'The 100' recap: Echo reveals her true intentions

The former commander is hanging out with her dog in the tavern when Sheidheda, covered in blood, walks in. It doesn’t take her long to figure out this isn’t Russell. The good news is he doesn’t want to kill her because that would make his “Indra problem” worse. But he does want her to kneel to him, and he’s not taking no for an answer. “Refuse to kneel, and I’ll slice open the chests of every person you love and feed their hearts to your dog.” The man certainly paints a picture! Madi kneels, and I just think about the amount of therapy this poor young girl is going to need.

All of Wonkru is gathered before Sheidheda outdoors as he asks them to kneel. Indra busts through and says they will not kneel. “Your path leads through me,” she says as she challenges him to solo gonplei. Because he honors tradition, he accepts her challenge to a duel. It seems to be going well at first when Indra knocks Sheidheda’s sword out of his hand, but he knocks her down and she loses her sword in the process. She grabs a sword from someone in the crowd, but he gets in another hard knock. He has her down with a boot on her chest when Madi comes flying in from the audience and brings a sword down on one of his eyes. But Madi is no match for him, even when he’s wounded. He’s about to stab Madi when Indra says, “Spare her life. I will kneel.” She kneels and gives Trikru permission to do the same as Sheidheda yells out, “I am your commander.” Ugh.

Luckily, Madi makes a quick exit. When Sheidheda realizes she’s gone, he sends his Sangedakru guards to find and kill her. Then he takes head Sangedakru leader Knight with him to finish off the Faithful — but all that’s left in the room are the dead bodies. Murphy and Emori have hidden everyone in the nuclear reactor room. And it’s a smart thing, too, because Sheidheda tells Knight to find the families of all the bodies and kill them. “Children, too?” Knight asks. “Children grow up and get revenge,” Sheidheda says. (Is it just me or is JR Bourne just absolutely thriving in this role!?)

Unaware of the giant Sheidheda problem, Clarke and co. are trying to deal with the big Shepherd problem. When Echo, Diyoza, and Octavia say they are soldiers, ready, willing, and able to fight in a war with the Disciples, Clarke knows something is up. She says she wants to talk to Bill alone. She’ll help him with the key if he agrees to that and then lets them speak to their friends in peace.

But they won’t find Echo because she’s in Hope’s room telling her it’s “moving day.” Before Hope can even question the fact that Echo is sending her to Penance, Echo stabs a guard in the neck and reveals her true plan: “We’re going to kill them, all of them.” She’s out for revenge, and Hope is here for it. Hope is tasked with finding everyone they care about in this building and getting them out within the hour.

Clarke finds Diyoza and Octavia in another room, and we get just about the sweetest reunion between Clarke and O I could have ever hoped for. I’m so glad these two are finally on the same side. Hope bursts in and breaks up the happy times as weapons get drawn — Diyoza has to point out that she’s on their side (“time dilation’s a bitch”). Hope explains that Echo is getting revenge for Bellamy; she doesn’t know all the details, just that Levitt helped. Octavia knows something is off. As they race off to undo whatever Echo is doing, Diyoza tells Hope to get off-board with Echo’s plan and take it from someone who knows: “Killing innocent people for a cause won’t make you feel any better.”

Back in the Stone Room, Niylah says, “This is awkward” in Trigedasleng, and Bill says his daughter must have been important for her language to carry on like that. Niylah says she’s heard that Caliope kom Trikru was “brave, strong, and even her enemies wept when she died.” Bill starts to ask, “What does praim…” but says it doesn’t matter. We know Praimfaya means death. Maybe this was a throwaway line about how his daughter’s language evolved and she didn’t have a phrase for “death wave” when she was a child, but something about this struck me as odd. There may be something here to watch…

Anyway, Bill and Gabriel chat it up about both being from a different time. And the cult leader even shows them what they’ve uncovered about the stone: The logs from the original Bardoans explain this “last war” he’s so eager for. The problem is they don’t have the code to unlock it on the stone. With the AI in Clarke’s head (which isn’t actually there), Bill thinks she can enter the code and start the war. Jordan doesn’t understand why he wouldn’t want to end violence, and Bill says that’s the thing: If it’s the last war, then there will be no violence after. “Every war seems like the last one until the next,” poet Niylah says. That’s when Bill decides he wants to go have lunch. Gabriel grabs a gun and follows him out.

Bill shares his avocado toast and sushi and kombucha with Gabriel while trying to bond over the fact that they’re both self-made men. Gabriel isn’t impressed with any of this, though. He doesn’t want to be a god or to live forever (anymore) or to join a community that denounces love and family for their cause. Bill points out that time and again people you love will betray you, but here that isn’t an issue. “You can’t fight a war for the soul of the human race with an inhuman army,” Gabriel argues. But before they can discuss further, Anders comes in and says there’s a problem. Gabriel is sent back to the Stone Room, gun-less and Bill-less.

Meanwhile, Octavia finds Levitt tied up and beaten in his room. He says that Echo killed two people in front of him before he cracked. He helped her get Gem-9, the bioweapon that killed the Bardoans. She plans to put a drop into the humidification system, which would give her enough time to get out before it goes through the vents and kills everyone. Sadly, O ties her boy toy back up (and not in a sexy way) before leaving to stop Echo.

They find her in a maintenance area about to squeeze a tiny dropper into a water pipe. Octavia says she can’t do this because there are good people on Bardo. When that doesn’t work, Clarke tries arguing that this isn’t what Bellamy would have wanted. She also says that a choice this massive will live with her forever. To which Echo says, she’s not doing this for love, like Clarke’s past mass murders — she’s doing it for revenge. And that’s when Raven steps in and says that maybe the Bellamy who helped massacre a sleeping army would be okay with revenge, but the man they spent six years on the ring with wouldn’t. “Echo, you’re my sister, and my sister wouldn’t do this,” Raven says.

That’s still not enough to deter Echo, so Raven says she’s not leaving. If Echo is committed to killing these people, she’ll have to kill Raven, too. Echo finally gives in and as she cries, Diyoza grabs the dropper from her hand. “Good choice,” Anders says from behind them. He’s pissed that Echo killed three of his people and tortured another. Diyoza suggests they call it even as she hands him the vial of Gem-9. But Anders isn’t biting. Five of his guards uncloak themselves behind him as he explains that Echo will be sent to Penance for 20 years.

And just like that, Diyoza is gone. I’ll be honest: This death made me angry. Hope is reckless and stupid, and we haven’t known her character long enough to forgive her for being reckless and stupid. Sure, these people kidnapped her mother and aunt for a decade and killed her only father figure, but something to that degree has basically happened to everyone alive in their universe at this point. But I guess to hang with Clarke and her kru, it’s basically a rite of passage to at least TRY to massacre a group of people. So, welcome to the club, kid.