k.a. “the idiot box” LOL! So far my favorite character is the spear that almost killed Jasper and my second favorite is the snakefish that almost ate Octavia. I look forward to watching their arcs develop in surprising and satisfying ways over the course of the season.

I will keep watching in the hope that Desmond becomes president and has all the annoying teen characters (mainly just Jasper) lined up and shot, then the show switches gears and becomes about Desmond banging Kelly Hu in space while executing mass segments of the population at sporadic intervals. And also they get someone else to write all the dialogue. It’s a bold new direction for The CW and I for one can’t wait to tune in for more!