Attention, fans of The 100! This is a recap of season 3, episode 11—”Nevermore”—and as such contains a multitude of spoilers. Don’t say we didn’t warn you!

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and for the first time—maybe ever?—we’re seeing ALIE at her most unstable, unsure, and unable to predict what happens next. Of course it wouldn’t be an episode of The 100 if something unexpected wasn’t happening to someone. We got as much in spades with the internal battle (literally) between ALIE and Raven, and the external one between the evil AI and our Skaikru refugees.

So where did this episode start off? Well, to put it bluntly: nowhere good. Arkadia has fallen, ALIE has converted everyone there—including Abigail, and she’s possessed Raven’s body and mind completely but, thank goodness, she’s passed out in the back of a truck (for now), effectively cutting off ALIE’s omnipresence within her. Oh, and  Jasper and Clarke are the ones on the run with Raven—and he’s really, really mad at Clarke given the whole Maya thing. (Jeez that’s a lotta drama.) But, as seems to be the norm when it comes to The 100, everyone is hurting and lashing out in spades.

Chief among them being Octavia, who was all but ready to GTFO and go it alone, not believing herself to be wholly Skaikru or true enough Grounder to belong anywhere… though we all know that’s not true. “You’re one of the 100.” But all that disinterest in the people of her past didn’t stop her from telling Bellamy what she really thought about him. She leaned hard into the truth, not shying away from needling what was (probably? hopefully?) an insecurity of Bellamy’s when it came to the real reason there was a massacre of the Grounder army: feeling insecure. “You were hurting and you lashed out,” Octavia said, which: girl, yes. Now if only someone could explain this sort of emotional nuance to Pike and/or pretty much any political leader, we might actually get somewhere!

When the crew got to Niylah’s, however, to short circuit the AI (Niylah has Clarke’s old bracelet, remember) to save Raven, shit got really real, and the episode dished out that level of blunt emotional coldness to everyone. At least ALIE’s good for something, huh? I say that not because I revel in some sort of sick glee watching people hurt, but because everyone had to deal with their hard pill to swallow tonight. Raven-as-ALIE dished out some pretty hard truths about everyone’s situations at large. Sure, a lot of them were possibly overstated in order to needle someone into insecurity, but she was not wrong about a lot of things. And all of these moments were necessary ones for the characters to face in order to move forward.

And yes, we’re talking about Clarke. Because while death really is a main name of the game on this show, Clarke doesn’t necessarily help lower the likelihood thereof by trying to protect people. Niylah was right; she doesn’t give people the chance to prove how they’ll react. Lying or omitting under the guise of protection is rarely ever that—mostly it’s just an act of selfish cowardice. I’m not saying Clarke is selfish or a coward (far from it), but she certainly shoots from that hip when she’s feeling bad about herself. It’s a totally human reaction. But ultimately, it causes her to make too many decisions for other people.

The same, duh-doy, could be said about basically anyone on this show, but that goes double for Bellamy, who had not one but two, confrontations with the trail of blood left in his wake. “When you’re angry, people die—just ask that girl over there,” Jasper tossed out. Honestly, Niylah would’ve probably been given sainthood in the Ground community if any of her people had witnessed her reaction to finding out Bellamy was a part of the Grounder army massacre that took the life of her father.

We’d be remiss, of course, if we didn’t mention Raven’s whole turn tonight. Homegirl went full exorcist on this one, and it only got worse after ALIE realized Clarke had version two of her programming (a.k.a. the one thing that can destroy her). From dislocating her own arms to chewing the stitches out of her wrist, she had NO CHILL tonight and it was terrifying to see. ALIE’s lack of reliance on humanity (that The Commander’s chip has inherent in its design) to function really gives her no regard for the physical form, or pain, or really anything. She was all too happy to destroy Raven’s body in the name of getting what she wanted. Looks like ALIE has a lot in common with the people she was tasked to be better than in order to save them.

OH SNAP, Y’ALL.

It was a fascinating episode to study ALIE, though. The way she watches the humans as they process what people say and the subsequent emotional reaction is soooooo unsettling. She gawks with a fascination that borders on jealousy. Is she disgusted by us or envious? Honestly hard to tell, especially when she spat out in desperation, “I can’t let them have you” to Raven when she realized the circuit-frying was imminent. Plus that whole “try to get Raven to bludgeon herself to death on this headboard” thing.

Oh, and can we, real quick, talk about Monty’s mom? Because Monty’s mom is the fucking goddamn worst, you guys. Like, what a weak human, you guys. So easily led, even away from her own son! It’s insane. Self-preservation is a hell of a drug, you guys. And like, I know part of it isn’t her fault, ALIE things considered. But if she was weak enough to fall in line with Pike and turn on her own damn son without ALIE implanted in her system, it was clearly there in her to begin with. So basically: girl, bye!

It really, really sucks for poor Monty that his mom had to die, though. And at his own hand, no less. Gosh, that poor kid. (I know, I know. “They’re not kids anymore! they’ve seen so much!” but like, listen: I’m 30.)

Thankfully, the whole gang has been reunited with a newfound mission and equally-as-robust gusto: let’s destroy ALIE! HOORAY! Too bad ALIE has the same solution in front of her in regards to them. “We’ll have to kill them all,” she coldly stated to Jaha, which: do we really think homeboy’s OK with that? Like, I understand ALIE, but he’s still at least partially human. Are you really going to be OK with her murdering a bunch of children? Especially this bunch? AFTER EVERYTHING?

As for next week? Sydney will be back to recap an episode that looks like a true horror show (and I mean that literally).

But first, some thoughts:

• Clarke, girl: I’ve got a bone to pick with you. How was explaining the AI situation not the first thing you did? Like, hello? This should’ve been step one. So many things could’ve been avoided.
• Also what’s up with the chip becoming liquid? I understand it was fried but…how? It all seemed a little weird to me and I’m wary to get on board with that whole situation holding up on a theoretical scientific level.
  • Sidenote: is that even a thing?
• Jasper had sort of the worst lines tonight, capped off by the “I couldn’t do what you did” bit. Really?
• Also: the first response to Clarke figuring out how to save Raven should not be to stomp off, whining, “I could’ve saved my mom!” Like, OK guys, that’s quite enough.
  • Not everybody needs a pity party when ALIE’s still on the way to come murder you.
    • I get you just shot your mom and everything, Monty, but still: it’s not always about you.
• That said, really good episode tonight! I feel like it’s worth noting when that happens this season, given its overall unevenness.

What did you think of tonight’s episode of The 100? Let us know in the comments below.

Images: The CW

Alicia Lutes is the Managing Editor of Nerdist and hopes she ends up a total Octavia when the dystopian future comes. Follow her on Twitter (@alicialutes).