Meta Station

Our full recap of the amazing episode 5x02, "The Red Queen," will go up later tonight, with special guest Crystal (@wordyblerd), our delightful Twitter friend and freelance writer/critic formerly of Black Girl Nerds. In the meantime, to pay homage to the loss of one of the show's original core regulars, here's our emotional sendoff to the sometimes-loved, sometimes-hated Chancellor who finally brought his people to Earth.

May we meet again.

We’re back, bitches! And so is everything that made this show great. HOO BOY WHAT A SEASON PREMIERE!

Mom feels! Road trips! Jasper closure! Clarke as a video game character, wandering through post-apocalyptic wastelands and collecting emotionally-loaded power-up items! Bugs for lunch! Pinterest-worthy outdoor decorating schemes! A smol with a bear trap! Echo/Monty parallels! The mythology of Octavia Blake! Increasingly desperate collect calls to space, waiting for Bellamy to answer his fucking phone! Good earth cleavage! An unexpected opportunity to cry over “An American Tail!” A line Erin laughed so hard at that she sliced it out to make it her ringtone! TWENTY-SEVEN FULL MINUTES CARRIED SOLO ON ELIZA TAYLOR’S TINY AUSTRALIAN SHOULDERS WITH NO SCENE PARTNER EXCEPT A BIRD

Come along on this journey with us, friends, we’ll even let you call shotgun.

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0:00 - We’re Back, Bitches! And So Is the Show We First Fell In Love With

0:04 - We Fully Could Have Watched Another Forty Minutes of Just Clarke

0:14 - Sticks, Rocks and Goggles: Clarke Collects Quest Items to Help Her Survive

0:20 - MOM FEELS MOM FEELS MOM FEELS

0:23 - The Crumbling of Polis, In More Ways Than One

0:29 - Heroes and Monsters: Madi’s Fairy-Tale Lens on the World

0:35 - The Wreckage of Arkadia Fucked Us RIGHT the Fuck Up

0:37 - The Jasper Moment Our Hearts Needed

0:43 - Clarke’s Drawings, Maya’s iPod, and the Beauty of Shallow Valley: Creativity Is What Makes Us Human and Keeps Our Memories Alive

1:05 - The Pitfalls of Mythologizing the People We’ve Lost

1:09 - Interrogating the Stories Clarke Tells Herself About Herself

1:17 - “They Had Their Reasons Too,” and Clarke’s Picture of Her New Self, Go Right Out the Window When Madi’s In Danger

1:25 - Brief Sidebar to Yell About Bible Imagery Because #Brand

1:30 - “Say Five Nice Things About Yourself” vs. “Fight to the Death in This Terrifying Murder Pit”: Boy the Blakes’ Discipline Techniques Sure Are Different Aren’t They

1:32 - Murphy, Clarke, Adaptability, and the Impermanence of Change

1:36 - Space!Emori Is Already One of the Greatest Gifts of Season 5

1:44 - In Which Murphy Is a Cat

1:49 Soft Bearded Space Dad Bellamy Is Our Everything, Even Though He CLEARLY Has One Foot Out the Door

1:52 - Obligatory “Somewhere Out There” Reference Because We Are Children of the 90’s

1:54 - RAVEN IS DOING HER GODDAMN BEST DON’T @ HER

1:57 - Bellamy Is Mythologizing His Sister in Absentia While Echo Can See Her Pretty Clearly

2:06 - “What Are We Now?”: Becho, Marper, and Situational Identity

2:19 - Please Oh Please Give Echo a Real Arc So She’s More Than Just a Love Interest

2:27 - Becho Together, Memori Apart: Setting Up a New Status Quo So It Can Be Disrupted

2:34 - Patience Is a Virtue, in Narrative As in Life

2:39 - ENTER ELIGIUS, and Our New True Love Charmaine Diyoza

2:44:15 - The Most Iconic Line in Meta Station History

THIS TIME, IT'S PERSONAL. Er--or maybe it always was! Anyway, Sachin is back for Part 2 of the Anniversary Clairin Interview! This time we're doing the Claire-only and Erin-only questions, so get pumped for lots more talk about CLAIRE'S AMAZING TIME-TRAVEL NOVEL THE REWIND FILES (go buy it right now, it's on Amazon, there won't be a test but there WILL be a podcast about it with Sachin eventually), what Erin and Claire's patronuses are, and how Erin and Sachin REALLY feel about Finn and Riley. Plus: what did Erin say to make Sachin threaten to hang up on her?? And the wild but true story of Claire's first viewing of The Kabby Kiss!

Pictured: Erin and Claire on Erin's wedding day. Awwwww.

It's our second podcast anniversary! We're so grateful to all of you coming along on this journey with us over the past two years, we love each and every one of you so much! To celebrate this momentous occasion, we decided it was time for y'all to get to know us a little better, so we opened it up on Twitter for fans to send in questions to ask us...and then we asked Sachin Sahel, AKA The 100's own Eric Jackson, to be our special guest interview! He agreed, because he's the best. Join us on a freewheeling two-and-a-half-hour journey through Ark headcanons, embarrassing celebrity encounter stories, the nature of humanity, weirdest childhood crushes, the Clairin origin story, a LENGTHY digression into our "The 100"/"America's Next Top Model" crossover AU, the history of the science fiction novel and the mechanics of time travel, and SO much more.

The endlessly delightful Richard Harmon joins us on Meta Station this week to talk about growing up in a family of artists, the creative freedom of no-fucks-given auditioning, Murphy's flexible morality, the cathartic nature of portraying dark characters, and Murphy's relationships with Bellamy, Clarke, Emori, Abby and others going into season 5.

ALIE gave it her best effort to shut down the entire interview via endless technical difficulties (which is why you'll hear Claire disappear altogether for a few minutes in the middle) but an evil A.I. is no match for the charm of a Harmon who once bought Claire and Erin shots of Jameson, and ultimately we prevailed. (Don't worry, the glitches have been edited out.)

We are back with the most extra trailer analysis ever! Literally one hour of talking per one minute of trailer, you guys. Almost three seconds of talking per each of the 5,000+ frames WHICH CLAIRE AND SELINA SCRUTINIZED ONE BY ONE. NOT A SINGLE STONE UNTURNED, THEN DISSOLVED INTO ITS COMPONENT MOLECULES FOR IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS.

PLUS! Erin is convinced Kane is getting a new profession, Claire is convinced Abby is up to something with Eligius and nightblood, and Selina is convinced that Clarke's loose lips summoned the Eligius ship!

3:00 - That One Time When Jason Showed Claire and Erin the Trailer Two Months Early

7:00 - Ever Noticed How Clarke Starts Every Odd-Numbered Season Completely Alone?

11:00 - Clarke's Drawings and the Importance of Artistic Expression

22:00 - *BELLARKE KLAXONS*

34:00 - Did Eligius Hear Clarke's Radio Transmissions???

40:00 - WE WOULD ALREADY LAY DOWN OUR LIVES FOR MADI

48:00 - Enter Eligius *heavy metal plays in background*

1:22:00 - Erin Cracked Kane's Bunker Storyline, Everyone Can Go Home

2:00:00 - Abby, Eligius, and the Potential Return of the Medical Ethics Theme?

2:04:00 - KABBY BABY THEORY LIVES, but in a New Way That Claire Would Rather Forget

2:15:00 - What the Hell Is in That Dude's Stomach, Y'all

2:22:00 - ZAVEN RIZEZ

2:36:00 - *KABBY KLAXONS*

2:51:00 - The Blakes Aren't Gonna Fight to the Death, but That's About All We Know

3:07:00 - S5's #1 Cinematic Influence: Lilo & Stitch

3:08:00 - #HugsAnd(no)Death(in that montage anyway)

3:23:00 - Memori Problems

3:26:30 - What Does Octavia Want With/From Madi????

3:42:30 - Selina Drops an F-Bomb

HAPPY TRAILER DAY, EVERYONE!! Now that the S5 trailer has dropped (AAATTTT LAAAAAAASSSSSSTTTTT dot mp3), we can share this snippet of trailer chat from our interview with Jason! Featuring the origins of #HugsAndDeath, a special shoutout to Sachin Sahel aka Jackson, and the hug that got left on the cutting room floor!

Since Jason had to miss his panel at Unity Days this year due to production conflicts, Erin and Claire decided it would be fun to open up Meta Station for a virtual fan Q&A...and Jason agreed! Over the course of our three-hour conversation (#ThatsSoMetaStation), we answer 15 fan questions about everything from what we can look forward to in season 5 to what Henry Ian Cusick is like BEHIND the camera, and everything in between--including TONS of awesome behind-the-scenes insights and tidbits!

Welcome back to Meta Station! It's been two months since we posted 111, for which we profoundly apologize; family, travel, work, book deadlines and general life stuff got in the way, and we meant to record at least one episode while we were together (Claire went to go visit Erin in November) but instead we just drank a lot of wine and cuddled with the dog and watched "Burlesque." WE STAND BY THESE LIFE CHOICES

Anyway, we've finally hit the S1 finale and HOO BOY it's a ride, fam! Up on the Ark, Batshit Jaha is rising, Kane and Abby are nonstop badasses, Jackson is at Peak Cinnamon Roll, Wells and Jake save the day one last time, and SINCLAIR JUST WANTS TO GO HOME. Down on the ground, Bellamy deserves snuggles but instead receives only struggles, Murphy's red seatbelt kink comes back into play, the Blakes are at peak Battle Siblings, and Jasper and Raven save the day. Meanwhile, Clarke and Finn get a whole sideplot whose entire function is to creepily foreshadow all the crazy of Season 2, from Reapers and blood-drained corpse piles to the first mention of the Commander.

P.S. to make sure we got y'all some new content in time for your holiday travels, we posted this one completely unedited. A HUGE amount of work from our Editkru volunteers goes into producing each podcast episode, from filtering out coughs and background noises to slicing out the torrents of "um" and "like" to cleaning up when we talk over each other, which happens a lot. So if you find this one occasionally a hot mess to listen to, shout-outs go to Brittany, Cece, Emily, Jess, Maylina and Melli for making sure the rest of our podcasts are shiny and cleaned up when we post them. They work their asses off and we adore them with our entire hearts.

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0:00 - HI WE’RE BACK AND THIS IS UNEDITED, MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON OUR SOULS

0:02 - In Which Kane Sits Alone at Jaha’s Council Table Like a Kid Who Got Called to the Principal’s Office

0:05 - TEAM ADULTS RISE: The Optimists, the Pessimists, and the Rise of Batshit Jaha

0:20 - Nanorobots In the Whiskey: An ALIE Conspiracy Theory

0:26 - Hey Let’s Go Get Our Hearts Shattered In the O.R. by Battle Mom Abby Griffin and ACTUAL ANGEL Eric Jackson

0:32 - Clarke and Finn Are Here to Drop Off That Truckload of Season Two Plot Setup You Ordered

0:35 - Today on “Grounder Thoughts With Clairin”: Anya’s In the Doghouse, We Never Got the Lincoln/Lexa Confrontation We Longed For, and Why TF Does Luna Get a Regular-Ass Ambassador If Her Clan’s Whole Deal Is “Fuck This Governmental Structure”

0:52 - Bellamy Blake and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day

0:56 - YO WE STILL DON’T KNOW WHERE MONTY IS!!!!

1:02 - Sooooooo Many Blake Sibling Feels

1:06 - "We Save Who We Can Save Today": Bellamy and Jasper's Relationship Has Come a Long Way, Baby

1:13 - In Which Erin Asks the Very Reasonable Question About Why Key Character Evolution Moments for Bellamy So Often Involve Physical Punishment

1:15 - Claire's Grand Unified Murphy/Sawyer Theory: The Perils of Scapegoating

1:23 - Not That It Excuses Anything, But Jesus Murphy's Backstory Is Fucking Tragic

1:28 - Raven, Braven and Bravenlarke Are All Lit AF In Both Parts of This Finale

1:35 - Goodbye, Happy Holidays, We'll See You In 2018 With the S1 Finale and At Least One Secret Meta Station Surprise We're Cooking Up!

Welcome back to Meta Station! Elizabeth’s back to join us for “The Calm,” which, true to its name, slows the propulsive plot action way down to give us what amounts to a three-part deep-dive character study of Kane, Raven and Clarke . . . with a side order of Braven sex, Kabby cuddling, and Finn once again working Erin’s last nerve. Also, Bellamy has trust issues with men, ABBY ISN’T DEAD!, Sass!Kane is rising, Clarke commits her first cold-blooded murder, Raven deserves snuggles and instead continually receives struggles, Monty brings Mt. Weather into the story in a big way (though we don’t really know it yet), and apparently as soon as Claire left for family dinner and left them unsupervised, Erin and Elizabeth started talking about cannibalism. JUST ANOTHER DAY AT META STATION

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0:00 – Hoorayyyyyyy, Elizabeth’s Back!

0:01 – Claire Has Literally Been Waiting to Yell About This Kane Content Since We Started This Podcast

0:04 – The Wick Scenes Do a Remarkable Amount of Character Work As a Turning Point in Kane’s Leadership Development Arc

0:12 – R.I.P. Sinclair, We Still Miss You So Much

0:13 – There Is So Little Comedy in Ark Storylines

0:18 –In a World With No Rules, Who Is Marcus Kane?

0:21 – Claire Makes High-Pitched Noises About Kabby

0:25 – First Documented Instance of Kane’s Secret Love of Hugging

0:27 – Let’s Weep Over the Kane Family For SEVERAL MINUTES, Shall We?

0:34 – Finn Collins: More or Less Bearable When He's Not Making Everything About His Penis!

0:36 – "The Calm" Pauses Plot for Character Development, and WE LOVE IT

0:43 – Clarke's Hypocritical Disapproval of Grounder Child Warriors: Intentional or Not?

0:48 – Tris, Finn, Shock Waves, and the Morality of Unintended Consequences

0:54 – The Rise of Wanhedalton: Clarke Will Do What It Takes to Survive

1:00 – IT'S NOT ABOUT YOUR FUCKING FEELINGS, FINN: Season 1 of The 100

1:04 – The Dos and Don'ts of Handling Raven in A Mood

1:13 – "The Borscht Belt Is Farm Station"

1:16 – Wow Pike’s Earth Skills Class Really Didn’t Teach Miles Anything

1:18 – Let’s Talk About Sex, Baby (Specifically Why We Love This Braven Scene Because It’s All About Active Consent)

1:28 – Give Raven One Non-Awkward Post-Coital Experience 2k18

1:29 – All Aboard the Good Ship Braven

1:32 – Further Fleshing Out of Our Headcanon About the Stand-Up Comedy Scene on the Ark

1:35 – “I Miss Panicky Teenagers Trying to Build a Society SO MUCH”

1:38 – Elizabeth's Grand Unified Theory of Bellamy's Trust Issue with Men

1:44 - Oh, Bellamy, We Love You But Your Plans Are Terrible

1:49 – In Which Erin and ElizabethTake An Unexpected Detour into S5 Cannibalism Spec

1:51 – That Jamming Signal--Was It Really Mt. Weather? Or Perhaps....Cadogan?! DUN-DUN-DUNNNNNN

1:57 – Elizabeth Wrote (Another) Book and It's Gr9 and Y'all Should Buy It!