Murphy and Raven in 4x08
Murphy and Raven have always had one one of those relationships I’ve wanted to see more of, ever since Murphy became the cause of Raven’s disability. I wanted to see how these two would act around each other given this history, and of course even more so after half of season 2 and the entirety of season 3 not seeing each other. As an audience we knew about the changes Murphy had gone through. How he wasn’t entirely a selfish asshole anymore, and even how he had attempted to save someone else at his own risk (the first guy that gets attacked in the boat for those of you who don’t remember.) Not to mention everything that went down at Polis at the end of season 3. Of course Raven doesn’t have the same 3rd person view that we do, so when Murphy returns to Arkadia earlier in season 4 she only sees the Murphy she knows. The selfish cockroach that has given her limited mobility and chronic pain for the rest of her life.
This view of him starts to slowly chip away once they get to Becca’s island. First it comes when they’re under fire from the drones, and he helps her to safety since she can’t move fast enough. Then we have it when Raven is running the simulations with the rocket. Before this we have Raven lashing out at him. It’s out of frustration at failing, anger at both herself and more so Murphy, and even an effect of her current medical condition thanks to the EMP frying the chip in her brain last season. After all this and the scene with Murphy and Luna, we have Murphy still going back to help Raven and Raven even eventually thanking Murphy. I might write more about these scenes later, but for now I’m just using it as a set up/reference point for the events of 4x08. (Also if I’ve mixed anything up feel free to let me know cause I’m honestly doing this part off of pure memory and I haven’t watched the ep in a while)
Now, it’s time to actually get to the point of this meta post, so hey, if you want you can skip everything above this. Or not. Or actually don’t. Read all my shit. DO IT!. Sorry, I sidetracked there for a minute, anyways, back to the meta at hand.
Anyways, episode 4x08 or ‘God Complex’ as we know is the episode where they find out that Emori lied about who Baylis was (or rather who Baylis wasn’t), and most of Team Science Island was ready and willing to use as their next guinea pig in the radiation chamber. They handcuff Emori and Murphy to Becca’s rocket and while Murphy is verbally trying to get them to stop and not do this, that Emori was only trying to save her own life, the only people he singles out by name here are Clarke and Raven. There is a difference in how he does it to. With Clarke he says “You can’t do this to us.” He picks Clarke out as the leader, the one who will ultimately make the decision, which this of course comes into play later with the Wanheda/Commander call out from Murphy later in the show. To Raven though there is even more of a desperation in this moment than with what he says to Clarke, “Raven, please. Don’t let them do this to us.” A week or so ago, depending on how much time in show has passed, Raven probably would have been one of the last people Murphy would have asked for help here. This isn’t to say their relationship is a great one, or that they’ll never be 100% okay with each other, but things have happened and they have come to understand each other better over the past few days on Science Island. There’s also the fact that, aside from Luna, Raven seems to be the one who expressed the most hesitation in more testing.
What I love though, is that Raven is the only one who turns to look back at Murphy as he is trying to get them to listen, and it is the first time Raven has ever looked at Murphy with any sort of sympathy for his situation.
Not when he is sharing his story about what happened to his father in the dropship in S2, but here when he is so desperately trying to keep them from testing on Emori. The person that he loves. The only person she has probably ever seen him care about more than himself. This desperation to save the person he loves is something that Raven is familiar with, in a way that none of the others here are, and when Roan mentions that if Emori’s death saves the rest of them, I can’t help but wonder if Raven is even more reminded of Finn in this moment. The circumstances, of course, are different, and I’m not here to say that Finn should have gone unpunished for massacring the grounder village. However, you can’t deny the similarities of the situation either, and how Raven is probably the only one of the Arkadians to see it, because she is the one who was most impacted by it. Some people might argue that Clarke was, but I’m sorry, no. Clarke was definitely impacted by Finn’s death, but no where near the way that Raven was.
The singular death of Finn was supposed to protect the other Sky People, and be enough for a truce between them and the grounders (mainly Trikru it seems), and it was until it wasn’t. By the end of season 2 Finn’s death wound up being for nothing. They were betrayed and left to die, and even after surviving Mt. Weather, Raven was still left with the pain of having lost the person she loved more than anyone else in the world.
Testing on Emori is being seen as the others as being a way to protect and save everyone else, and what if in her death it’s able to do that? Sure, it means that they and everyone else can survive now, but it doesn’t change the fact that Emori had to die in the process. It doesn’t change the fact that Murphy will be left with the pain of losing the person he loves more than anyone else in the world. What if she dies and they still aren’t able to save everyone? Then like with Finn her death would have been for nothing.
I think Raven is the only one who sees this, and I think Murphy knows this.
