The second season of The 100 comes to Blu-ray (and Netflix!) and is well worth your time.
By Eric Goldman
If you’ve been waiting to see the second season of The 100, now’s your chance. Earlier this month, Season 2 arrived on DVD, along with an MOD Blu-ray release shortly after. On top of that, this weekend — on Saturday, October 31st — Season 2 will also arrive on Netflix, joining Season 1, and giving those who haven’t seen any of this great show an opportunity to go full binge. [You can see my spoiler-free pitch on what makes this show so special in the video below]
We want to hear it.
Initially, Season 2 was to only have a DVD release, but thankfully, it seems Warner Bros. heard the fans complaining about the lack of Blu-ray. Granted, the Blu-ray is not a wide release and has been made available via the Warner Archive Collection’s Manufactured on Demand program (you can buy it on both WBShop.com and Amazon), but its existence is cause for celebration.
For my full review of Season 2, with complete spoilers, you can check out what I wrote back when the season finished airing on the CW. But in a nutshell: Damn, was this awesome television. To quote myself (is that bad form?) in that aforementioned review, The 100 became “one of the coolest and most daring series on TV these days” in its second year.
We want to hear it.
Picking up from where Season 1’s great cliffhanger left off, we jumped into a very different environment inside Mount Weather, meeting a community who had managed to survive for the last century, and whose behavior was much more “normal” as far as those from the Ark were concerned, but who couldn’t survive out on the surface – and felt compelled to go to some extreme measures as a result.
We also learned more about the Grounder hierarchy, both through the knowledge taken in by Octavia (Marie Avgeropoulos) and by meeting the compelling new Grounder character Lexa (Alycia Debnam-Carey), all while the situation with Mount Weather, and those trapped inside, escalated. Along the way, The 100 continued to be a show that didn’t hold back and played for keeps, as the characters were put through one tough situation after the other, with increasingly high consequences and ramifications. This show never gives the characters an easy way out and some of the choices that had to be made here, particularly those placed in front of Clarke (Eliza Taylor), were stunning in their blunt, “there is no good outcome” presentation.
We want to hear it.
The 100 is a great-looking show, which is why it’s so at home on Blu-ray. The HD presentation here highlights the cinematic visuals and notable contrasts between the bright, daytime exterior scenes and the dark, gloomy places these people often find themselves – some of them literally underground.
The extras on the Blu-ray (the same that are on the DVD) include featurettes focused on Mount Weather and the stunts, a gag reel, deleted scenes and the show’s 2014 San Diego Comic-Con panel. Among the featurettes, the Mount Weather one is the best as far as discussing Season 2’s themes and characters and even delving a bit into the monumental events of the finale. The “Pre-Viz Stunts” featurette is a fun reel that cuts back and forth between the early stunt rehearsals (which include some of the main cast, but mainly feature the stunt team) and the final scenes and is a nice spotlight on The 100’s terrific stunt work. I also should note that the gag reel is a very amusing one, especially given how grim this show can be – though I do wish they hadn’t bleeped out the copious amounts of swear words. Just throw a warning on it!
Overall, the special features are well done – it’s just too bad there isn’t more of them. As the DVD and Blu-ray market has shrunk, so has the amount of special features on many releases, but it still feels like we could have at least gotten audio commentaries on a couple of key episodes here (or several episodes, while I’m dreaming), which would have allowed more insight into the creation of the show… and in an inexpensive way, Warner Bros!
The 100 proved to be one of the best and most daring shows in its second season and these 16 episodes are incredibly addictive TV, filled with exciting storylines, compelling character arcs and some shocking plot twists. The existence of a Season 2 blu-ray (which was in doubt at one point) is gratifying, and it comes with some nice special features – but hopefully we get more next time!
