Emerson in The 100 “Demons”: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Decisions

Emerson in The 100: the “Demons” review

After a stunning episode the week before, The CW promoted “Demons” as a horror hour, and that looked like a smart idea on paper. Everyone in the world of The 100 has something to face. By the twelfth episode of season 3 the characters have taken the AI chip, sided with Pike, stolen a throne, killed friends and left loved ones behind. A haunted-house structure could have forced each of them to sit with those choices.

That is not quite what arrives. The episode touches the idea of facing your demons, but it never goes as deep or as cohesively as the show has gone before. Instead it plays like a season 1 hour in which Skaikru still does not understand the Grounders, and several characters slip back into the reckless decision-making that the series had spent two seasons training out of them.

The most useful way to read the episode is by its choices, which is what the sections below do. Some of them land with real force. A few are baffling. One returns a villain from Mount Weather and makes Emerson in The 100 a problem again just when Clarke thought she had put him behind her.

A note on context for anyone arriving cold: season 3 runs sixteen episodes in all, so with four to go, “Demons” sits at the point where the plot should be tightening. It aired on Thursdays at 9pm Eastern on The CW, and its place in the schedule matters, because the review below keeps coming back to the question of what the hour did with its time.

The good: Octavia, Raven and the end of Emerson

The best scene is Octavia’s. Two episodes after Lincoln’s death she finally gets to grieve him properly. She walks into his room, the room she never wanted him to be stuck in, picks up his jacket and breathes in the scent that still clings to it. Then she falls apart. For many viewers Lincoln and Octavia were the heart of the show, the proof that violence is not the only answer and that love can broker peace, and the scene earns that reading. Present-day Octavia is a far more controlled performer than the early seasons allowed, and the cast is at its best when the script lets faces and eyes do the work.

Raven’s change is the next-best idea. ALIE left knowledge behind in her head, and the show treats that as a fascinating side effect instead of a reset. Only Sinclair seems worried about it. It would be neat if the chip had altered her blood enough to accept a second AI, though that is wishful thinking, and the less pleasant possibility is that she can be controlled again.

Then there is Emerson. His end is gruesome and satisfying in equal measure. He has already been banished once, and the easy writing choice would have been to leave him gone. Nothing about The 100 is easy, so he comes back, kills Sinclair and puts Clarke’s friends in danger. That turns the face-off between Clarke and Emerson into the thematic center of the episode. Clarke is always dragged back to Mount Weather, and now a decision she made there has cost a friend his life. It echoes Bellamy’s struggle with his own choices all season. As Clarke said the week before, there are no good guys, and you only learn whether a choice was right when time passes. This time she thinks it was wrong. If she has learned anything from Lexa, she will own it and move on.

These are the hard decisions that make the show worth watching. A Monty who has to weigh destroying ALIE against losing his mother for good, or who takes the chip to apologize to her in person. An Ontari who has to answer for her lies. A Bellamy who sees where his descent has led. The Blake siblings, each afraid they will die before they can apologize to the other. “Demons” gestures toward all of that, but it fills its running time with a horror plot instead.

The bad: the Polis storyline

Most of the Polis story works, though Murphy remains the hardest character to connect with. His shift from season 1 is well drawn, and the romance with Ontari is not convincing. The sexual assault in the previous episode was uncomfortable viewing, and it colors everything between them here. He is still the best part of a Polis plot that otherwise asks the audience to accept Jaha reaching the city before Kane and Indra, as if his legs were magic.

Murphy and Ontari have plenty in common: both want power, and both will do anything to survive. That habit lands Murphy in jail and leads Ontari to swallow the City of Light pill. The second half of that sentence is the problem. Ontari has been a childish, murderous psychopath up to now, someone who would stab a person for a sideways look. Jaha makes her look foolish in front of her subjects, and the expected response is that he dies or at least gets hurt. Instead he shows no reaction to her blade, and the exchange ends as a quiet transaction.

She is insecure, and she is terrified of being exposed as a fraud, so the motive is there. But her first instinct has always been anger, never quiet fear, and the ease with which she accepts Jaha’s offer feels out of character. He is Skaikru, and Emori is a con artist, which should have been warning enough. The result is a lost opportunity for an uneasy alliance between Ontari and Skaikru. Kane and Indra now look like they are walking into a chip trap.

The ugly: Emori, ALIE’s smirk and a slow trap

Emori giving in is the more frustrating surprise. She and Murphy were the first to see what the chip could really do, so her surrender needed explaining. Perhaps Jaha overpowered her, or threatened her with her brother’s spirit in the City of Light. The audience never learns, and that is a shame.

The image of ALIE smirking on Polis’ throne also misses. ALIE is cunning, yes, but she is a program carrying out a duty, not a scheming human after more power. Her intrigue depends on the fact that she is not a mustache-twirling villain but an AI that thinks it is relieving suffering the best way it can. The metaphor is clear, and it still feels too over-the-top for her.

On the Adventure Squad side, Clarke and Monty note that nobody should follow creepy music down a hallway, then follow it anyway. That reads like season 1 Clarke, who trusted toys and enemies. Season 3 Clarke is Wanheda, and she knows better than this. The line “Blood must have blood” also stretches things when Clarke ties it so strongly to Lexa.

Did Sinclair need to die, or was he horror fodder? With nearly everyone in danger, his death plays as a footnote, especially with Octavia still grieving. And Bellamy still answers every situation by pushing a gun in someone’s face. The changes that brought him here are understandable, but after two weeks of it, someone, preferably Octavia, needs to call him out. He once knew there was more to survival than shooting, back when Finn was sliding into darkness.

Kane’s absence is also felt. The delinquents are the strongest when they share a room, and this hour separates them again while the story still needs them to meet Luna.

Decisions in “Demons”, scored at a glance

Each of the main choices in the episode, sorted the way the review above sorts them.

• Good: Octavia is allowed to mourn Lincoln in his old room, and the scene carries the episode.
• Good: Raven keeps knowledge from ALIE’s chip, which gives her a new and unsettling angle.
• Good: Emerson’s return and death force Clarke to face a decision from Mount Weather.
• Bad: Ontari accepts Jaha’s offer and takes the pill with almost no resistance.
• Bad: Murphy’s romance with Ontari never convinces, and it follows an assault in the previous episode.
• Ugly: Emori gives in off screen, so the audience never learns why.
• Ugly: Clarke and Monty follow the creepy music like a first-season horror cliché.
• Ugly: Sinclair dies as a footnote, in an episode that could have honored him.

“Demons” verdict: filler with two great scenes

With four episodes left, “Demons” feels like filler. The season still has major character work to finish and important figures to introduce, and an hour that gathers all the delinquents in one place only to separate them again spends scarce time. The previous episode showed what happens when the group is together: scenes with real feeling and real growth. This one wastes that.

It is not a bad hour in every respect. Octavia’s grief is among the finest moments of the season, and the face-off between Clarke and Emerson gives Clarke something real to carry forward. If those two scenes were the whole episode, it would rank high.

The trouble is the rest. Characters make decisions that serve the plot, not themselves: Ontari trusts Jaha, Emori yields, Clarke follows the music. A show built on hard choices cannot afford many choices that feel easy to write. Verdict: watch for Octavia, skip the horror, and expect the season to do better when the cast is reunited and Luna is finally in the story.

Sources

• The 100 (TV series), Wikipedia — cast, characters, season and episode details