The 100 6×08 Review: “The Old Man and the Anomaly”

For an episode called “The Old Man and the Anomaly,” this episode featured surprisingly little of either. What it did feature, however, was a bevy of emotional gut punches because someone in the writers’ room realized it had been more than half a season without a character dying and we needed to be punished.

“The Old Man and the Anomaly” left us with two characters in critical condition – Murphy, who was stabbed by Josephine, and Jordan, who was stabbed by Madi when he tried to protect Priyah – and “killed” another – Kane’s consciousness has been downloaded into a snazzy new hard drive. Plus, Diyoza’s fate is up in the air as she followed a vision of her future child right into the temporal anomaly. Other than Bellamy, who escaped with Josephine, all of SpaceKru are in trouble thanks to Madi’s murderous rampage.

Well, I was right about Murphy eventually doing the right thing; too bad he waited until there was a knife (scalpel) at his throat, and now he may die because of it. (I hope they don’t kill him; he’s much too interesting of a character to die.) I am slightly disappointed that he didn’t switch sides immediately upon learning Clarke was still alive, but I shouldn’t be surprised he did it when he realized Emori would be in danger. That’s much more in character for him.

On the other hand, we have Jordan trying to stop Madi from killing Priyah and getting stabbed in the gut for it. His altruism will likely save his life, as he alone from SpaceKru is not imprisoned, but I am really side-eyeing the heck out of this kid who seemingly chose a girl he knew for, like, a day and a half over his people. Not that I agree with Madi’s murderous rampage, but still.

Now, I suspect we may have seen the beginnings of a split among the Primes. Ryker isn’t as gung-ho about this whole process as the rest of them, even though he continues to practice it. Priyah is shocked that Russell jumped his place in line (not that they killed Clarke but baby steps). Russell’s recklessness in reviving Josephine led to the deaths of several Primes. (He can blame SpaceKru all he wants; if he hadn’t killed Clarke, this wouldn’t be happening.) Now both Ryker and Priyah are surprised that he intends to arm the guards.

Meanwhile, Abby is not playing the Primes, like I originally theorized. Nope. What you see is what you get with Abby this season, and honestly, she has outlived her usefulness. What even is her purpose anymore, other than to make bad decisions? Are she and Raven even aware of the fact that Clarke is “dead”? (I suppose it doesn’t really matter since she’s not actually dead, but how is Abby going to feel when she realizes she helped the people who tried to kill her daughter?) All she cares about is saving Kane, but Raven brought up a good point – Kane would not want her to do what she’s doing, which is evident when he wakes in his shiny new body and seems horrified. (Side note: Henry Ian Cusick has been on The 100 since the beginning and deserved a better sendoff, if his old body is in fact dead.)

Also, they wasted an opportunity to have Raven dump the nightblood serum on her spacewalk. I kind of thought that’s where that whole thing was headed.

As for the titular plot in “The Old Man and the Anomaly,” it turns out Xavier is actually Gabriel, shocking absolutely no one. He takes Diyoza and Octavia to the temporal anomaly, all three of them hallucinating along the way. Xavier is haunted by Josephine, Octavia is devastated by a specter of Bellamy on his knees, and Diyoza is hypnotized by a vision of her future daughter. Explanations are a little on the light side, so we still don’t know anything about this anomaly. However, it appears Octavia is the only person who has entered the anomaly who has come back out. And she looks like she’s 16 again.

The question is, what happened in the anomaly? I assume there is still more to this. Is Octavia really younger? Is this all surface, or is this actually an earlier version of her? Where did Diyoza go? Could she have gone back in time to stop the Primes before they do anything? (Please no. After the wibbly-wobbly timeline from Avengers: Endgame, I can’t handle anymore trips to the past.) Could she have gone to the future?

What did you think of “The Old Man and the Anomaly”?

Author: Jamie Sugah

Jamie has a BA in English with a focus in creative writing from The Ohio State University. She self-published her first novel, The Perils of Long Hair on a Windy Day, which is available through Amazon. She is currently an archivist and lives in New York City with her demon ninja vampire cat. She covers television, books, movies, anime, and conventions in the NYC area.

Twitter

Help support independent journalism. Subscribe to our Patreon.

Copyright © The Geekiary