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Who's inside the ship?
[Warning: Spoilers for The 100's Season 4 finale below. Read at your own risk!]
The 100 has done it again. The Season 4 finale was an hour of nonstop suspense as Clarke (Eliza Taylor), Bellamy (Bob Morley), Raven (Lindsey Morgan), Murphy (Richard Harmon), Monty (Christopher Larkin), Harper (Chelsey Reist) and Echo (Tasya Teles) raced against the death wave to get the rocket ready to blast them off to safety.
But in order to get the rocket safely to the Ring, someone needed to manually set up the satellite tower to turn the Ark's power on. Clarke is the unlucky one assigned the dangerous task, which proves much more complicated than anyone initially anticipated. Knowing she'll never make it back to the rocket on time, Clarke does everything she can to get the satellite working so that, at the very least, her friends can make it off the ground alive.
With no other choice, Bellamy, Raven and the crew are forced to leave Clarke behind. Thanks to her noble sacrifice, they're able to dock the rocket on the Ring and get the Ark's life support system up and running in the nick of time. As for Clarke, she just barely outruns the death wave and makes it back to the lab, where we see her covered in pustules, just like Abby's (Paige Turco) vision predicted.
But did Clarke die from her radiation exposure? Of course not! Thanks to that handy nightblood pumping through her veins, Clarke's body eventually healed itself and she simply had to wait out the worst of the radiation before taking her next stroll outside. That's why, when the finale jumps ahead to six years and seven days later, Clarke looks fresh as a daisy (she even had time to add a red streak in her hair to go along with her new Road Warrior vibe).
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Despite the ground having been livable for a year now, Bellamy and the rocket crew have yet to make contact or come down to Earth. Octavia (Marie Avgeropoulos) and the bunker survivors have gone silent as well after getting trapped inside when rubble covered up the bunker's only exit. But Clarke hasn't given up hope yet and continues to radio every day. And finally, it seems as though her faith is paying off when Clarke spots a ship heading her way.
Clarke runs to wake up her new companion, a Nightblood child, to greet Bellamy, Raven and her friends. Unfortunately, there will be no happy reunion -- at least not yet. As the ship gets closer, it becomes clear this isn't the small rocket, but a mid-size ship carrying prisoners sent to the ground by the mysterious Eligius Corporation.
If you're thinking to yourself, "Who? What? Why? Huh?" right now, we feel you. That's why we spoke to showrunner Jason Rothenberg about all these shocking twists and more.
The finale was filmed before you knew if you were getting renewed for Season 5. If the show didn't move forward, would it have ended with Clarke's fate left up in the air?
Jason Rothenberg: The truth is, I knew. It wasn't official. It hadn't been announced yet, but I never had a doubt whether we'd be getting a Season 5. The reaction to the episodes that [the network execs] were seeing was so strong that I knew that we would get to keep going. So you're right, officially, when I was up there making the finale, I suppose it may have been the last time I was with any of those people in that way, but it didn't feel like that because I was pretty sure. Probably, if they had decided not to pick up Season 5, this would have been the end [with Clarke's fate unknown]. It wouldn't have been a wholly unsatisfying series finale, I suppose. But it was definitely always supposed to be teeing up the next story.
The 100's most devastating deaths, ranked
The 100's fifth season will premiere on the CW in 2018.
(Full disclosure: TVGuide.com is owned by CBS, one of the CW's parent companies.)