Television April 29, 2019
Jason Rothenberg on Wild New Season of ‘The 100,’ Plus: What’s in Store for Bellamy & Clarke
Fans are bracing themselves for one heck of a ride this season on “The 100.”
ExtraTV.com caught up with showrunner Jason Rothenberg to find out what's in store when the show returns April 30.
The show left off with Monty and Harper's son Jordan waking many of the characters on the Elegius IV ship, revealing they were on their way to a new planet. The journey had left them in cryo sleep for more than 100 years!
Then, in a wild new trailer, we see Clarke, Bellamy, Echo, Murphy, Emori, Shaw, Jackson and Miller touch down on the new world… only to realize they are already in trouble. They find a children's book called “Red Sun Rising,” about an eclipse-induced psychosis. The book warns, “When the stars align and the forest wakes, it is time to run away.”
Jason told us, “It seems idyllic, it seems beautiful, and survivable, and then the stars go into alignment, and bad things start to go down on Sanctum.” He added, “ultimately when this eclipse happens… all of the higher life forms go crazy.”
Rothenberg explained, “Our heroes are going to need some help” in navigating this new world.
Could help come in the form of new characters? In the trailer, we meet Russell Lightborn and his people. Jason would only say, “It has been 236 years since the initial Eligius mission landed, and yes we do see those characters in the present time with our heroes in the trailer, so we know there are still people there and they are descendants of that initial landing party, and they have figured out the ins and outs of this world.”
While Lightborn and his people seem kind, but cautious, the trailer reveals a group is attempting to hijack the Elegius IV ship. Jason didn't want to give away too much about the masked hijackers, but teased that whoever it is “has retained the knowledge of how to fly a spaceship and the mother ship as well.”
Action aside, there is a lot of “emotional baggage” too. “Emotionally, they are dealing with the ramifications of everything that came before… all of the stuff that happened in Season 5 is really, really fresh.”
For instance, “Clarke essentially betraying them all by joining McCreary is really fresh, which, by the way, led to Murphy getting shot. She of course turned Raven and Shaw into McCreary and [his people] tortured them. They are all pissed off at her.”
Clarke will also have to hash things out with Bellamy. Jason explained, “There will definitely be some emotional scenes between Bellamy and Clarke where they hash out the stuff that they are both thinking and feeling regarding the fact that she left him to die in a fighting pit, and all the things she did in the name of protecting her child.”
Rothenberg confirmed they will be working together again this season, teasing, “When Bellamy and Clarke are in alignment, when they are on the same page, good things happen. They together are a very formidable team, we kind of refer to it in the shorthand as the heart and the head.”
“The 100” Season 6 premieres April 30 at 9 p.m. on The CW.