2.4 Many Happy Returns Clarke is back at Camp Jaha, for one, though Anya wasn’t so lucky. The decision to have Anya be the next casualty of this pleasingly kill-happy show is surprising given how much past episodes have asked the audience to invest in the relationship between her and Clarke, and I wonder what lasting effects their truce will have on both Clarke’s character and the relationship between our people and the grounders. This was a great final hour for Anya, though – biting the tracker out of her arm, having the forethought to camouflage their smell with mud – and the fight between them was fantastically brutal. We’re told so often that Clarke is a badass, but this was one sequence in which we actually got to see that demonstrated on screen. But the episode made use of those red shirts that have been hanging around with Bellamy, Finn and Murphy this season, with one falling to his death while trying to save the survivor and the other now wounded from a grounder arrow. The show really needs to be delicate when dealing with these new faces, as the last thing we need is a repeat of Lost‘s infamous Nikki and Paolo debacle. The grounder attack was deferred by a returning Octavia, who helped the boys out by sounding the horn signifying acid mist (so that’s still a thing). I like that she’s back with Bellamy, but their heartfelt reunion was a little silly after they’d not mentioned each other all season. Having a worse day was Jaha, whose storyline was the highlight of the episode. It’s just nice to spend time in a new location which, according to the family who take him in from the crash site, is “the Dead Zone on the way to the City of Light.” The experiences of the family choosing their son over their people point out to Jaha that he might have had his priorities skewed when Wells was still alive, and it’s good to see that thread go beyond last week’s hallucinations. But bonding with the child and seeing parallels with his mother weren’t enough to give him a safe place to stay, as the family ended up trading him for a way back home. This part of the show could really go anywhere from here, especially since we have no idea where Jaha is, but it’s one of the things I’m most excited about. Read Caroline’s review of the previous episode, Reapercussions, here. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.
