I was tagged by the amazing beautiful wonderful @tatiebug95 about a million years ago to rank my favorite seasons of the 100, and i’m so sorry this took me so long, but I had to put a lot of thought into it. Here I go!
(I would like to clarify that the b is supposed to be there, I refuse to acknowledge the existence of 3a. And even if I did, it definitely wouldn’t make the favorites list)
I was... not a fan of season 3, which is always really entertaining to me that I continued watching the 100; i started watching this show about when the beginning of s3 was airing, and I almost stopped watching once i got caught up. The plot was ridiculous, the character arcs were Not Great ™, and the whole thing just fell flat for me. That being said, there were some things i did like about it; especially in 3b. I felt that towards the second half of the season, we kind of got a return to the delinquents we knew and loved, all of them working together. 3b has one of my top ten favorite episodes of the whole show, 3x11, “Nevermore”, Lindsey KILLED in this episode, and the conversations were fun and and we got a bellarke reunion. There was some good bellarke moments, and fun lines for other characters, and octavia’s ponytail after lincoln died was my entire sexuality for a little while. It definitely has its rightful place as my least favorite season, but for me, 3b did a pretty excellent job of cleaning up the mess it made for itself during 3a (and one could argue all of s2 as well but that’s another rant)
Overall, I’m pretty meh about season 2. I didn’t care much about this season, but it had some high points that brought it up (the exact opposite is true for s5 which is why they’re tied but i’ll talk about that next). If i’m being completely honest, I don’t remember all that much about season 2, other than the main points. Finn died (hallelujah), and we got introduced to one amazing commander that was gone too soon (anya) and another who could have been so, so much more but was overall disappointing (i’ll let you take a guess at that one). I thought the mt. weather storyline was fascinating, but blowing it up in 3a kind of made the whole of s2 feel pointless to me. Anyways, Maya vie will forever hold a spot in my heart, and i love emori with my entire soul. The only reason this season wasn’t not a tie with s5 is because the season finale is my favorite episode in this entire show (well, top three for sure). I just loved it so much. One of the major reasons i love this show so much is how much the characters live in a moral gray area, and the show does an excellent job of showing how different circumstances can ‘justify’ any action, even if a character despised someone who made a similar choice in the past. Clarke and bellamy pulling that lever to irradiate mt. weather, while tragic, was questionable morality GOLD. On top of that, the ending bellarke scene still haunts me to this day. I cry every time I watch it, and i can’t listen to “knocking on heaven’s door” without bursting into tears. Just, their conversation is so beautiful, and so well-written to represent their characters and show just how much they mean to each other, even if they don’t really understand each others’ importance to them yet. It’s absolutely stunning and I’m kind of tearing up just talking about it now so i’m gonna move on
I saw someone put in a post that season 5 should’ve been a movie, and I couldn’t have put it better myself. Considering how amazing season 4 was, i was disappointed with season 5. Similar to season 2, I thought this whole season was pretty not good, except for some very very high points which bumped the average up. In thirteen episodes, i felt like nothing was actually accomplished, and the whole situation with the war between the bunker and the eligius people was pointless and dumb and hate octavia with every fiber of my being and from the depths of the very fires of hell. The whole season felt like one big run-around to get octavia through her villain arc and back to a redemption arc. There was not as much focus as i’d hoped on the effects the separation from everyone had on spacekru, and most of the time the delinquents were all separated, which i HATE. I didn’t like a lot of the choices that were made by certain characters, and I wish there would’ve at least been a better reasoning provided for their actions. However, as i mentioned, there are some incredibly high points to this season and almost every single one of them is bellarke. Some highlights: bellamy finding out clarke was alive, bellarke reuniting, bellarke hug, bellarke relishing in the fact the other person was alive, soft bellarke moments in between, bellamy poisoning his actual sister to prevent clarke from being executed, angsty stuff in the middle that was just meh, madi full on parent trapping and convincing bellamy to forgive clarke which he does almost immediately, Awkward Flirting Talking™, and basically that entire waking up after being asleep for 125 years thing. I am so excited for how this season set up bellarke for season 6, and i cannot wait to see them interact, especially when madi and jordan have been deemed rightful heirs as captain of the ship be the og captain king roan himself. Other high points: raven was amazing as always (but can we please stop torturing her PLEASE), bellamy finally realizing how toxic his relationship with octavia is and moving on from it, surprise newcomers zeke and diyoza securing a very lovely spot in my heart, zaven is so adorable, on that note so is memori (they’ve been together for so long and i’m so glad they made it through this season), monty just killing it this whole season (will you still love me if i’m just a farmer? makes me sob), and, of course, the soft af amazing lovely bittersweet ending for marper that was so beautiful and so touching and makes me want to cry forever.
(Yes there are two gifs i won’t apologize for it)
Ahhhh, season 1. You’ll forever hold a place in my heart. My initial draw to this show was how much i loved the delinquents and how the interacted with each other (we don’t need to talk about how out of technically 102 of them there are only 6 left it’s fine i’m not upset). I was just so enthralled with this lord of the flies-esque situation where just a whole bunch of teens were sent to live on a possibly irradiated planet. The dynamics of who takes charge, who clashes with who, who aligns with who, was just so fun to see. I loved the way they really were just kids, making dumb decisions and still managing to have relationship drama while still fighting to survive. Ultimately, my favorite dynamic to come out of this season was obviously bellarke. This is a different rant for another day, but i am 100% convinced that the writers of season 1 were writing bell and clarke with the intention of putting them together as a couple sometime in season 3. I think they derailed themselves in s2 with the introduction of (redacted) and have been scrambling ever since to fix it. That’s a really long conversation that i’d love to have with someone if anyone is interested, but, yeah, you cannot convince me that the writers weren’t writing bellarke as endgame in season 1. Day trip itself was basically a ode to the ship itself. The whole bonding and flirting, fighting to save each other from imminent death threats, it was beautiful. You cannot tell me that the line “You and me. Screw everybody else. Let’s just... go” and “whenever you’re ready” were written platonically. IT’S NOT PLATONIC. That is also a rant i’m willing to share at some point. Plus, there’s a bunch of other good bellarke moments: can you wish on this kind of star?, checking on each other while sick, the catching of clarke before she fell into the pit (which is the exact moment i started shipping bellarke), and so many others. The thing i miss the most in the other seasons and especially season 5 is bellarke’s co-leadership and how well they lead people together. I hope we can get more of that in s6
Season 4. Ammazing, beautiful, wonderful, complicated season 4. I don’t know that I can truly describe with words how much i loved this season. It has everything i love about this show: moral dilemnas where there is no right answer, amazing delinquent interaction, and a plethora of bellarke content. I remember watching the episode where they have to go get the water filtration device or whatever, and they have to decide whether they risk killing all of their friends and taking the device or rescuing their friends and not getting the device, and after struggling through season 3 and not being sure if i was going to continue with the show, i watched that and thought “This is it!!!!! this is exactly why i watch this show.” Other than the stupid conflict with the grounders, this season was truly about facing an enemy of which they had no chance of winning, and I loved the positions that put the characters into. Shipper glasses aside, picking 100 people to save out of a group of hundreds? questionable morality GOLD. and of course, with the shipper goggles, every single interaction with bellarke was amazing. I know she had the dreads, but bell and clarke were serving looks in the first episode and you can fight me on this. Plus, there’s the list scene, all the hugs, the head and the heart, “i’ve got you for that,” and clarke radioing bellamy every day for six years????? This season was truly shipper paradise and i loved it.
Okay, i could definitely write more but i’m tired so i’m just gonna tag some folks in this (you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to) and go to bed: @winterhalcyon @frecklessbellamy @clarkegriffintitties @foreverandalwayscrysis