When we last saw the young and attractive delinquents of the CW’s The 100, most of them were either killed, believed killed, or taken by the “Mountain Men” inside Mount Weather. The 1000 people in space aboard the Ark landed more or less safely on the Earth, because of the sacrifice made by Chancellor Jaha, but they’re not on a completely untested land and have no idea what will happen when they meet the Grounders, or the Reapers, or the Mountain Men, or worse. There’s a lot of things at play there on that futuristic Earth, and a lot more going to happen on the second season, premiering tonight, October 22nd, at 9 pm after an all new Arrow. At a recent press visit in Vancouver, several members of the cast of The 100 told Nerdist and several other outlets what we can expect now that everybody’s on Earth.
One of the biggest shifts in the finale of last season was Jaha (Isaiah Washington) sacrificing himself to save everyone, which forced Kane (Henry Ian Cusick) to assume command of the new ground civilization. “Kane was willing to sacrifice himself but Jaha beat him to it,” said Cusick. “Everything that Kane believed up to that point is wrong. So his whole way of thinking is changed.” He continues, explaining Kane’s biggest struggles this season will be this change of thinking, and change of attitude, “I think he was always of the mind that he was the generation that wasn’t going to make it to Earth. In his mind he thought it was the generation after him that would make it and now he’s on Earth, people are alive, it’s habitable.” Now that he’s in charge, Cusick says Kane is going to have to try to make sure everybody stays alive. “He’s trying to find a way to survive, and the way to survive, he thinks, is through peace with the Grounders.”
Kane’s verbal sparring partner aboard the Ark was Dr. Abby Griffin, played by Paige Turco, and that’s not going to change in season two, even if they are on the Earth now. Turco told us that Abby’s journey is very much about trying to find her daughter Clarke (Eliza Taylor) and she’ll do almost anything to achieve that. “I think she’s closer to finding her daughter, which is huge,” Turco said, “but I think it makes it even more intense. It’s like putting brownies [just out of reach] as opposed to being in the other room. So I think there’s a little more tension but excitement for finding her.” Turco also told us that Abby’s going to assume more authority in the coming year, which is something she’s not necessarily alright with. “I think Abby initially doesn’t want the pressure but at the same time somebody has to do it,” Turco said. “And because of what happened in the Ark, it’s about owning your own power and actually having to do or react to particular things that she wasn’t necessarily able to do on the Ark.”
The focus of Abby’s search, her daughter Clarke, is in a precarious situation at the beginning of the season. She wakes up, as we’ve seen in the teaser (above), in a white room with music playing and has to break out violently. She’s in Mount Weather, and it’s very different from what she or anyone could have expected. Eliza Taylor told us, “Her challenge to begin with is just getting the hell out of there, ’cause as you know, she’s in a very tiny little white room, and the door is firmly locked, but she does.” She adds, “I don’t want to say too much about Mount Weather itself, but I can’t wait for people to kind of see exactly what’s going on in there.”
Bob Morley plays Bellamy, the 100’s first ostensible leader, and an antagonist of sorts in the first season. Morley tells us that things will definitely change in the second season, especially with the “grown ups” now being on Earth as well. “For the first three episodes, he’s kind of taking a back seat from that leadership role,” Morley says. “I think he’s finding it very hard. There’s a lot of restraint that he has to show. But it’s a huge change from the way it was in the first season where he would act before thinking whereas now he’s grown a lot.”
One of the biggest aspects of The 100‘s first season was the relationship between Octavia (Marie Avgeropoulos), Bellamy’s sister who had to be hidden under the floor boards of the Ark for many years, and Lincoln (Ricky Whittle), the super buff Grounder who shirked his people to protect Octavia. They’re what’s known as “starcrossed.” Whittle tells us that Lincoln’s loyalties continue to be torn in season two. “He’s very conflicted. He always has been,” Whittle says. “He’s obviously got this moral compass and he believes in right and wrong. And for some reason he always seems to get punished for it. In the first season, you know, he wanted this kind of peace and that’s going to continue. He’s a peaceful chap and just wants everyone to get along.”
Avgeropoulos agrees with this assessment, but adds that it’ll be a bit more violent than that. “Octavia and Lincoln are constantly making immense sacrifices for one another,” she says, “and sometimes these sacrifices get so extreme that nothing can stand in the way of their love. They’re willing to take the lives of others in order to protect the ones closest to Octavia and do what’s best for her people and really try to help form this alliance that they’ve been fighting for, which is peace.”
Fighting for peace seems to be the name of the game for the people trying to survive in the hostile future world of The 100. Season two premiere airs tonight, Wednesday, October 22nd, on The CW, right after Arrow.
Images: The CW
