Three episodes in and we’re back at Sanctum with Clarke and the others. False Gods opens with a young couple in a control room noticing one of the four cores is malfunctioning. When the male tries to fix it on the computer, it doesn’t budge so he tells her that he has to do it manually. They walk into the next room which has a massive door and a keypad. She makes a comment about how Priya never let them go in that room but he just keeps reassuring her that it will only take a second. Despite her hesitation, he keys in the password and walks into the room that houses the nuclear reactor. He approaches the core that’s misaligned and he fixes it rather quickly but then he turns around and sees Cora turning ill. Her face is bubbling and melting as there must have been high amounts of radiation leaking due to the malfunction in the core. By the time they realise what it is, it’s already too late. They’re gone.
Gaia finds Clarke at Abby’s grave and they bond over the things left behind of those they loved. For Clarke, she held on to her mother’s necklace and Gaia, her tin that kept the flame of the commanders safe. These two are usually on opposite sides of every discussion, so it was nice to see that change here. They have more in common than first thought and most of it seems to relate to Madi and her wellbeing. It’s nice to see this character development in both of them. This is also the first time we really seem to see these two give time to grieve.
Russell’s execution is scheduled for sunset, but Clarke and Indra allow him to choose how it will be carried out. He chooses the pyre, claiming that he wants his people to feel his death. He wants Clarke to feel his death.
Jackson and Miller are drinking in the tavern, trying to keep watch over all the tense feelings between all groups until Russell’s death is final, but Jackson is upset. He feels as a doctor he should be better than he is. He shouldn’t be hoping for someone’s death, but Miller tries to comfort him by saying it’s justice for Abby. That seems to do very little to ease his mind.
Alyssa tells Jordan that Russell’s followers, or “the faithful”, have something planned to save Russell and she’s worried about it.
Raven walks in on Jon and Emori to tell them about the power outages all over the compound claiming that there’s something wrong with the reactor. Raven calls out for James, knowing that he should be there on watch, but she receives no answer. Instead, she and Emori continue further in and that’s when they discover two bodies. Emori wants to help them, but Raven says it’s no use and notices immediately that it’s a malfunctioning core. Without the core in the right position, the reactor will keep overheating, they will die.
Jordan visits Russell and tries to reason with him, asking him to talk his people down on whatever it is that they were planning on doing. He’s shocked to discover that Russell doesn’t care.
Raven calls a meeting to talk about their latest predicament. She poses a solution to fix the problem, but she needs help to do it. She explains how they need to push in the control rods and plug the cracks. For that, she enlists Emori for the rods, Jon as back up (because of their nightblood—that helps stave off the radiation) and she asks for four Wonkru welders to fix the cracks.
Indra goes to Wonkru asking for help. One speaks out asking where the commander is and she tells them that she has the full support of the commander. They anger and shout that the commander has abandoned them. Gaia steps forward (despite Indra’s concerns) and tells them the truth, that there is no commander. She tells them that Shanheda had his hold on Madi so she had no choice but to destroy the flame. This just enrages them more. Indra walks over to her and tells her that she just lost Wonkru. Now they have no welders to fix the problem.
Raven approaches the convicts from Eligius and goes to the one called “Hatch” and asks his help for repairing the reactor, calling it a routine job. They decide to help in exchange for unlimited access to Jo juice.
Jon confronts Raven about her lying to the welders and Emori tells them to just stop fighting. They have bigger problems to worry about. Jon and Emori go over to the reactor door and he tells her not to be a hero. She has 60 seconds to shove the control rods down and fix the cores. The first one she goes to is stuck so she goes to the other three and they go without a hitch. She struggles with the last one again and she runs past her safe 60 making Raven and Jon worried. She gets out and they run to the decontamination shower to wash off the radiation.
Emori and Jon meet up with Raven and observe the welders as they try to finish up. Emori throws up, then Jon, which leads Raven to believe that her calculations were off about the radiation. They were being exposed to more of it than she thought, basically writing off all the welders still trying to fix the cracks. Jon wants to tell them the truth and pull them out, but Raven says no because if they don’t fix it, they’re all dead. Murphy goes in there to assist them when they asked for more nitro, but Raven seals him in, banking on his cockroach nature to get it done and save them all. He and Hatch manage to repair all cracks just before time ran out, but then Hatch collapses like the rest of his men. Raven breaks down after they take the bodies out. Hatch’s girlfriend sees his body and she goes off at Raven.
Jordan tells Clarke and Indra about the faithfuls and their plan to take place sometime before the execution. To solve this issue, they use Russell to talk down his own people (yet again). Tobin walks up to Russell and shoots him in the shoulder mid speech. This only causes yet another fight to break out and Indra rushes to Russell and Clarke who tells her that if he dies he only becomes a martyr for the faithfuls cause and they couldn’t have that. They rush him to medical where Jackson reluctantly patches him up. Alyssa comes in with some food and when the others are distracted her and Russell whisper about how their plans are working, revealing that everything was set up by them. Tobin shooting Russell, using Jordan to instigate the execution and the faithfuls riot.
That’s it! Stay tuned for next week’s episode!
