We are off to a solid start to the season with some great story lines and strong female leads. Aside from the predictable reveal that the mountain men are harvesting the blood of grounders this is a good episode.
Clarke – starts of a little less exciting than the others, makes you want things to move along a bit. She – rightly – suspects the mountain men have something to hide after noticing a badly hurt guard recovers very quickly. Cue some rather awesome shenanigans by Clarke she finds out that the grounders are being used for their blood. Actually, this doesn't really upset me as much as the writers were going for I think, the grounders kill indiscriminately and without remorse and haven't yet got my sympathies. Kind of like the Eloi getting their own back on the Morloks. Anyway in the last scene Clarke finds Anya – one of the leaders of the grounders.
Octavia – after being saved by Lincoln's friend decides to get Lincoln back by taking said friend captive and marches right into the camp. A deal later and they are reunited – only to be taken by the reapers. Reapers - remind you of Firefly anyone? Octavia then makes another deal with the grounders leader to go get all of their people. This is a good story line and is well done, Octavia actually has to earn the trust which isn't sudden.
Back at the fallen ark Raven is faced with a choice of living paralysed or undergoing back surgery – without anaesthesia. This was also well done, you actually feel like its happening. After the surgery she tells Finn to get find their friends. Finn goes to get Bellamy and Murphy, they then meet up in the woods where Abby gives them some weapons. Off they go to rescue their friends – who they think are being held at the grounders camp. If only they knew!
Now for the cheesiest story line in the episode. At the end of the first episode Jaha hears a baby screaming and goes searching for it. He is low on oxygen but does manage to find it. How to save the baby? After some thought and some desperation Jaha realises the only way is to get to the ground, in a missile on another part of the ark. The sequence where he gets to the other part of the Ark is actually quite nail biting – but he does it, only to find their actually wasn't a baby at all. Jaha still manages to make it to the missile and to Earth. Doh – in the middle of a desert.
All in all a good episode, enough to keep you interested still but not too much happening too quickly.
Will Clarke rescue Anya? Will Octavia ever get Lincoln? Will Raven ever walk again? Looking forward to finding out.