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“The 100” recap (3.07): May we meet again

Clarke cries, I cry, everyone cries. And I’m not kidding. I sobbed. I teared up just writing about it. I don’t remember the last time I saw a death scene written, shot, and performed with such beautiful emotion, such care, such reverence, and heartbreak.

I will address the rest of my Feelings about this, because trust me, I have plenty, but first we have to get through the rest of the episode because some Very Important Things are about to happen.

Murphy wants to GTFO, but there’s no way Clarke is leaving right now. Titus says that the Commander’s fight goes on, grabs a scalpel and flips Lexa’s body over. Clarke is like “What the FUCK are you doing?” but refrains from snapping his neck with her bare hands when he moves Lexa’s hair aside to reveal the tattoo on the back of her neck, the sacred symbol with a scar down the middle.

Flash back to Becca landing on earth in her dropship labeled POL–IS. Her computer warns her that the radiation levels are critical, but she takes off her suit’s helmet anyway and is fine. Some shadowy figures come out of the rubble to greet the woman who fell from the sky, the woman whose suit says COMMANDER on it and says she’s here to help. The camera reveals she has a scar on her neck just like Lexa’s, and now we know why she was bleeding all over her lab earlier.

Titus cuts into the back of Lexa’s neck, and something crawls out of it, looking like a bigger version of the City of Light pills, but with spidery legs. 

Murphy says it’s an AI, and Titus says it’s the spirit of the Commander. Clarke is confused as fuck. Titus lifts Lexa’s body and carries her out, shouting that the Commander is dead, and a conclave must begin. Clarke is shell-shocked, traumatized, heartbroken, and still confused as fuck.

Same, girl. Same.

And thus ends the most intense episode of The 100 yet. It was the hardest to watch, and the most heartbreaking for sure, but here’s the thing: It made me feel so many feelings. I was angry at Octavia’s captors, annoyed at Titus, apathetic toward Murphy. I laughed when Octavia scoffed at the concept of staying put, I punched the air when Indra found her spirit, I swooned when Clarke and Lexa finally kissed, and I sobbed when Lexa died. Like put my head down and wept. It wasn’t until a friend who I had told I was about to watch the screener texted me to ask how it was that I remembered how to human again, and even then barely so. But isn’t that what we want from our stories? Don’t we want to immerse ourselves in them, to have them make us feel?

It’s always upsetting to lose a queer character. Always. And it happens way more often than it should. We are living in a world where Gotham turned their bi character into a psychopath and wrote off their lesbian character without fanfare, where Arrow sent Nyssa off without ever being in the same room as her beloved again, where shows like The Shannara Chronicles and Once Upon a Time queerbait us by swearing up and down that there will be LGBT characters to get us to watch but then never following through, where even shows that are otherwise LGBT-friendly like The Fosters has a predatory lesbian storyline, or like Pretty Little Liars, once game-changing in its queerness, killed their only trans character and all but ignores their main lesbian character. 

We’re in a world where most shows consider “good representation” to be a woman going through a phase or having an ex-girlfriend but otherwise only dating guys, where women “go gay” then “go straight again” because their showrunners and writers are afraid of the word “bisexual,” or where the singular queer character is devoid of a girlfriend and given useless storylines before getting unceremoniously killed. But we’re also in a world with Callie and Arizona, with Cosima Niehaus, with Eleanor Guthrie, Max and Anne, with Bo and Lauren and Tamsin, with Root and Shaw, and all the Litchfield inmates. We’re in a world where we have to demand better representation, and we’re in a world where we’re starting to get it. Where we still have to speak up about it, but where we’ve made it clear that one underused queer woman is not enough. 

But I think, in demanding that better representation and getting it, we also have to make room for strong storylines that don’t have a happy ending. I do think we have to demand quality from those unhappy endings, but I don’t think we can write this off the writers not caring because Lexa was such a strong, layered, important part of the story. This show has proven time and time again that it’s not afraid to take risks, to kill key players, male or female, Skaikru or Trikru, enemy or ally, human or panther. Clarke has had so many people die around her since the moment her mother floated her father. 

Lexa’s death didn’t move one single person’s story forward—it moved the entire show’s mythology forward. Her death cracked the show wide open. No one else’s death could have done what Lexa’s death did, that’s how important she is and was. It doesn’t feel as socially irresponsible as Charlotte’s death on Pretty Little Liars, or like the only thing the writers could think of like it did with Shay on Chicago Fire. The show has also proven, via Niylah, that they’re not willing to make Clarke Lexa-sexual only, and even though sexuality doesn’t seem to have labels in this post-apocalyptic world, the writers and showrunners love the word “bisexual” and use it liberally and proudly to describe their badass lead character. And that blonde bisexual isn’t even just their lead female character: She’s it. She’s The 100. This show could be accurately called Clarke and Company or Wanheda and Friends. So we’re not losing all of our representation in losing Lexa. They can’t and won’t take Clarke away from us. Plus, unfortunately, Alycia Debnam-Carey‘s role on Fear the Walking Dead and inability to be available for filming has to be taken into consideration here.

And even though I also don’t think Delphine on Orphan Black or Rose on Jane the Virgin felt like cheap deaths, it’s different from those as well, because Lexa’s body wasn’t left crumpled on the floor. She was handled with the utmost care, and the last thing she heard was Clarke lovingly sending her off, and the last thing she felt was Clarke kissing her goodbye. She was killed by a stray bullet like Tara, sure, but for me that didn’t feel like a cop-out, it felt tragic. She was the fiercest fighter in the land, but you can’t fight a bullet. Also, you don’t have such a long, emotional scene for a character you don’t care about.

I wish this weren’t a problem TV shows had. I wish it weren’t a trope. Because if a hundred shows hadn’t ruthlessly and pointlessly killed off their queer female character, and if a hundred more shows had high-quality queer female characters, we’d be able to see this as just another tragic storyline in a post-apocalyptic world where people die all the time. Like they die on The Walking Dead, like they die on Game of Thrones, like they die on every sci-fi show. Like the straight characters die.

Obviously, I’m heartbroken, for myself, for the LadyKru and Clexa shippers, and for Clarke. And of course, I’m angry that yet another lesbian character was killed. And by no means am I taking this lightly or waving my hand and saying it’s okay. Because it’s not, when it comes down to it. But I’m not going to quit this show, not yet. Because I trust it to keep telling queer stories despite this loss. Because we still have Clarke Griffin, Legendary Wanheda, Mountain Slayer. And maybe that’s naive, maybe I’ve been conditioned to feel this way, maybe it’s because I’ve been feeling this exact feeling since this literal thing happened on Buffy when I was 15 years old and I’ve just grown to expect it, I don’t know. But I swear fealty to this show, and I will protect it as if it was my own. (Unless they betray me again, like if they redeem Bellamy in a single episode or something.)

I will support you if you can’t continue watching it, but I hope you’ll support me in my decision to keep on keeping on.

Besides, the relentless optimist in me won’t let me forget that Lexa once said, “Death is not the end.” And Alie said, “There is no death in the City of Light.” And for all we know S4 is all set in the City of Light like some kind of self-aware LOST situation. So all my above points could prove moot. (Just like they will when we find out Delphine isn’t really dead. *crosses fingers*)

I don’t have the strength today to wade through all the tears in the #LadyKru hashtag, but please go there to find people who are feeling the same things you are. Be kind to one another, even if you disagree, because we’re the ones who are going to take this pain and change the face of television someday. We’re the ones who will pitch and write and film and direct the stories we wish we could have grown up watching ourselves. Our children are going to be the ones who are shocked and devastated when a queer character dies, not because it happened again, but because it happens so rarely they never saw it coming. We’re the ones who are going to give them the happy endings we all deserve, but only if we don’t turn against each other before that.

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