The cast of THE 100 sits down with us to talk about Season 5 of the show and where their characters are after 6 years.
We sat down with Richard Harmon (John Murphy), Bob Morley (Bellamy Blake), Christopher Larkin (Monty Green), and executive producer Jason Rothenberg to talk about season 5 of The 100. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get any spoilers from them, not that you really wanted it anyway, but you can see what we did talk about with them, which was both fun and interesting.
Richard Harmon, who plays the person everyone loves to hate, John Murphy, talks about what his character is going through and how his battle is more internal. He feels that his girlfriend, Emori, is the only one who gives him a second chance. Harmon also talks about how he considers Murphy as still trying to find his moral compass.
“That’s presumptuous that he’s ready to be the good guy. I think he does what he thinks is right moment to moment. What’s it like to play him is a dream, because he is a guy who’s very complicated in that way.”
When asked about what his relationship will be like with Madi, a new character that was introduced at the end of the season 4 finale, he didn’t confirm that he would have any scenes with her, but he did say that he’s fond of the actress, Lola Flanery.
“We have spent a lot of time together on the set, I think she’s such a talented- I’m not even going to see a little actor, she’s just a talented actor.” However, he did say that he thinks that Madi could learn something from Murphy that Clark can’t teach her.
He does talk about what it is like for Murphy to be on the ship for 6 years, and he addresses Murphy’s mental state as being the crutch he has.
“Murphy’s pride doesn’t allow him to tell everyone else that he’s not okay.” And he affirms the fact that this drives a wedge between him and Emori.
Bob Morley, who plays Bellamy Blake, one of the survivors on the ship, says that Bellamy’s taken on more of the head and the heart type of leadership, much like Clarke’s way of leading.
“Cause he thinks Clarke is dead, and he says ‘If we die out here, than she died in vain.’ So, he’s really trying to adopt this rational approach to everything, and making sure that everyone is surviving up on the ship. I think that’s his way of somehow absolving his guilt of having left her behind.”
As for Bellamy and Octavia’s reunion, he gives us a pretty appropriate description given the tone of the show and the relationship between the two.
“It’s really quite heartfelt, but in a morbid kind of way.” So, the blood will continue to flow in this upcoming season.
He does state there will be more character development.
“The thing that I’ve always found surprising about Bellamy is he has this sense of hope and determination and perseverance and there is part of him that, as you’ll see in the first episode, is he can be little bit frustrated by the pace of things. The huge change for him is his kind of mediator role. That was hard for me to get my head around.”
After having talks with the writers, and the fact that it’s 6 years since their escape from Earth, he was able to see the change in his character and the interesting arc they have for him.
Christopher Larkin plays Monty Green, and he wasn’t about to give much detail about his character in the upcoming season, not even hinting about whether or not they’re still together. When asked about who Monty would be looking forward to seeing when back on the ground, he speculated that it could be Octavia.
“Octavia keeps popping into mind, probably because their circumstances have changed the most. I can’t spoil too much, but you can clearly see she’s quite different.”
In regards to his ex-bestie Jasper, he does state that the relationship with him always comes to mind.
“Not a day goes by that he doesn’t think of Jasper and his mother. Because of how it ended, how traumatic it was. Does it get easier, and I think it does. With any death, the first year is always tough, just getting through the day. And you always hold onto that person, and they always mean the world to you, but it does, at least for me. It does get easier.”
Executive producer and showrunner Jason Rothenberg explains why it’s a 6-year gap between last season and this 5th season.
“We’ve set up this story that the earth wasn’t going to be survivable for 5 years, and I wanted to jump past all that separation. I’m in here for the reunions.”
The episode title for the first episode of season 5 is “Eden” and Jason explains the several factors involved in naming the episode Eden, including the significance of the first garden being named Eden in the Bible, and this garden being possibly the last and only garden, and it needs to be protected.
He doesn’t give too much details, but he did explain the prison transport ship.
“Alegis is a mining company, and there are four Alegis missions that we’ll learn about in the show. They’re mining something called ithylodium (sp?) on an asteroid called Proxima 6. They have cryo-sleep. It’s a long-duration space mission. And they- something happened out there that we will learn about. They kind of took over – the prisoners took over the ship, and they have returned, expecting to find a world that wouldn’t let them home, because they’re prisoners after all, Jason states. “It’s a different group of villains. They’re all criminals except for Shaw, who is part of the crew. But in the 100, we try to dimensionalize our villains so that we understand them. It was a little trickier to dimensionalize this group, because we want it to be true to the fact that they all are maximum security prisoners.”
Rothenberg also pointed out one of the prisoners, Charmaine Diyoza, who is played by Ivana Milicevic (Banshee).
“Diyoza has more of a political – she did some things that were horrible in the name of her cause, but her cause is probably the right one. That doesn’t make her any less of a killer or terrorist, but at least we’ll understand what made her tick and what made her do what she did. She’s a very interesting, new addition to the show.”
In regards to Marcus Kane, who Bob Morley mentioned in his interview as having an interesting arc, Rothenberg expands on that, stating that Kane didn’t actually agree with how Octavia was running things and felt responsible for what happened.
“Kane has come a long way, and he’s trying to do the right thing and trying to stay on that path, but it’s hard.”
The fourth season of The 100 returns to the CW on Tuesday, April 24th.