The 100 Review: “Earth Skills” (Season 1, Episode 2)

The 100 doesn’t skip a beat going into its second episode, the aptly titled Earth Skills. Clarke (Eliza Taylor) and her merry band of survivalists have managed to escape their riverside predicament and made it back to camp. In their mad dash for safety, they also discovered that Jasper wasn’t killed by the spear to his chest (at least not yet) and while they were distracted by a pesky thing called self-preservation, he was promptly being kidnapped. Not bad on the action front, and all before the first commercial break, too.

Meanwhile, up in space it’s become a battle of wits between Clarke’s mother, Abby (Paige Turco), and the power hungry, wannabe dictator, Kane (Henry Ian Cusick). They are both lobbying for survival on their own terms – which if you think about it, isn’t so different from what Clarke and Bellamy (Bob Morley) are in the midst of, minus all the official voting and whatnot.

The scenery change is a welcome contrast to the heavily green surroundings that the Earth set offers, and even if the Ark looks like it’s in just as much disrepair as they claim it to be, it’s still something different to look at.

It’s still a little difficult to wade through the large cast of characters and establish which ones we’re supposed to be paying attention to at this point. Thankfully, it seems like we’ve still got some time before the show makes that determination for us. There’s obviously some that stand out more than others, but between the key players on Earth and the ones raking in screen time back in space, I expect that the next few episodes will help with determining who will deserve our attention  (err, where our attention is diverted). I’d even wager that some of them really are as expendable as Kane believes.

There is one new character that seems worth noticing – Raven (Lindsey Morgan). Not only is she some sort of engineering prodigy, but she’s also apparently in love with a guy that was part of the hundred sent to Earth. So far no word as to whom her boyfriend is, but it would be an interesting twist if he was Finn (Thomas McDonell). He hasn’t technically done anything wrong cheating-wise, but it’s only a predictable amount of time before something happens with Clarke (or perhaps that’s just me willing something to happen so much that it seems inevitable).

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