S4E7 "Gimme Shelter"
The episode begins with the arrival of black rain, and at Arkadia it's chaos, as everyone rushes to get inside. Bellamy insists on helping someone that is outside, because he was one of the 100. However, Bellamy gets stuck in the mud. It is a wonderful moment when Bellamy has to make the difficult decision to not rescue the person who needs help. After all that Bellamy has done, he wants to save everyone, but he must now come to the realization that he can't save everyone. His anger and sadness in this moment is perfect. Bellamy tells Kane that he believes he failed Octavia, but Kane tells him that you can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved.
On the island, Clarke and Abby talk about potential solutions. Abby has one possible solution, but she doesn't want to test it because that would involve exposing someone to radiation. Clarke, however, believes that they don't have a choice but to do this. These sort of ethically challenging decisions are something that The 100 does well, so I am excited. Emori, overhearing Clarke and Abby's conversation, believes that she will be the one tested on, and wants to escape during the night. But, her plans are thwarted when the show goes all horror movie, as someone breaks into the house. Emori claims to know this person, and wants the kill.
Emori contrasts her life with Clarke's, which I didn't feel was necessary in their debate over whether or not the person who broke in should live or die. Emori intends to kill him, but then Clarke comes up with something, they can test on him. While Clarke accepts it easily, Abby struggles with taking a life to find a cure, and if that makes her a murderer, so she turns to Kane. Abby and Clarke test the bone marrow solution, and it's a nice moment when Clarke reassures her mother that no one likes what they are doing here. It is very interesting when Emori reveals that she didn't actually know the person, she was just trying to survive.
Octavia and Ilian take cover in a cave during the rain, and honestly they don't do much of anything until about two-thirds of the way through the episode, when Octavia tries to run out into the rain to feel something. He stops her, then she decides to "feel something else", which leads to them kissing, and most likely having sex. I really didn't care for their story, because it didn't feel real, it didn't feel true to the Octavia we know.
The highlight of the episode was Bellamy's story. It got to the root of his character's issues, and how he deals with the bad things he has done. Clarke's story was better than I thought it was going to be in the middle of it, as it pulled itself together very well at the end. Octavia's part of the story was definitely the weakest part, but luckily it was also the smallest part.
Score: 8.5/10
What did you think of "Gimme Shelter"? Leave your thoughts in the comments!