Clarke remains stunned over the news about Bellamy. She’s woken by the doors to the stone room opening to reveal Anders and the Shepherd. The Shepherd approaches Clarke and calls himself Bill. Clarke immediately recognises him and why the second dawn symbol was on a burial shroud on Nakara. He’s the ‘crazy cult leader’ who built the bunker. Clarke turns to Nylah and speaks to her in their own language for an ounce of privacy, but he turns his head as if listening to every word. Clarke realises he understands them and stands up for himself upon her description of him as the ‘crazy cult leader’. He claims that what they were wasn’t a cult, but rather a collective of great minds dedicated to the continuation of their species. Bill asks Clarke if his daughter survived because it was his daughter’s language Clarke used to talk to Nylah, which was a language she made up when she was younger, making it unique to her. Becca’s name is thrown around a bit before he calls Clarke, Calliope. He truly believes his daughter is alive in Clarke and she is the key. Gabriel steps in to explain what they mean by the key and it’s simple: the key is what the flame is to the commanders. He’s drawing attention to Becca’s tech and this spurs a flashback to the bunker and provides a glimpse into its life before Clarke and the others used it. It shows Bill and how all of his plans unfolded.
The flashback starts with a young woman watching the news with her friend, Lucy. Becca is on there about how her space mission is going. Her mother comes in and tells her that her father is on the chat for her, but things are tense between Bill and his daughter. Their opinions seem to clash on fundamental issues and he’s interrupted when someone walks in and they have a very abrupt, hushed conversation. He calls her mother in and he uses the word “Anaconda” which means something to her and nothing to his daughter. Bill tells her that they have 20 minutes and that a chopper will be there to meet them shortly. She’s left confused and chasing her mother down for answers in her suddenly panicked state. Her mother finally stops and takes a breath telling her daughter that “anaconda” means that the missiles are in the air. Trying to process this new information and complete change to her life, she asks about her friend Lucy because there’s only two packs ready to go but three people…her mother tells her that she’s not a part of the second dawn and of course that’s when she emerges, interrupting their mad dash. Instead of explaining all of this because its pointless, her mother stabs Lucy with a syringe instantly knocking her out. Stunned yet again, her mother drags her to the chopper just in time to see the missiles fall to the ground below them.
They make it to the bunker just in time. Callie and her mother meet up with her brother, Reese as he helps more and more people get settled. A young man is trying to fight the flood of people urging them to let him out to get his girlfriend. Reese calls for a nearby guard (Tristan) to handle it. The man gets a little further before Tristan captures him in a chokehold, knocking him out.
Later that day, Callie, Reese, and their mother meet up with Bill. He starts to explain his plans and he shows them the anomaly stone. He tells them about the extraordinary things that this stone can do and how it is the answer to their problems. Things are still tense between him and Callie, who runs off after hearing that there’s still room to save people. She runs into a guy with an OG tree crew tattoo that she recognises (this is the same guy as earlier, looking for his girlfriend). Tristan interrupts them before they suit up and open the hatch for others just outside. His weapon is drawn and the man with the tattoo urges him that the woman they hear is his girlfriend, Janie. He makes a move to the hatch in a desperate attempt to save her, but is stopped and subdued by the guards. Callie sees her brother come in and she thinks he’ll help them but she’s wrong. She pleads with him, but he tells her that whoever’s out there isn’t a level 12 or they’d have their own key to get in. They take the man (August) out kicking and screaming.
2 Years Later….
Out on a mission topside, Tristan, Reese, and Callie run into Becca Franko as she emerges from her pod (seen going into space on the news just two years earlier). They observe her as she removes her helmet and breathes in the should be toxic air with ease, before bringing her down to the bunker. Tristan starts to seize from radiation exposure, making them believe that there was a tear in his suit that went unnoticed. Becca bends down and injects him with a radiation immunity shot while Reese went for help. Before he gets back, Callie urges Becca to keep that between them. Becca is shown the stone room where she starts to react and bleed from her nose. According to her, the stone is harmonic, music as mathematics. She reaches out and touches it, making it rotate. A white sphere bursts from the stand and levitates above the stone shrouded in a bright, green glow. Becca offers to alter everyone’s blood lifting the radiation restrictions set upon them to breech the outside world without suits. Bill flat out refuses it. He’s banking on the stone and its travel capabilities to save his flock. He’s adamant about it.
Callie visits Tristan who tells her that he’s doing much better despite everything else that says he should be dead. Callie believes in Becca, but Callie confronts her and says she wants to save everyone like she did with Tristan. Callie notices her implant scar, which she calls her penance but doesn’t explain further. She only tells her that it’s called Alie-2 or the flame, like Prometheus when he stole fire from the gods. Then Becca has a breakthrough. She explains how she was cataloguing the sound and the differing frequencies, realising now that there were seven that were silent. She approaches the stone once again. It forms into the white sphere, but when Becca goes to examine it, it takes her with it before disappearing once again right before Callie’s eyes.
Reese and Bill enter and the room lightens, showing a newly back Becca, kneeling on the floor rocking back forth in prayer. Bill asks her where she went and says something about Judgement Day, along with that they aren’t ready for what’s coming and that they are making a mistake. He tells Reese to stop Becca from approaching the stone once again, thinking the combination would be too deadly. She’s escorted out and this only furthers the rift between Callie and her father. Callie turns and walks away with Becca’s briefcase. She knocks out the guard and opens Becca’s cell, telling her that her brother found the notebook and that they know about the flame. Callie calls them nightbloods and says that August came up with it and they do have others on their side with the alteration. She tells her that her father can’t have the flame because he will use it to find the final code which will wipe out the entire human race. Callie tells her that the AI has to have a host with the blood alteration but that she has to choose wisely. She asks her to promise not to tell them the phrase to activate the flame (goodbye for now in latin). They keep Callie in the cell while they drag Becca to burn her.
Callie demands the AI from Reese with her people and August backing her. Reese tells the disciples to escort them down but they fight it. Callie offers a fight between her and Reese, one on one. He tells her that he won’t go easy on her this time, but she’s not worried because she came prepared and pulls out a gun to shoot him in the shoulder. She tells him that was for Becca and her mother runs over to him to tend to the wound.
They let Callie and her people pass. She injects Reese with the blood alteration and tells her mother that if he comes to his senses that he can find her if he goes west. She tries to do the same thing to her mother, but August interrupts telling them they only have minutes before her father and his followers break through his key pad hack. Her mother tells her to go and she’ll hold them off. They hug, then Callie runs to the hatch. Bill makes it through into the main room that is now empty except for his wife. She runs over to the door to the hatch seeing how they’re running out of time to get away and they need to shove the door closed, she makes it, and gives the extra push to save her daughter. Then she comes face to face with Bill. He knows that Callie has the AI and that Reese is turning into a nightblood. He opens the door to the hatch room, now empty and shoves her in it, knowing she doesn’t have the blood alteration.
Bill goes through the anomaly. Callie and August and the nightbloods light a fire and celebrate their first night above ground in years. He asks her if she’s worried about it drawing attention and she tells him that she’s actually counting on it.
Back to the present…
Clarke confirms that Calliope is in there (the flame), but claims that that’s not how things work, drawing her gun aimed at him. She tells him that she’s unsure whether or not she wants to help him seeing as he killed her best friend and then demands her other friends freedom. She tells Gabriel to open the door and Bill tells them to drop their weapons and send in her friends. But when the doors open and the weapons are put down, the three figures in front step forward and take their helmets off, revealing Echo, Hope, and Octavia. This gives the impression that they’ve switched sides and are no longer Clarke’s friends. No words are spoken so it’s unclear of where their loyalties lie now.
And that’s it! Stay tuned for next week’s recap!
