The 100: 5 Best (& 5 Worst) Episodes Of Season 1 According To IMDb

When The 100 premiered in 2014, it took the audience by surprise with fast-paced storytelling and its post-apocalyptic future. Teens locked up for seemingly inconsequential crimes and scheduled to be executed on their eighteenth birthdays was a grim jumping off point. The main characters had a second chance at life when they were sent to a radiation-soaked Earth to see if it was survivable – and the audience got a great first season.

Not every episode of the season is ranked the same among fans. IMDb ratings from a scale of one to ten shows that the first season isn’t too shabby. The worst of the season ranks at a 7.5, while the best sit at 8.9, so the differences in the first season are not incredibly drastic.

10 BEST: Twilight’s Last Gleaming – 8.1

This is the highest-rated episode of the first half of the season. That’s likely because it’s a devastating one, and the emotional toll tells viewers exactly what to expect from the show.

Raven makes it to Earth in her small craft, but can’t contact the Ark because Bellamy finds and damages her radio. Back on the Ark, Abby disagrees with the decision to seal off an entire section and deprive it of oxygen. She tells the people about the Ark’s lack of a sustainable future, and in response, she is placed in a holding cell. More than 300 people, however, come forward and sacrifice themselves so the rest of the population can continue to survive.

9 WORST: Day Trip – 7.9

This episode has a lot of separate threads to it, and perhaps that’s why fans aren’t quite as interested. Clarke and Bellamy bond while searching for supplies. Bellamy also hallucinates after eating specific nuts and almost ends up dead when another member of the 100 is sent after him by the person who wanted him to kill Jaha on the Ark.

Bellamy and Clarke fight off the other teen, and Bellamy tells the truth in a call to the Ark, with dramatic and fatal results. It was one big conspiracy theory that was overshadowed by the rest of the teens at camp tripping out.

8 BEST: Unity Day – 8.2

Unity Day is supposed to be a day of celebration and remembrance: the day 12 space stations unified to become the Ark. Instead, one person on the Ark sets off a bomb and steals a dropship, intent on getting to Earth themselves.

On Earth, a meeting with the Grounders to discuss a truce also goes badly when Jasper thinks the Grounders have scouts in the trees to kill them. It’s a tale of two attempts at peace that go horribly wrong, making for a fantastic episode.

7 WORST: Earth Kills – 7.9

Not only does this episode introduce the “acid fog,” something that doesn’t come into play often on the series, but it also gives the audience the full backstory of Clarke and Wells’ feud. By the end of the episode, they reconcile, only for Wells to end up dead.

That’s because this episode also sees the big brother version of Bellamy in action, but his advice is misunderstood by Charlotte. She kills Wells in fear, something not exactly welcomed by the audience.

6 BEST: I Am Become Death – 8.3

Murphy returns to camp after Bellamy banished him, but he brings a virus with him. Lincoln admits to Octavia that the Grounders use it to help “soften” the battle, eliminating some of the threat.

While Clarke, Bellamy, and Raven all end up sick, they also have to prepare for the incoming attack. This episode features Raven’s infamous “it won’t survive me” when she plans to destroy a 100-year-old bridge to stop the Grounders from advancing.

5 WORST: Murphy’s Law – 7.8

With Wells dead and Murphy’s knife at the scene, Clarke accuses him of murder. Unfortunately, everyone runs with the accusation and wants to hang him, prompting Charlotte to confess.

When Murphy tries to get revenge, Finn and Clarke protect Charlotte. Bellamy tries to talk to Charlotte as well, resulting in a final confrontation on a cliff side and Charlotte jumping to her death. While the episode demonstrates some of the real stakes on the ground, fans didn’t love Charlotte’s storyline, and became interested in the bigger conflict with the Grounders later in the season.

4 BEST: We Are Grounders (Part 1) – 8.4

While Clarke and Finn have their own storyline being pursued by Grounders and saved by Lincoln, much of the action in this episode is actually back at camp with the conflict perpetuated by Murphy.

Murphy takes Jasper hostage, but Bellamy offers to trade his own life for the lives of his friends. When Murphy takes him up on the offer, he decides to hang Bellamy. Raven saves Bellamy’s life, but it costs her — Murphy shoots her through a door, causing an injury that affects her for the rest of the series.

3 WORST: Earth Skills – 7.5

As only the second episode of the series, “Earth Skills” is still trying to introduce many of the characters to the audience. In this case, attention is paid to the core group of Clarke, Murphy, Bellamy, and Wells as they set out to rescue Jasper from the Grounders. It’s  lot of the group trekking through the woods and snapping at one another since no one is getting along just yet.

Though this episode does introduce bright spot Raven Reyes, it actually has the same rating as the final “worst” episode of the season as well.

2 BEST: We Are Grounders (Part 2) – 8.9

The season finale brings all of the conflict of the season to a head and gives a huge tease for the second season, so it’s no wonder it’s the highest-ranked episode of season 1.

In addition to most of the Ark preparing to launch to Earth, the teens on the ground have to deal with a huge attack from the Grounders. They manage to use the rockets of their dropship to fire against the approaching Grounders, but some of their people are caught outside as well. In the end, however, most of The 100 are gassed and taken to a whole new location, Mount Weather, setting the events of season 2 in motion.

1 WORST: Pilot – 7.5

It’s incredibly rare for a pilot episode of a television series to have a strong rating compared to later episodes. The job of the pilot is to get people interested in the story. As long as it does that, it’s a success.

The 100‘s pilot introduces most of the major players for the rest of the season, bringing them to Earth, setting up the conflicts of the big personalities, and teasing that Earth is still inhabited. It might not have the moral dilemmas of the later seasons or feature powerhouse characters like Indra, but it’s definitely not a bad hour of television, despite being the lowest-ranked episode of the season.

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