Any time Kane does anything even remotely dangerous, I remember the time he went out in the rover in the season three premiere and ran into trouble and my best friend just yelled, “NO HE’S AN INDOOR CAT.” Which doesn’t work as well for the bunker as it does for other situations, but that’s still what I was yelling. He may be inside, but that doesn’t make him a fighter.

But, hey, he doesn’t do too badly! Assuming your goal is to kill people–and it is–Kane did a good job. This is our first time really checking in with the bunker crew in any extended capacity in the present, and therefore our first time seeing just how bad things were for them. Clarke obviously wasn’t that happiest, but she could have been much worse off. While she missed her friends, she had Madi for company, and they seemed to have enough food and water. And, of course, she had hope. Meanwhile, spacekru bonded into a dysfunctional, somewhat incestuous family, but a family nonetheless. The bunker was clearly the darkest timeline.

So yeah, Kane wins his death match and gets a little carried away with the killing, which could happen to anyone. The crowd is not wild about this and neither is Octavia, so he’s sent back to fight another day. Meanwhile, Abby’s in lockup saying that she’s the one who committed the crime and deserves the punishment, because she’s so excited/scared/hooked on drugs.

Well, we’ve all been there.

Meanwhile, Bellamy’s still involved in negotiations/blackmail. This is one of those transitions that makes less sense the more you think about it–they were outside with both Bellamy and Clarke and now they’re in the church with just Bellamy and Clarke’s on the ship, I assume serving as a counter-hostage. Someone at least cleaned her up and got her out of the shock collar, presumably Shaw, as no one else seems to have any kind of ability to care for or about other people.

Anyway, Bellamy’s not a great negotiator because his requests are “open up this bunker and then we split the valley fifty-fifty,” which, even if the other 283 people come down off the ship, there are still four times as many wonkru as there are miners, so it feels like they could figure out a better division of resources. Still, it’s better than what he was going with last episode, which was 283 people for Clarke. So he’s learning as he goes!

Diyoza doesn’t love this plan, but she also really needs those 283 guys, so she agrees, and we get to the most important theme of this episode, which is HUGGING. Seriously, there are SO MANY good hugs in this episode. Hugs I did not expect! Bellamy and Clarke was pretty much a gimme, but it’s still a strong one, even if they manage to forget poor Harper in their list of people from spacekru. They establish that Madi is fine but Not Appearing In This Episode, along with everyone else on the ground, and then they hug some more, just to make sure it stuck.

I’m not gonna lie, I don’t remember the order of the next couple scenes, but they’re all good! In the bunker, we establish that Octavia knows Kane didn’t steal the medicine, but he won’t rat out whoever did, and that Octavia’s going to have him fight again. Indra and Kane are still bros for life, which is important. Kane had Abby locked up to protect her, which is never one of my favorite moves, but the show does seem to believe it’s romantic, so we’re going with that. The Kane and Abby scene is great, the bunker is Bad, and everyone makes some references to it being worse before.

Diyoza wants to hack the ship and tells Shaw to do it because Shaw is the only person they have who has a single skill outside of murder. Seriously, if he left, could they survive? Would the others step up or what? He’s going to work on that while they dig out the bunker. Raven and Murphy read us a bunch of exposition about how much of a badass Diyoza is, and then Bellamy tells them the plan, and then we have what I’m counting as MORE HUGS when Clarke gets to talk to Raven on the radio. They did not get to physically hug, but it was a spiritual hug. Everyone was crying and I love friendship.

Oh, right, more nitpicking. At some point in here Diyoza somehow found out Clarke’s mom is a doctor? Which seems like a weird thing for them to bring up in the negotiations. She’s surprised to find out that Octavia is Bellamy’s sister later, so was Bellamy just gossiping about Clarke’s mom? I guess it might have come up during Clarke’s interrogation, but Diyoza didn’t show much interest in her family.

Regardless, Eligius needs a doctor real bad, I assume for the people in cryosleep? That’s my guess. So they want to open up the bunker, get Clarke’s mom, and get out. And, as we knew they must, they bust in right as Kane is about to die after failing to win friends with his “have we considered not murdering each other just a thought” speech, because they gotta. And Bellamy gets yet another dramatic entrance, because he’s gotta.

And, seriously, shout-out to the Bellamy/Octavia hug, and to Marie for knocking it out of the park with Octavia’s vulnerability there. She looked like such a kid again, seeing her big brother. And props to costuming, because Octavia looks genuinely badass up to this point, but it’s impressive how much she looks like someone playing dress-up, compared to Bellamy, who’s really grown into being in his late twenties. And that’s even before Diyoza’s dig about her makeup.

Because yeah, as soon as Octavia sees strangers, she’s back to being the red queen, while Clarke and Bellamy are looking around and taking in all the blood and the crowd and the murder club and slowly realizing that this is the darkest timeline and they’re Troy Barnes coming in with pizza and mass murderers.

But they’ve still got things to do! Clarke needs to find her mother! Bellamy needs to talk to his sister! Everyone needs to get out! Raven is running hacker rings around Shaw because while he may be the most competent person in his group, she’s the most competent person in hers, and her group has a much higher bar to clear. Murphy thinks they need to pull the plug, but Raven says she’s got it. This one is honestly kind of tricky to me. On the one hand, if they pull the plug, they lose all bargaining chips, but on the other, they should probably at least tell Bellamy that someone’s trying to hack in and take control back, given that’s going against the deal. He has no idea any of this is happening, and that’s not great for everyone on the ground.

But Raven’s real issue is not being down to murder a bunch of people, so Murphy says he’ll be the one to pull the show’s next lever if it comes to it, and he and Raven get a lovely moment of playing soccer before Shaw tries to open the airlocks and murder them.

Let’s take a moment here to highlight some hugs I missed, including Clarke and Abby, Clarke and Kane—which I was not expecting—and the MOST IMPORTANT HUG: Bellamy and Miller. They’re my favorite bros, I feel personally blessed. Also Bellamy yells at Octavia for reading too much Ovid, like she didn’t learn that from watching YOU, dad, and also tells her to trust him even though they can’t trust the criminals he’s blackmailing. I’m not sure why he doesn’t just lay it out for her, but maybe he thinks the plan isn’t good enough?

And to be fair, it isn’t! Murphy and Raven wake everyone up, forcing Shaw to close the airlocks, but that means they’re stuck on a ship with 283 murderous criminals, which is where we leave them for the episode. Clarke sends Abby and Kane off to save them from Octavia, but Diyoza, empowered by having her people awake and ready to kick Raven and Murphy’s asses, starts firing warning shots. She wants the valley and the doctor, and Abby gives herself and Kane up to prevent bloodshed and also because Octavia already was trying to kill them so, like, they didn’t have much to lose. Octavia calls them traitors, which I’m sure helps that situation. You catch more flies with honey, Octavia!

Also some loose canon shoots at her, she tells Bellamy she hates him again, and Bellamy and Clarke exchange a look like, “Jesus, it’s been like TWELVE HOURS.” Life comes at you fast, guys! Gotta stay sharp.

Stray Observations

• I’m not sure what strategic purpose leaving Madi and the rest of spacekru in the valley served, but I assume “getting back to our people” is going to be high on Clarke and Bellamy’s agendas, so the plot purpose checks out.
• Some number of people really want Shaw to be Raven’s new love interest and based on this episode I am here for it. Also up until last night, Shaw’s first name had been Zeke, but now it’s been changed to Miles for legal reasons. Fandom is already figuring out workarounds to keep their existing ship names.
• I’m not particularly thrilled that we got back to “Octavia hates Bellamy” as quickly as we did; I was already bored of that last season, and I would really like something new for them. At least the distrust is mutual right now?
• Speaking of which, the bunker is down to 814 (or so), which means they lost a third of their people. Bellamy looks pretty alarmed about that, but how many of the original hundred are still alive? Glass houses, bro.
• Things Bellamy was right to look alarmed about: Octavia’s weird cult. And shout-out to Tati Gabrielle for killing it as cult-leader Gaia. I’m excited to see where she goes.
• I assume Jackson was in the background of the last scene, trying really hard to not look like a doctor.
• I was going to do a ranking of best hugs, but as soon as I started I felt bad about it. All hugs are the best hug!! Friendship is magic.