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THE 100 “Perverse Instantiation – Part Two” Recap and Commentary

The season 3 finale of The 100, “Perverse Instantiation – Part Two,” was not only executed spectacularly, but also had excellent performances by all the actors and left us wondering what the ultimate fate of mankind will be in the next season.

Polis & City of Light

This episode of The 100 starts off with Clarke using Raven’s EMP device on Abby to remove the chip. When her mom wakes up and sees the cuts on Clarke’s chest, she realizes what she’s done. From a spectacular performance from both Eliza Taylor (Clarke) and Paige Turco (Abby), Abby apologizes to Clarke, and she forgives her. This scene was absolutely heartbreaking and extremely well done.

After Clarke brings Abby back, Bellamy, Pike, and Murphy walk into the throne room, pointing their guns at Abby until Clarke tells them that Abby is okay.

Clarke tells all of them that Ontari is no longer an option for the flame, and she is going to take the flame instead. Bellamy is pretty incredulous at this idea, but Clarke tells them that she’s going to be connected to Ontari, using her blood, like the Mountain Men did in Mount Weather, so that she can take the flame.

Octavia and the others walk into the throne room, and Octavia tells them that the City of Light followers are climbing the tower to stop them from destroying ALIE. This is terrifying.

Abby hooks Clarke up to the tubes, so they can let the transfusion begin. Once they begin the blood transfusion, Clarke is visibly uncomfortable, and Bellamy tries to make her feel better by joking about his experience in Mount Weather. To be honest, this made us really emotional because Bellamy jokes about his own experience of torture to make Clarke feel better.

Right before Murphy puts the chip in Clarke, she grabs Bellamy’s hand for support and comfort.

When Murphy puts it in, the flame momentarily hurts Clarke, but she soon stops screaming, and tells everyone that she knows how to stop ALIE– Clarke has to take the chip, go into the City of Light, and find the killswitch.

While Abby thinks that ALIE will kill Clarke as soon as she gets into the City of Light, Clarke says that the flame will protect her.

So, Bellamy gives her the chip, and she enters the City of Light.

When she gets to there, Clarke has to try and not be seen. However, Clarke thinks that she’s being followed by a man, but the man just walks past her, not even noticing her. When she sees Jasper, and he doesn’t see her, she realizes that no one can see her. The flame is protecting her.

At Polis, Bryan’s wound is infected, and some people take him to Abby, leaving Octavia alone with Pike.

When they leave and the first climbers get to the window, Pike tells Octavia that they need to stand together. However, Octavia doesn’t take to this advice very well. When the first climbers make it to them, Octavia cuts Pike’s leg and leaves him to the mercy of the Grounders.

When Bellamy realizes what Octavia has done to Pike, he’s surprised and very angry.

Then, they all realize that they can’t stop the people without killing them, so they decide to shut the doors and build a barricade to keep them isolated in the room for as long as possible. While trying to keep them in the room, Bellamy tells Octavia that he knows how she feels, but that she can’t let her need for revenge cloud her judgment.

Then, with his redemption arc coming full circle, Bellamy tells Pike that he’s realized that he has to live with all of the things that he’s done. Bellamy has both accepted what he’s done and understands the ramifications for his actions.

After the delinquents have built the barricade to keep the climbers out, they set up a trap to disarm the climbers. So, when they get passed the room, the delinquents electrocute the people, knock them out, and take their weapons.

In the throne room, Ontari starts to seize, and Clarke’s body starts rejecting the flame because not enough of Ontari’s blood is getting into her body. Because of this, she starts bleeding in the City of Light.

When it starts to look like Clarke is going to be killed by the massive horde of people coming after her, Lexa appears and kills all of them like the badass that she is.

Lexa helps Clarke up, and they share an incredibly sweet moment. She tells Clarke that “our fight is not over” and helps her escape. However, the bad news is that now ALIE knows Clarke’s there.

Suddenly Clarke starts to seize in the real world, and Lexa holds a seizing Clarke in the City of Light

To save her, Abby cuts down Ontari’s chest and pumps her heart to get more blood flowing. She makes Murphy take over, and he’s completely disgusted at what he has to do.

Finally, Clarke stabilizes and wakes back up in the City of Light. In a beautifully touching moment, Lexa and Clarke kiss. At this point, we’re all crying. Then, Lexa tells Clarke that ALIE has begun uploading the flame’s code.

Clarke realizes that she has her father’s watch, and she tells Lexa that they have 10 minutes to find the killswitch.

Later, Lexa and Clarke reach a firewall, but Jasper appears and tells them that they’ll never get to the killswitch.

While Clarke tells Jasper that ALIE takes away one of the most important things to humanity, choice, Jasper tells Clarke that humans act against theif own self-interest, and ALIE is protecting them from themselves.

A huge group of followers, led by Jaha, arrives, and Clarke asks Lexa if there’s any other way to keep ALIE from getting ALIE 2.0’s code. According to Lexa, ALIE will get the flame no matter what if they don’t find the killswitch.

From Arkadia, Raven sends Clarke a way to enter the room where the killswitch is.

Before entering the room, Clarke tells Lexa that she loves her, and Lexa tells her that, no matter what, she’ll always be with her.

When she goes into the room, Clarke finds herself in the ark, and Becca, the original creator of ALIE, is there waiting for her. Becca tells Clarke that only the mind that’s in control, Clarke, can operate the killswitch, leaving her to make the ultimate decision of destroying the City of Light.

ALIE appears and tells clarke that she’ll be killing everyone if she pulls the switch. She tells Clarke that all of the nuclear power plants that weren’t destroyed by the bomb that destroyed the world originally have begun to liquify. Basically, Clarke is in a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. Once again, the entirety of humanity is in dire trouble.

ALIE continues to tell Clarke that, in less than 6 months, the majority of the earth’s surface will be completely uninhabitable, and the City of Light is the only thing that can save humanity.

While ALIE is trying to tell Clarke that the world is going to end, Becca tells Clarke that ALIE is stalling, but ALIE says that she’s telling the truth, which is, honestly, kind of hard to believe.

Becca tells Clarke that, with ALIE 2.0, she tried to teach the program perverse instantiation, which is trying to find the humanity in ALIE’s programming, a “benign final goal.” Becca tells ALIE that she’s sorry she didn’t teach her that.

ALIE tempts Clarke by telling her that she won’t have to bear the burden, a callback to Clarke’s “I bear it, so they don’t have to” quote in 2×16, which is the ultimate temptation for Clarke.

In the throne room, the delinquents and adults are making their final stand against the City of Light followers. Bellamy tells everyone that they need to keep Clarke safe at all costs.

Kane is choking Bellamy, and, for a moment, we’re scared that Bellamy will actually die.

Back in the program, Clarke tells ALIE that she needs to let people make the choice for themselves, not force them with torture.

ALIE continues to tempt Clarke, but Clarke says that they’ll figure something out because, no matter what, they always do

Then, she tells ALIE, “You don’t ease pain, you overcome it.” Finally, Clarke pulls the killswitch, and everyone comes out of the City of Light.

When Kane realizes what he’s done to Bellamy, he’s devastated, reacting very similarly to how Abby acted when she found out that she hurt Clarke.

Clarke finally wakes up, and Abby tells her that she did it; Abby, then, removes the flame and gives it to Clarke.

Clarke thanks Murphy, who’s still holding Ontari’s heart, for helping her. Then, when Emori realizes where she is, she reunites with Murphy, and it’s beautiful.

Kane is still crying over what he’s done to Bellamy when Abby comes to hug and comfort him.

Bellamy helps Clarke up from the throne, and she tells him that they haven’t saved the world yet, and the look on Bellamy’s face is one of pure anguish.

Despite Pike saving Octavia earlier, she kills him with her spear and walks out the door, presumably leaving for good.

Arkadia

In Arkadia, Jasper has taken Harper as his hostage, and he tells Raven and Monty that they’re running out of time. When Raven asks Jasper what he wants, he tells Raven that he wants to trade her machine for Harper.

When Raven tells him that that’s not going to happen, Jasper, as ALIE, tells Raven how difficult it will be to get to the killswitch a second time.

However, while Jasper is distracted, Monty comes out and saves Harper and restrains Jasper.

Later, Raven realizes that ALIE’s sending Clarke’s code to everyone in the City of Light, so people can find and stop her. Then, she says that Clarke is running a completely different program from everyone else.

Jasper tells them that ALIE is now aware that Clarke took the flame, and ALIE is downloading her second code (ALIE 2.0). This is extremely bad.

After Clarke destroys ALIE, Jasper comes back and starts crying.

Monty unties him and tells him that they can get through this together. Jasper apologizes for stabbing and Monty apologizes for shooting him. They hug, and this time, it’s actually genuine.

Jasper leaves the control room and goes into the hangar, finally smiling.

Season 4 of The 100 is expected to premiere around January or February 2017.

What did you think of the season 3 finale of The 100?

By Nat, the Geek Girl

Southern California native who likes movies, books (Shadowhunter Chronicles, NA, YA fantasy, Red Rising series), TV shows (The Sandman), and San Diego Comic-Con. I also like to write, but don't get to do much of that aside from on here. I fell into the BTS rabbit hole, and I refuse to leave.