The 100 season 3 premiere recap: Wanheda, Part One

Welcome back, The 100 fans new and old! Based on the number of tweets I saw over the holidays, I'm assuming there's a lot of recent converts. But all are welcome here … unlike the corner of Earth that the Arkers are inhabiting.

The show jumped three months from the finale, when we saw everyone in Mount Weather die, the Arkers return to Camp Jaha, and Clarke depart on her lone wilderness journey. And while that time has allowed the Skaikru to settle a little bit — they have a Jeep! and fighting classes with the World's Most Attractive Grounder! and a mapping room! — things are as hostile as ever.

As Bellamy says in the intro, "Our leaders believe that to survive we need to make peace with the Grounders. But peace is a foreign concept here."

We're first introduced to this conflict when Bellamy joins Kane in said mapping room. They've drawn out the locations of the 12 clans and are staying far away from Azgeda, a.k.a. Ice Nation. The Ice Nation isn't really playing ball, but everyone else is under a ceasefire.

Bellamy, Raven, Jasper, Monty, and Miller leave Arkadia (RIP Camp Jaha) in a Jeep to explore Sector 7 while Octavia follows them on horseback. That girl has no interest in technology, which is too bad because she misses out on a killer karaoke session. (Arkadia probably doesn't have flushing toilets, but Raven had time to outfit this Jeep with a sound system and auxiliary jack.)

But the party is stopped when a beacon from the Ark goes off. Remember how they didn't have time to go look for the rest of the Ark with all that war going on last season? Well now they have clear proof where part of the ship is. The problem is it's in Sector 8, also known as Azgeda. The beacon is from Farm Station — where Monty's parents and Miller's boyfriend live — so there's no question what Bellamy and crew will do. They're going.

The Farm Station isn't there, but a group from Ice Nation on horses is. You can tell they're Ice Nation by the white war paint, or so says Grounder expert Octavia. The Azgeda tell the Skaikru that they're looking for Wanheda. Before anyone can explain what exactly a "Wanheda" is, Jasper spots the beacon on one of the guys and goes after it.

Now Jasper isn't in the best emotional state. His girlfriend melted in his arms less than three months ago. And if his shaved head and drinking don't clue you in, let's just say, he's not doing well. So with nothing to lose, he goes for the beacon and the guy goes for Jasper's throat. With the Grounder's knife starting to slice across Jasper's neck, Jasper starts LAUGHING. His friends shoot to kill, which is against protocol, to take out all the Grounders and save Jasper. Sadly it doesn't seem like he wanted saving. Someone please get this kid a therapist.

There's no time to process though; Kane calls over the radio that they're needed in Sector 4. While the group takes Jasper on horseback back to Arkadia for medical attention, Bellamy and Monty take the Jeep to meet Kane … and Indra! Apparently she's a little more willing to trust the Sky People now. She reached out to Kane to warn him about something: "This is about Clarke."

Episode title alert! Clarke is the "Wanheda" that Ice Nation is looking for — but it's not just Ice Nation. According to Indra, Grounders believe that when you kill someone, you get their power. What Clarke did at Mount Weather not only weakened Lexa's command (and made the Ice Nation emboldened to rise up for war), but it also made Clarke incredibly strong. So strong that they're calling her Wanheda, which is Trigedasleng for "Commander of Death."

NEXT: Just a girl on the run​

So what exactly is this Commander of Death up to? Killing a panther with her bare hands. As one does. She takes her kill to a trading post, where a beautiful woman named Niylah gives her supplies and something to drink. And then she gives her a whole lot more if you know what I mean (you can almost hear the cry of Clexa shippers around the world). While Clarke is waiting out a couple bounty hunters who are looking for her, Niylah cleans up her wounds and then takes her to bed. Clarke has been sleeping in the woods and killing her food for three months. She deserves this, guys.

When the Jasper rescue team gets back to Arkadia, Abby has to help Raven down from the horse. Raven is clearly in pain, but refuses to talk about it. Later, Abby asks her to come to medical for a broken compressor, but really she wants to look at her hip. Raven is not having it. This is where we're told that Wick probably won't be on the show anymore ("You pushed Wick away because he was trying to help"), and Abby tells Raven she needs to address her pain. Raven just fires back, "Fix yourself Abby."

Ouch. But it's kind of true. Abby is trying to be both doctor and chancellor to the Sky People, and those are both pretty big jobs for this civilization. And it doesn't help when you have people like Jasper who refuse medical treatment, and people like Lincoln telling you that you can't take medical supplies from Mount Weather. Abby apparently had just sent a run to grab things — including a chandelier, a piano for Shawn Mendes, and "The Starry Night." #priorities. Lincoln says that if Skaikru keeps going to Mount Weather, it's going to look like they're colonizing it and the truce will break.

Lincoln is full of wisdom, but no one really wants to hear it. When Octavia returns from the run and sees him wearing an Ark Guard jacket, she says he's becoming "one of them." He says that there can't be an "us and them," but she thinks that he's just being naïve. The bigger problem, though, is that Octavia doesn't feel like she has a home; she has never belonged with the Sky People, and she isn't welcome with Trikru anymore. She mentions going to live with Luna, whom Lincoln had briefly mentioned in season 2, but Lincoln says her clan is now in hiding. Octavia cries, and all our hearts break.

It seems like this rift between Octavia and Lincoln is going to be a problem, but later, when he finds Octavia not sleeping in Arkadia, he goes outside to find her sleeping on the ground. He cuddles up next to her in the dirt, and if that's not the definition of love, I don't know what is.

Speaking of love, Bellamy, Monty, Kane, and Indra take off searching for Clarke to warn her about the bounty on her head. They've been driving most of the day (I really need someone to draw me a to-scale map) when they come upon a fallen tree in the road. Indra says it was put there on purpose, and in the next second, another tree falls, almost crashing into Raven's hard work. Who's out to get them? Ice Nation? An enemy we've yet to meet?

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There seem to be lots of possible enemies we haven't met yet. Clarke wakes up with a start in bed next to Niylah and flees the scene quickly. She probably wishes she had stayed in bed because she's quickly snatched up by the bounty hunter. She has no idea who her captive is, but we know his name is Roan, and he's probably not going to be good news.

NEXT: What Murphy and Jaha have been up to…​

For the three months the Arkers were building a settlement and Clarke was going full Man vs. Wild, Murphy was stuck in the bunker he found last season. He spent the three months watching the homemade videos over and over, pouring wine on his head, and not taking a shower. It's torture for Murphy, but great expository for us. We learn that Chris, the guy responsible for A.L.I.E. who shot himself pre-nuclear war, had a few friends help him create the A.I. One video shows him introducing A.L.I.E. to Becca, the human who looks like the hologram form A.L.I.E. takes. Becca asks what A.L.I.E.'s core command is and she says "Fix the root problem." What's the root problem Becca asks? "Too many people." Oh boy.

Another video shows two of Chris' friends finding him dead in the bunker. They say, "I knew the news was wrong. The stupid son of a bitch let A.L.I.E. out."

After 86 days of watching these videos and being on his last box of food, Murphy takes the gun Chris used and holds it to his own head… but he drops it. And that's when the door opens.

He goes outside to see a drone (which looks an awful lot like the one I bought my dad for Christmas — regretting that decision now). It leads him to the house, where he finds Jaha. "There you are." Of course Jaha says something super obnoxious. Murphy tries to attack him, but the exertion is too much and he passes out.

He wakes up refreshed, clean, and with a haircut! (Did Jaha bathe Murphy while he was unconscious? That's super creepy.) There's an apple and a glass of water waiting for him. Jaha is there, but not there. A.L.I.E. appears and tells Murphy that Jaha is "at the City of Light." Huh? Murphy doesn't take any time to contemplate this; he just throws his apple through her. "It's refreshing to be around people who understand technology again." Apparently she's an A.I. with a sense of humor.

Jaha "awakens," or whatever we're calling this, and Murphy tells him that A.L.I.E. is responsible for ending the world. Jaha: "She didn't end the world. She saved it." Okay, I thought we had seen Jaha unhinged before, but this is just next level. And at that statement, Murphy is out.

But he's on an island, so he can't go that far. He's been sitting on the shore all day — presumably trying to decide if he really wants to get in the row boat and chance a sea monster attack — when he hears a motorized boat come through the dark. Jaha and a man named Gideon are coming down to the shore as well. Jaha says Murphy should go with them, but Murphy just wants to know why he left them in the bunker for three months. (It's in small moments like this that you remember that even after everything they've been through, the 100 are still teenagers. Richard Harmon played Murphy's mix of hurt, abandonment, and anger incredibly well here.)

Jaha says they needed time to convert the nuclear warhead to a power source. Now A.L.I.E. can complete the work she began with her creator 100 years ago, he says. And Murphy voices what we all are thinking: "How's it possible that you sound even crazier than before?"

Then Jaha pulls out a blue pill (do you think A.L.I.E. watched The Matrix?) and asks Murphy to experience the City of Light. In this mystical place, there's no pain, no hate, no envy. But those things make up John Murphy, so he says no thanks. He says he'd rather take the row boat alone, but his old pal Emori is in the boat, so he decides to go. And with that, we're off…

Other things we know:

• Bellamy narrates the intro now! (Or at least for this week.)
• Also, he has a girlfriend. She's part of the team that makes runs for supplies to Mount Weather, but that's about all we know. Thanks to her, Jasper gets in the saddest/best line of the night: "Be careful. Monty might melt her."
• Lincoln is still under a kill order, which is part of the reason why he stays at Arkadia.
• Miller has a boyfriend!
• Indra's still upset with Octavia it seems — which is strange since she seems to be okay working with Kane.
• Niylah is wearing one of the monitoring bracelets the 100 wore down on the dropship. Is this a fashion statement or a thread that will come up later?
• Jasper attacks Shawn Mendes. He better watch out for the Army.

So what did you think of the season 3 premiere? Worth the wait? I'd love to hear your thoughts; leave them below or reach out on Twitter @realdalener.