So the human race survived the third apocalypse, but now they're faced with the insurmountable task of continuing to survive without a planet that could house humanity. Everyone went into cryo sleep for 10 years aboard the space ship, hoping that Earth would begin to come back to life after a decade and they could all return to the ground.
In a blink of an eye, Clarke and Bellamy woke up. But they were confused as to why they were the only ones revived. Enter Jordan, a 27-year-old kid they'd never met before, who woke them up first on Monty's orders. He was excited to meet them – he had never met anyone before, besides his parents: Monty and Harper.
Clarke and Bellamy quickly put two and two together, realizing Monty and Harper never went into cryo sleep – and that Wonkru had been asleep for longer than 10 years if Jordan's age was any indication. Monty and Harper lived out their entire lives on the space ship by themselves and even had a baby (and named him after Jasper!). Jordan dutifully followed his father's instructions: wake Clarke and Bellamy first and play them about 60 years' worth of video messages from Monty, who explained via video message that he stayed awake to monitor Earth's surface, and planned on waking everyone from cryo sleep when the planet started to come alive again. But 10 years went by with nothing changing on the surface, and Monty realized the planet was never coming back. Earth was dead. So he worked the problem.Monty and Harper put Jordan into cryo sleep and continued to grow older. Harper died, and Monty kept researching. Finally he cracked the Eligius III mission files and discovered that the ship was never sent on a mining mission – it was headed for a new planet that could potentially be humankind's new home.
So Monty set the ship on course for the 75-year journey and recorded his final message to Clarke and Bellamy to say goodbye – he didn't want to go into cryo sleep and wake up on a new planet without his love Harper by his side. Bellamy and Clarke watched silently as his last message played, tears streaming down their faces. Monty echoed Jasper's words, hoping that Wonkru and the surviving Eligius crew wouldn't destroy this planet too: It's time to be the good guys.
So as Bellamy and Clarke looked out onto the unknown planet looming in the distance out of the ship's window, two suns shining behind it, with no idea of what awaited them on the ground, they hugged and prepared to keep on surviving.
With The 100 heading to a new world in Season 6, IGN got creator and executive producer Jason Rothenberg to explain why the Season 5 ending was necessary and the break down what this huge twist means for the future of the series.
IGN: Those last nine minutes. Wow. Way to break everyone's hearts.Jason Rothenberg: That whole act, it’s a totally different tone but the prologue in UP and the old man's whole life flashing before your eyes, I was in tears throughout that whole opening sequence of that movie. I was trying to do something – I wouldn't say it's as good as that but I was going for the same concept of watching a life pass in front of your eyes.
With everyone going to a new planet in a totally new galaxy that has the potential to host life, does that mean we are going to meet aliens next season?
It's funny because the answer to your question is yes, we'll meet aliens. But the aliens are us because we're landing on someone else's planet.
Okay … so does that mean we'll meet the creatures who call that planet their home?
[Laughs] Yes. Well, the whole story is that they went in search of Eligius III, right? That's what Monty had spent 20 years of his life trying to crack the code, he finally did and set the course for the planet they went to. We will discover much more about that as the season begins next year and ultimately it becomes a, "What happened to Eligius III?" mystery - the answer to which forms the basis for our whole season.
But … aliens?!
In terms of what kind of life forms they discover on this planet, there is definitely life on that planet. Whether it was intelligent life or not before Eligius III landed is something that people will have to tune in to next season to find out. But the whole idea was to be able to literally world-build. It's from the ground up. We get to start again in so many ways in terms of the world that we're in. It's a hardcore sci-fi concept and we're leaning hard into that. I'm really excited. It's totally creatively rejuvenated me and the staff is excited so it's going to be a crazy season. It's very different and we look at it as like re-piloting almost, with characters we know and love. It's really Book Two of their adventure.
That leads us to the next question: What was the ending title card that says "End Book One" all about? The books upon which the series is based don't really line up with your story …
I totally get that that would be confusing. Actually I hadn't thought about that until you just asked that question. I don't really consider the books at all anymore when we're writing this show. In fact, they're a totally different thing. Partially that's because when I started, there was no book finished; it was for the most part a proposal for a book and synopsis of where it was going to go. I created the pilot parallel to Kass [Morgan] writing the book and that's why they're so different. We have been following our own road map from the beginning and so in my mind, the end of Book One means the first five seasons were Book One of the encyclopedia of The 100 adventures and Book Two begins as they set down on this new planet next year.
So the series could run for another five seasons with Book Two?
It could run for as long as Book One, depending on if it's any good and if the fans like it still [laughs].
You created an entire world on this series before, first with the humans on the Ark, and then the Grounder civilization, and then Mount Weather and then Diyoza's criminals. What excites you about building this new world that you haven't gotten to do before?
I'm excited about starting over and creating a world and a culture on the ground. In this case now because it's another planet we really get to play with that. The sky is the limit. We can do anything. It's been fun so far and hopefully people's minds will be blown and they'll take the trip with us and hopefully it's not a bridge too far.
What does this mean for the future of the series? This show has such a blank slate now and it feels like it could literally go anywhere from here.
The end of Season 6 (which I already know) is f***ing awesome too. But we're starting over so it's incremental. It doesn't have to be quite as mind blowing to finish at the end of Season 6 as it was at the end of Season 5 in terms of another planet and 125 years. We don't have to do that and keep topping ourselves. Six year time jump, Clarke's alive with a kid on the ground at the end of Season 5, 125 year time jump, Harper and Monty have a 27-year-old child and they're on a new planet, obviously that's a huge twist. I don't think the twist at the end of Season 6 will be quite as exponentially bigger. But who knows? Maybe we'll go to a new dimension and we've traveled back in time to the beginning and Clarke and co. are the people who threw the spear at Jasper.
Monty's videos were gut-wrenching to watch, knowing that he'd lived his whole life while everyone was asleep. Will we see Monty and Harper again?
Right now the plan is no, [we won't see them again]. Although we do return to the video that we already saw as Bellamy and Clarke choose who to wake up and play for them those videos. We see a little bit of what we've already seen at the beginning of Season 6. I imagine that Monty probably edited that video, there are probably boring things he left out so it's certainly entirely possible we'll see them again. It's very difficult to lose both of those actors from this cast because they've been part of it from the beginning. But the idea of sending them off with a happy ending – obviously it's emotionally devastating for the audience but they lived a happy life and literally lived happily ever after which has never been the case in our show for sure. I don't think anybody else will ever get that. So the door is open, obviously we do flashbacks all the time and we would certainly work with them again in a second.
So many characters' fates were left up in the air either physically or emotionally when they went into cryo sleep. It feels like their problems were only paused and it will just resume when they all wake up...
You're 100 percent right. Going into cryo really just literally freezes you in place. Emotionally, even though it's 125 years later, it's the next morning for everybody who went into cryo. It's very different and in many ways it's actually creatively easier from a writing perspective than the six-year time jump last season which included an entire six years of history that each of those characters lived independent than the people in the other parts of the story. They all came back so changed and their priorities were all shuffled around. So everything picks up exactly where it left off this time around.
Let's do a speed round with teases for each character's Season 6 fate, starting with Kane:
Kane was put into cryo instead of dying. But when he's woken up from cryo he will die unless we figure out a way to save his life. That will obviously be part of a story that we're telling as we begin Season 6.
Murphy?
Murphy was wounded but yes, he's going to be fine. Physically, he's fine. Now he's also got a lot of emotional scars that we'll play through into next season, as they all do.
Abby?
Abby is alive, definitely broken based on the things that she had to do. And obviously because Kane's life is hanging in the balance, in large part as a result of what she did – Vinson was a physical manifestation of her drug addiction, the monster that drug addiction can create and he almost kills Kane and that's her fault – so she will definitely take that on. It's something she needs to fix.
Octavia?
Octavia, emotionally she's frozen in amber for 125 years. When she wakes up, she will still be tormented by what she's done, who she's become, haunted by it in so many ways. Bellamy doesn't give her relief as he put her into cryo and that will be a continuing story for her as we go into Season 6. She was ready to die, sacrificing herself for her brother, and that sacrificial death was taken away from her. Definitely that will be something that she's still longing for in many ways and we'll see that play out psychologically through her journey next season.
Now let's talk about Bellarke. The last 15 minutes of the finale, something definitely changed between them – and those looks they shared showed that they both felt it before they went into cryo and everything changed. Where are you heading with their relationship in Season 6?
At the end of this season, Bellamy accepts what Clarke did leaving him behind to die in the fighting pit, and Clarke accepts what Bellamy did to put the Flame in Madi's head, both fairly huge betrayals. Ultimately their relationship is at a point where it's been before and where it's always been heading which is that they are, at this moment, non-romantic soul mates. They are better together. They are partners. Monty realized that and that's why he chooses to wake the two of them up first and nobody else. As always Bellamy and Clarke are at the center of the show and that relationship is hugely important. That's all I'll say in terms of the Bellarke of it all. It's a Rorschach test in many ways; people bring to it what they bring to it and we write it and put it out there in the world and let it be judged. It's not going to be an answer that satisfies a lot of people, I understand. I feel like it's so much rarer and more special in television where the two leads have that kind of non-romantic, soul mates, partners, teammates; how often have we seen the two leads get together? This is not something that is done as often in television and personally I think it's special. I'm not saying one way or another where it's going but certainly at the moment it's in a place that I think is pretty cool.
The 100 will return for Season 6 in 2019 on The CW.
For more from The CW, check out our list of the top 25 Arrowverse episodes below, and see what CW president Mark Pedowitz had to say about how long The 100 could stay on the air.