This episode explains all of the time travelling phenomena with Penance, Hope, and Octavia’s disappearance that marked the end of last season. Stay sharp because this was a whirlwind of time jumping and it may sound confusing at first, but this episode did a decent job filling in all these lingering questions.
‘Welcome To Bardo’ opens with Dioyza and Octavia’s arrival to this new mysterious location through the anomaly. Dioyza is taken away and Octavia fights her way out of their grip. She runs around the empty halls until she finds a door that she can open, which leads her to the woods. She’s being pursued by at least 10 people in suits, but she doesn’t get too far before she’s knocked on her ass by an invisible suit. Disoriented and on the ground, the suit reveals himself and he welcomes her to Bardo.
There are problems at camp over Russell’s life rise yet again. The Faithfuls (run by Trey) demand Russell’s return and Nelson is still angry that Russell is still breathing. Trey tells Indra that they will sacrifice a life every hour until they have him back. Just to prove his point, a girl lights herself on fire. Nelson runs over to try and save her, but she’s already gone. Jackson patches him up saying they were only minor burns as they discuss this new predicament in the Med Bay. Emori is still weak from the radiation and they come up with a plan to use a Prime to smooth things over with Trey, Emori gets up but stumbles leaving Murphy no choice but to step in and diffuse the situation himself as Prime Daniel.
They interrogate Octavia while toying with her memories, trying to learn as much as possible. They learn about Bellamy first and then Murphy. The assistant, Levitt, is hesitant to interrogate so aggressively, fearful of damaging her brain. Being left alone, he pleads to Octavia to cooperate because it will only get worse. They make a deal, she’ll show him what he wants to know in exchange for her saving Hope. After seeing her memories, he tells her that she’s not a killer, that her heart is pure. She questions why he’s so interested in Clarke when he lets it slip that he’s eager to know about her. Hope (disguised in a suit and helmet) interrupts before more can be said and she threatens him. He escorts them to the stone room and hands Octavia her sweater after noticing her shiver.
They’re almost ready to send Octavia back when they realise that without the helmet, Octavia will lose her memories when she goes through the anomaly, but Hope also needs it to save her mother still stuck on Bardo. Levitt comes up with a solution and grabs some old tech hidden in the lockers and it captures a person’s code through their eyes and imprints it as a tattoo on another in a form of memory recovery that will help them reconnect remotely (through time/through anomalies). This way Hope can save her mother and help Octavia escape. But first they need to make this look real, so Octavia punches then kicks Levitt to make it appear he tried to stop them. She says may we meet again to Levitt before going back through the stone and back to the time she first went through it. This point in time explains how Octavia got the tattoo on her back.
Murphy talks to Trey at the tavern door, but he’s easily distracted when he sees the next intended sacrifice, a young boy. He’s outraged and tells them to let the boy go, he tries to find reason from his father, but it’s pointless. He’s devoted to the cause. Unsettled, he tells all the children to come with him. He’s stopped by someone named Zev who tries to show Murphy’s ruse as Daniel Prime is a lie. He fails the test when he can’t state the four pillars and Trey comes up behind him, knocking him to the ground. Russell and Kaylee Prime come in just in time to save Murphy. He tells them to release him at once, which is convincing and they do as he says. Then he tells them to kneel or die. This sparks something in Indra and she’s stunned because she’s heard that exact phrasing before. She speaks a phrase in a foreign language and he reacts. Prime Russell wouldn’t know or react to this proving her theory. She knows where the code went when they killed the flame, it’s in Russell and killing him isn’t an option. They talk in the skeleton room surrounded by past primes before Jackson, Nelson and a few others come trickling in. They hold him down as they extract the flame from Russell’s neck. No pain meds administered as per Indra’s instructions. For Abby.
In the present, Hope, Echo, and Gabriel arrive in the stone room in Bardo. Hope kills the guards stationed inside to Gabriel’s dismay. They’re counting on Levitt to help them again like he did with Octavia. They have only 30 minutes for their plan to work and extract both Bellamy and Dioyza. With 27 minutes left, they reach the room Octavia was interrogated in, which is where they hope to find Levitt, but they’re pulled away before they can go in and are escorted with others to some spectacle. It’s a speech being performed by their leader, Anders. While they listen, Gabriel makes a worthy discovery about the stones. He realises that a stone must be on Earth because Anders said that “the stone delivered them” meaning they aren’t from Eligius. Hope disappears as they come to terms with this new information. Echo frantically looks for her, worried of what she might do and she’s right to do so. She catches her with a blade in hand as she tries to approach Anders. She stops her before any damage can be done thankfully and Echo talks her down and they go back to their plan.
7 days prior, in the stone room, Hope is caught and Anders is telling her that Clarke is the key to everything. He tasks some suits to retrieve Clarke Griffin. Once that’s done, he tells the leader of the team to terminate Hope. Hope is told she has to stab Octavia to bring her back to Bardo in order to save her mother. This scene explains why Hope did this to Octavia back in Gabriel’s tent upon first meeting them.
It is revealed that it was Levitt who embedded the “trust Bellamy” note in Hope’s arm. He tells Octavia to beat the machine. Anders comes in saying her brother is in the stone room. She tells Anders to let him go and she’ll talk. There’s an explosion and blood splatters across her face. This makes it appear that Bellamy was hurt/killed in the blast. Octavia is sobbing his name, but no body or shot of the part that exploded is shown. He may have been able to escape through the anomaly which caused the blast, but for now, we don’t know.
In the present, Echo, Hope, and Gabriel find Octavia strapped to the chair and are privy to this scene from Octavia’s memory. Echo loses it after it ends. She takes the new assistant (not Levitt- where did he go?) and starts hitting him, viciously. They try to stop her, but she only escalates. She stabs him with the machine basically impaling him.
