TV Show Review

TV Review: THE 100: Season 4, Episode 3: The Four Horsemen [The CW]

Tati Gabrielle Adina Porter Marie Avgeropoulos The 100 The Four Horsemen

The 100: The Four Horsemen Review

The CW’s The 100, season 4, episode 3, ‘The Four Horsemen,’ may have been a little lite, if you were expecting full representation of its titular allusion. It did provide full coverage of one rider, though; reintroducing a series element, in the process.

So Bellamy (Bob Morley) had sacrificed the Arkadians’ long-term survival plans, so he could bring home a few doomed colleges & Ice Nation slaves. Done deal, moving on. Oh, but not so fast – here comes Nyko (Ty Olsson). Not to harp on Nyko – he always does the right thing by everybody – but I fear he’s going to pay for it, one of these episodes (well, more than he has already, anyway).

This time around he had Luna (Nadia Hilker) in tow, along with the very last of her people. The season’s villain – a crumbling nuclear infrastructure – had all but wiped them out, and Luna wanted to give Clarke (Eliza Taylor) an opportunity to forgive her (for turning her back on the Lexa coalition), by curing their radiation sickness.

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Surewhynot. Except that Raven (Lindsey Morgan) now had proof of a much tighter timetable to work with, making her less inclined to be generous with Ark resources. This made for more of a conflict with Abby (Paige Turco), since Clarke had another angst to grind.

Clarke had to wrestle with the notion of selecting 100 Arkadians as the max number that would be supported by the finished Ark shelter. Even if the circumstances were a little shaky, it was inevitable that Clarke & Bellamy would be on that list; but not as inevitable as the fallout, once the list becomes known. There’s always Jasper (Devon Bostick). Yes, I meant that as a threat.

While it was nice to have a Nightblood back in play (despite her condition), by amazing contrivance, back at Polis, the entire mechanism – around which the Nightblood tradition was formed – was jeopardized by the Flame being stolen. The fact that chip-on-shoulder Ilian (Chai Romruen) was now part of a tech smashing crusader mob wasn’t helping.

I suppose one could draw any number of allusion to the Horsemen from all the fallout; but Luna’s pestilence would still likely be the best example.

No, the real reason for the title came in the form of a pre-apocalyptic doomsday cult. Where there’s a doomsday cult, there’s often a surviving doomsday plan (but not always – some cults take the Jasper route). Records of this particular cult were flagged by Jaha (Isaiah Washington), for a little solo confirmation questing; but he was caught, idling in the driver’s seat, so this week’s group quest happened – this week’s stop-gap quest brought to you by: hope.

I’ve been calling these stop-gap quests for a reason; so suffice to say, wait for next week’s installment. The actual hope bringer of the episode turned out to be Murphy (Richard Harmon), of all people.

Common(out)law bliss had left his life with Emori (Luisa D’Oliveira) well outside the know, regarding this season’s bigger thing (remember that? It’s still a thing). His knack for sneaking into the wrong place, at the right time, however, brought him up to speed, and into long-term survival mode. In this case, that just happened to mean being of immediate help, in the face of Raven’s long-term survival plans.

Being the only grown-up in the room left Raven taking grief from all sides – and in thick doses, too – but in the event none of that was laid on heavy enough, she just happened to be on hand to witness Luna’s youngest companion succumb to a slow, suffering death. Never mind this giving Murphy the moral high-ground, Raven just had to soften, after that.

Ah, but not even The 100 would go out on such a downer (as long as Weathermen aren’t involved); so there was something of a light, at the end of the plague tunnel. Light courtesy of a very special kind of Black Gold. The eleventh hour recovery warranted Tom Hanks showing up, urging our miracle case to “earn this.” I’m not sure I liked the look in the eyes that came with it, though.

To me, the real highlight of the episode (the whole arc, thus far, really) was Octavia (Marie Avgeropoulos). Not just because of her continuing adventures, as Octavia, Assassin; but because a new player may have forced an entirely new dynamic between Octavia & Indra (Adina Porter). I was left trying really hard not to think of how Clarke will react to how this thread turned out; but new player, Gaia (Tati Gabrielle), made for a pretty good distraction.

The whole rogue Flame-keeper angle, how she got Octavia on her case, in the first place, and her connection to Indra all made for some potentially wealthy material, down the line. For now, however, it presented an out for the Ilian crusade.

The Flame fake-out was too telegraphed to have the desired impact. The whole affair did leave me hopeful, however.

Hopeful that Ilian’s ilk finally got the collective chip off their shoulders, and the anti-tech movement has run its course. One of them losing quite a bit more, off his shoulders, left me hopeful that Octavia, Assassin will continue to find solutions outside the series plot box. I’m hopeful that Murphy & Emori (have I pegged them as Memori, yet?) continue to keep outside the emo-drama box, while injecting a bit of that outsider perspective into the plot box. I’m also hopeful that, between the returning Luna (along with the Nightblood element), and Gaia’s Flame-keeper-at-large status, some new dynamics will be formed outside of that particular box.

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In other words, we got Luna & Gaia – can Jasper go, now?

Leave your thoughts on this The 100 ‘The Four Horsemen’ review, and this episode of The 100, in the comments section, below. Readers seeking more The 100 coverage can visit our The 100 page. Readers seeking more TV show reviews can go to our TV Show Review Page, our TV Show Review Twitter Page,  our TV Show Review Facebook Page, and our TV Show Review Google+ Page. Want up-to-the-minute notification? FilmBook staff members publish  articles by Email, Twitter, Tumblr, Google+, and Facebook.

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Sam Joseph

Sam is an Avid consumer/observer of Geek culture, and collector of Fanboy media from earliest memory. Armchair sociologist and futurist. Honest critic with satirical if not absurdist­­ wit with some experience in comics/ animation production.
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