The idea of transcendence (is The 100 trying to tell us heaven exists?)
So, let’s get started. I think that somewhere Jason Rothenberg lost a lot of us (if he hadn’t already) was Season 7 and the idea of transcendence. At first, I thought that Season 7 was just a play, a mockery if you will, of religious cults. I didn’t mind this at all (at first) because cults themselves are a horrifying concept and I have a fundamental problem with them. What I don’t have a fundamental problem with is religion as a whole. While I am not personally religious at all, I know a lot of people who truly believe it makes their life better and I respect that.
Here’s where my issue comes in. I thought the way the season was going to go is that Codogan went through all of this struggle just to fail. That’s what I would have wanted. I started to realize that wasn’t going to happen after I considered “The Anomaly”. Before Season 7 a lot of what was going on could b explained with TV science. AIs and cryosleep are one thing but green smoke that transports you to another planet and is a temporal thing is completely different. It almost felt more supernatural than sci-fi which is where I think a lot of people got disappointed.
Another issue came from the transcendence itself. A lot of things that almost make fun of cults don’t bring in these hyper-religious elements and then actually make them happen. What The 100 did was bring in this “crazy” organization who thought they were there to save everyone and then actually made what they said true when all of the remaining humans literally turned into beams of light. The heavy religious terminology such as shepard, etc. combined with Bellamy’s complete character change alienated a lot of fans in my opinion.
I think we can agree that season 7 was a mess, but were the producers of the show trying to tell us that there is some truth to religious elements we may think are outlandish? It was needless to say a weird approach to take for a sci-fi show’s final season and it was something either loved or hated by the fans (mostly hated).
