I'm kinda surprised that you didn't see bellamy shift back to the old bell we loved because pike sentenced kane to death. it snapped him out of his hate and pain, back to reality. first he tries to reason with pike which he quickly realizes is futile. then he lies to monty's mom about not finding kane's co-conspirators. and that calm and sincere look that he has when he says he's doing what's right for his people. that's classic. our bell is back! and he'll be leading the revolt w/kane locked up
You’re mistaking the root of my frustration. I did see the turn point, but my anger with the writers is that it came for the wrong reasons, at the wrong time. Why is Kane the turning point? Why wasn’t Lincoln the turning point? Lincoln who was as good as his brother in 301. Why wasn’t Monroe, his most loyal follower from s1, the turning point? Why wasn’t it seeing innocents be locked up in a cell–the way Bellamy himself was locked up for days? The way his sister was locked up for a year or more? If his morals are only punctured when its his friends in danger, then does he have any morals at all?
Answer: yes, OF COURSE, but you can’t tell because the writers have fucked over this storyline so badly. They want to take his character to a dark place to explore the effect of fear on rationality and morality. Okay, fine. But if you have to make Bellamy cripplingly stupid to do it, it’s badly written. If you have to erase any sign of visible compassion from a character that asked Maya, a mountain person, “are you okay?”, then it’s badly written. If you have to turn him into someone that adheres to a fascist political leader instead of the pragmatism and compassion that he earned the last two seasons, then it’s badly written. If you take a guy who loathes himself for the deaths of children in MW and turn him into someone who shoots an army that he knows has child soldiers, then it’s badly written.
My problems aren’t with Bellamy, because I love Bellamy. My problems are with this whole disaster of a storyline. It’s been bad since 304, and even the brief gains of characterization in 305 didn’t help to ameliorate the shitfest that is us still having to live in this plotline. The writers have tried for a really ambitious thing here, but they used the wrong character to do it, and they have not given the story any sufficient legs to support what they’re asking of the audience.
Even step back from the last 4 eps. Why are we doing this plotline at all? His character already learned these lessons. We’ve seen Bellamy learn the value of making alliances, we’ve seen him choose compassion over revenge, we’ve seen him learn to see the bigger picture. We’ve seen him fall to his knees in regret and self-hatred for bad deeds. We’ve seen him pay his pound of flesh for torture done by enduring torture himself. We’ve seen him slowly be built up as a hero. He was basically square with the narrative. Then this plotline just took that and piled a whole bunch of NEW badness on top of it, so now we have to watch him go through the process of self-loathing and pain all over again. Why not use Jasper for this storyline, being essentially READY MADE FOR A DARK TURN? Why not even use Monty, if you want to try for something really ambitious? Why not use one of the characters that hasn’t already had this journey on screen.Why? What’s the point? What does this storyline tell us about Bellamy, about the world, or about philosophy that we didn’t already learn in the last two seasons? Nothing, honestly. It’s just a big waste of time, and all of Bob’s amazing acting can’t fix the clumsiness of this catastrophe in storytelling and character. It’s like every other week this season I’m being forced to endure the OOC behavior of one of my favorites. It’s very frustrating.