The 100 review: “Red Sun Rising” ups the intensity

While the season premiere of The 100’s sixth season set fans up for a wild ride, “Red Sun Rising” began delivering on that promise.

The sixth season of The 100 premiered last week, opening up an entirely new story arc for the characters we’ve been following for the past six seasons—though, of course, they’ve all brought plenty of baggage from past episodes with them to the New World. And while “Sanctum” began setting fans up for an intense storyline for this season, this week’s episode actually began delivering on that promise. If there was ever an episode of The 100 to keep viewers on the edge of their seats, it’s this one.

Last week’s episode ended with Sanctum’s two suns eclipsing, causing Emori to have hallucinations that eventually led her to attack Murphy. “Red Sun Rising” opens with a flashback of Sanctum 263 years earlier, when the first settlers there realize that their miraculous new planet isn’t quite as it appears. The flashback ends with one of the leaders, clearly affected by psychosis, going on a rampage and killing his own daughter.

The episode then picks up almost immediately after the scene with Emori, with the rest of the exploratory team deciding what they should do about the eclipse-induced psychosis. They’re stuck on a dangerous planet that Clarke rightly points out they have no idea how to survive on, and it’s inevitable that they’ll begin feeling the effects of the eclipse soon.

Once they do, the episode becomes seriously action-packed. There’s plenty of action with the characters physically fighting one another—did anyone breathe during that fight between Murphy, Clarke, and Bellamy?—but it adds in the element of the characters’ internal struggles as well. Without being able to tell what’s real, Clarke and the others are grappling with external and internal danger. Echo believes that the others don’t trust her because she’s a spy, while Clarke hears her mother telling her that the world would be better off without her. It’s unclear what Bellamy is hallucinating, but judging by his willingness to assault those he cares most about, it must have been bad.

“Red Sun Rising” also wastes no time jumping into what’s happening aboard the ship, where people from Sanctum break in and lock the awake members of Skaikru in one section of it. Not only do they need to find a way out, but most members of Skaikru don’t take well to being confined to a small place with Octavia around—especially once she starts barking orders. Again, there’s danger from the New World and resentment from the old one, a balance that will likely be a theme going forward.

Thankfully, the intruders don’t find Raven. Diyoza and Raven team up to stop them—with the help of a well-timed entrance from Madi—and they manage to take a hostage. They fly the ship and their hostage down to the New World, and we finally see the rest of the characaters get their first glimpse at the new planet. The episode leaves with them arriving just as the eclipse disappears, setting viewers up for an interesting next episode.

And of course, the episode leaves off on a cliffhanger as well. Once the eclipse comes to an end, the people of Sanctum emerge from wherever they were hiding. And when a young girl approaches Clarke and asks, “Are you here to take us home?,” it’s as flabbergasting for the audience as it is for Skaikru. “I thought this was your home,” Clarke asks as the episode ends…leaving fans to wonder whether getting back to Earth is actually going to be the trajectory for “Book 2” of the show. So much for Sanctum being a sanctuary.

The 100 airs on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on The CW.