The 100 Season 5 Finale: You Can Probably Bet Against a Total Happy Ending

EP Jason Rothenberg explains what's up in Tuesday's season finale of the CW drama

By Lauren Piester Aug 07, 2018 4:37 PMTags
Watch: "The 100" Stars Dish on Season 5 at Comic-Con 2018

As usual, you're not ready for the season finale of The 100

Last week's part one set up quite a potentially devastating end to the battle for Shadow Valley, with Octavia basically ready to die until a potential savior showed up in the form of a 12 year-old girl. Madi is now technically the commander, but whether or not Octavia accepts this new ruler has yet to be seen. 

We'll let EP Jason Rothenberg catch you up on where we are going into this final episode. 

"There's one valley, there are two forces, one inside and one outside, that want to control it. And if they fight over it, if they can't overcome their human instinct to, you know, make war, they're gonna destroy it. And so here we are at the sort of final episode, Madi has taken the reigns, she sort of fulfilled her destiny to become the commander." 

It's a last minute attempt to save Wonkru, who have not been doing well under Octavia's refusal to do anything but fight, but it's so last minute that there is a question of whether or not it can do any good at all, even if Madi is officially the commander, being guided and controlled by former commanders who now live in her head. 

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"She knows, at this point anyways, what they want her to know," Rothenberg says of new commander Madi. "They're kind of controlling her at this point, that's the way it works, you need time, a commander needs time to gain mastery over that thing, and Madi obviously hasn't had the time." 

As for whether or not she can actually save the day, there's both a chance and not a chance at all, given the way this show usually goes. 

"Nobody is willing to follow Octavia back into that gorge," Rothenberg says. "And they need a leader who they will follow. Now I believe, you know, we'll see fairly quickly that they will follow Madi, but the question becomes, does Madi want to lead them into that meat grinder? Again, it's like, just because her people will follow her, that might not be the wisest choice, and we will see how that plays out. And the other thing is, is of course, you know, we don't want to destroy this precious land, this precious valley. And so, you know, when would be getting in with as few losses as possible and obviously, keeping the valley intact so we that can live happily ever after in it. That would be the win, you know. If it happened that way, you know, it's The 100 so you can probably bet that it won't quite work out in a total happy ending kind of way."

Robert Falconer/The CW

When we talked to Eliza Taylor and Bob Morley at Comic-Con, they teased that people are going to be really "happy, sad, shocked," and that there is, as usual, a twist at the very end of the season. 

"I think the big twist this year is totally different from anything we've seen before, and it took a turn that I just wasn't expecting," Morley said. 

We tried to get a little more info out of Jason to prepare you for what you're in for, but obviously he couldn't say much. 

"I mean I think that that satisfies the tease," he said. "I really, really can't talk about it much, obviously certain people think that they have figured it out. I think that there are elements of it obviously that are yet to be predicted and hopefully will land as they're supposed to as a big "holy shit, oh my god," at the end of the finale."

Do with that what you will, and prepare yourselves for one hell of a finale. 

The 100 airs tonight at 8 p.m. on the CW.