Did Clarke Really Just Kill [SPOILER]?! The 100's Eliza Taylor Dishes All About That Shocking Choice

What. Just. Happened?! Dive deep into the midseason finale's shocking end with this post mortem.

By Sydney Bucksbaum Dec 18, 2014 3:00 AMTags
The 100Diyah Pera/The CW

Sorry, but The 100 has rendered us completely speechless. Our minds are completely blown. We have no liquid left to cry out of our face holes. No words left in our brains to write.

That's how devastating the CW's post-apocalyptic drama's midseason finale was. We should know by now never to underestimate the power of any episode of The 100, let alone a finale, but oooooooh man, this was an especially tough one. BRB, gotta cry some more!

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW. Avert your eyes if you have yet to watch "Spacewalker." You have been sufficiently warned!

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We knew going into the hour that Finn's (Thomas McDonell) fate was looking grim, but we had no idea what was really in store for him. After the Commander of the Grounders made it clear to Clarke (Eliza Taylor) that there would be no truce between their people as long as Finn was still alive, Finn gave himself up to the Grounders to atone for his sins (namely, the massacre of an entire peaceful Grounder village when he was looking for Clarke).

But when Clarke learned how brutal and drawn-out Grounder executions were, she took matters into her own hands...literally. She smuggled a scalpel into the Grounder territory, and under the guise of "saying goodbye" to the tied-up Finn, she kissed him, and as she pulled away, everyone looking on (including Finn's ex-girlfriend/Clarke's new BFF Raven [Lindsey Morgan]) realized what she actually did...

Clarke stabbed and killed Finn! Whoa. What?!

While this was hardly Clarke's first kill (and not even her first mercy kill, because girl gets s--t done), Finn was the man she loved, and one of the branches of the show's central love triangle. We can't even imagine what kind of ramifications this is going to have for Clarke and the show in general, so we immediately got Taylor on the line to dish all about that shocking twist and what it means for The 100 going forward. 

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E! Online: Oh. My. God. I'm freaking out right now. Were you freaking out when you read that final scene in the script for the first time?!
Eliza Taylor: I thought it was quite incredible. It's an amazing way to end Finn's journey, and I think it gave Tom a chance to explore the character and really put his acting boots on. And for me, as well! It's opened up a huge world of possibility for me to explore as an actor with Clarke, which I think is really, really great.

What was going through Clarke's mind when she decided to stab the man she loved?
The only thing that she can even think about is how she loves him and she doesn't want him to suffer any more, and if the Grounders did it he would have suffered a lot. That's the only way she can think of it, otherwise she couldn't have gone through with it.

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What was it like shooting that final scene, knowing it was going to be your last scene with Thomas?
It was a crazy, long night, it was pouring, there were like 300 background actors all with weapons and horses, and poor Thomas was tied to a log for the entire time! But emotionally, it was exhausting. It was really hard but I know we got some really good stuff out of it. Hopefully people are happy!

Obviously this is going to have some major consequences. How is this choice going to affect Clarke going forward?
This is going to deeply affect her for a long time moving forward. In her mind, she has killed her one true love and I don't think that she's ever going to really fully bounce back from it. It's definitely going to take her into a darker frame of mind. But that does make her evolution into becoming a real leader very interesting. She's finally able to shut off her emotions and really focus on the task at hand.

Diyah Pera/The CW

How is this choice going to affect her relationships back at Camp Jaha?
It deeply affects the people who knew and loved him, especially Raven. They grew up together. She's going to be grieving for quite some time and she's going to take out her anger on Clarke, rightly so!

Even though the end result is the same, Finn's death was a lot quicker and more merciful than the Grounders had planned. So is this going to help or hurt the potential truce with the Grounders?
It doesn't exactly put her in the good books with the Grounders. Yes, he is dead like they wanted but it was quick and not true to the Grounder tradition of punishment. The people don't feel like justice has been brought to their village. I think it's going to make the truce a little bit harder to carry out.

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Let's talk about the midseason finale flashbacks for a minute, because it totally blew my mind to find out that Raven was the one who actually went on the spacewalk that got Finn arrested, and he was just covering for her all this time. Wild speculation time: if Raven was caught for her crime and floated and Finn never came down with the 100, would all the events on the ground have gone differently? Would this war still be going on?
Absolutely! That is so crazy to think about. I think things would have been really different. Who knows? With Finn never being on the ground to massacre that village, to bring the Commander into full light, for Clarke to meet her and for them to actually come up with a truce, who knows? They might have even died in the first episode by the Grounders' hand. I just don't know.

We didn't see Mount Weather at all during this episode, so what's coming up with that storyline?
The 47 left in Mount Weather are certainly in danger even though President Wallace [Raymond J. Barry]  has decided that he doesn't want any of them hurting any of the kids. Cage [Johnny Whitworth] and Dr. Tsing [Rekha Sharma] are taking matters into their own hands so it's really only a matter of time before more people like Harper [Chelsey Reist] start disappearing. But Jasper [Devon Bostick] and Monty [Christopher Larkin] and Miller [Jarod Joseph] are pretty handy so I think they're going to come through and try and figure out a way to get out of there.

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We've got a long time to wait for more episodes of The 100. What can you tease about the second half of this season to keep fans satisfied until the midseason premiere?
The second half of the season is really going to focus on the Grounder/Ark alliance or the potential of that and how hard it is to make peace after so much blood has been spilled on both sides. What we're going to try to focus on is how both sides are realizing they have this common enemy in Mount Weather and hopefully teaming up to fight the good fight against them together.

The 100 will return with the second half of season two in early 2015.