Lincoln From The 100: Is He Going to Die After American Gods?

Lincoln from The 100 explained: why fans feared the worst

The question was fair the moment the news broke. In January 2016, Starz and FremantleMedia North America announced that Ricky Whittle had been cast as Shadow Moon, the lead of American Gods, the network’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s novel. Showrunners Bryan Fuller and Michael Green said they had searched widely for the role, and the announcement pointed out that Whittle was best known for The 100. Filming was set to start in April. At the time, The 100 aired Thursdays at 9 p.m. Eastern on The CW, so the casting news reached viewers while season 3 was only two episodes old.

For anyone following the CW series, that last detail was the problem. A lead role on a high-profile cable drama is a full-time job, and an actor in that position rarely stays on a network show with a long production schedule. The 100 had also built a reputation for removing main characters without warning, so a fan looking at Lincoln’s situation had every reason to be nervous.

The timing made it worse. The announcement landed in the same week that “Wanheda: Part Two,” the second episode of season 3, aired on January 28, 2016. That episode left Lincoln standing in the middle of the show’s most dangerous argument, and it was easy to read his scenes as the setup for a martyr’s exit.

Anyone searching for lincoln from the 100 at that point was usually looking for one of two things: confirmation that the actor was leaving, or a reason to hope he was not. The first answer turned out to be yes. The reason to hope did not survive the middle of the season.

Lincoln caught between Skaikru and the Grounders

By the time “Wanheda: Part Two” aired, Lincoln was one of the few characters who belonged fully to neither camp. A Grounder who had survived Mount Weather’s experiments and fallen in love with Octavia Blake, he lived among the Sky People at Arkadia while still carrying the loyalties of the people he was born into. That gave him a role nobody else on the show could fill: the person who could speak to both sides.

It also made him a reminder of something the people of Arkadia wanted to forget. Lexa and her Coalition had walked away from the Sky People at Mount Weather at the end of season 2, and many in Arkadia could not look at a Grounder without thinking about that betrayal. Lincoln was the Grounder they saw every day.

Mount Weather and the argument over what to use

The episode made the split concrete. Part of Arkadia wanted to put Mount Weather’s technology to work. Lincoln and Octavia saw that as an act of war against the Grounders, since the facility had been taken at the cost of Grounder lives. Lincoln only accepted its medical equipment when Nyko, a friend from his own people, arrived at Arkadia badly hurt. Abby then healed Nyko’s wounds and decided to open Mount Weather to everyone, over Lincoln’s protests.

At the same time, the arrival of Pike and the other survivors of Farm Station tightened everything. Pike had no reason to trust Grounders, and the rest of Arkadia mostly tolerated the Coalition because the Sky People were badly outnumbered. Each new alliance made Lincoln’s position more exposed.

The detail that made the death theory hard to shake was Octavia’s plea. She asked Lincoln to go. He refused, because he did not agree with what was being done to the Grounders and wanted the two peoples to get along. That is the speech a character makes shortly before the plot punishes him for making it.

A man who stays in a place that is turning against him, out of principle, is a standard television setup for a sacrifice. Ice Nation was closing in on top of the internal conflict, and the cast was already crowded, so a death would not have been out of character for the series.

What Lincoln added to the series

It helps to remember how much the character carried. Lincoln was the show’s clearest proof that a Grounder and a Sky Person could trust each other, and his bond with Octavia gave the Grounder side of the story a face the audience loved. Without him, the alliance between the two peoples loses its most believable advocate.

He was also one of the few characters whose goodness was never in doubt. Most of the cast on The 100 earned their place by making terrible choices and living with them. Lincoln mostly chose the harder, quieter option, which is exactly why the writers could use his death to show how far Arkadia had slipped. A show built on moral gray areas needed one clear moral reference point, and then it removed him.

Why a casting announcement feels like a spoiler

Fans of The 100 were not paranoid. When a supporting actor lands a lead role elsewhere, a network series has three options: reduce his appearances, write him out gently, or kill him. On a show with a body count as high as this one, the third option was always the likeliest, and the question people typed into search bars in 2016 was a reasonable one.

What the fear could not predict was the shape of the exit. A casting note says when a character might leave. It cannot say who pulls the trigger or what the death means for everyone left behind.

The warning signs, in order

• Casting news. Whittle’s role as Shadow Moon in American Gods was announced in January 2016, with filming due to begin that April.
• A divided Arkadia. In “Wanheda: Part Two,” Pike’s group joins Kane’s people while Abby opens Mount Weather to everyone, and Lincoln objects.
• A refusal to run. Octavia asks him to leave Arkadia, and he chooses to stay and try to keep the peace.
• An outsider’s position. Lincoln is the Grounder living among Skaikru, and each rise in tension lands on him first.
• The outcome. In “Stealing Fire,” Pike shoots him after he surrenders to protect other prisoners, and Bellamy has already helped Pike imprison him.

How Lincoln dies in The 100: the verdict on a hard exit

Lincoln dies in “Stealing Fire,” the ninth episode of season 3 and the 38th overall. Pike’s hold on Arkadia has tightened by then, and Lincoln is among the Grounders held in custody. When executions are set, he gives himself up so the others are spared, and Pike shoots him. Octavia watches from a distance. His body is later recovered and burned together with that of Jacapo Sinclair.

What the fear got wrong was the cause. Fans guessed a battle death or a heroic stand against Ice Nation. The show instead killed him through the very conflict he had been trying to cool: a Sky Person turning on a Grounder inside Arkadia’s own walls, with Bellamy’s help in the imprisonment making the damage personal for Octavia. The death works as a verdict on Pike’s rise and not as an accident of war, and Octavia’s grief shapes the rest of her arc.

The case against the episode is also easy to make. Lincoln was one of the best-liked characters in the cast, and his exit had been so widely predicted that the shock was partly spent before it arrived. Still, the way the series handled it holds up. The death came with consequences instead of a quick replacement, and Whittle’s absence left the show with a hole it did not try to paper over.

Looked at in order, the season builds toward him carefully. The first two episodes set out the divide over Mount Weather, the middle of the season turns that divide into a power struggle, and the death arrives when Pike has enough control to act. Anyone rewatching lincoln from the 100 across those episodes will notice how many scenes quietly prepare the ground, from Abby’s decision about the facility to Octavia’s pleas.

The performance deserves a mention too. Whittle plays Lincoln as calm and unshowy, which makes the surrender land harder than a speech would have. The scene does not ask the audience to cry. It simply shows a man making the choice he has been making all season, at a price he understands.

For readers deciding whether to follow the guesswork of 2016 or just watch the episode, the answer is simple. The fear was justified, and the actor’s next job was a reasonable clue. Pairing the casting news with the on-screen mood at Arkadia, anyone asking whether Lincoln from The 100 was in danger had the right instinct. Lincoln does not survive season 3, and his death is among the moments the series is best remembered for.

Sources

• The 100 (TV series), Wikipedia — season 3 cast, characters and episode list