I know there’s a spoiler warning right on top of this, but just in case, here’s one extra one if you haven’t seen this week’s episode, because big events occurred!

Alycia Debnam-Carey as Lexa in The 100.

Alycia Debnam-Carey as Lexa and Eliza Taylor as Clarke in The 100.

Alycia Debnam-Carey as Lexa and Neil Sandilands as Titus in The 100.

Alright, still here?So yes, a ton happened in “Thirteen" -- you can read my review by clicking here -- as we got major revelations on Alie, Alie 2 and how it all connected to Lexa and the entire line of Commanders……but it was all tied into the death of Lexa, as she was accidentally shot by Titus (Neil Sandilands) and had an emotional farewell with her beloved Clarke (Eliza Taylor).So why was the decision made to kill Lexa and how does this change things? I spoke to The 100’s executive producer/showrunner Jason Rothenberg to get to the bottom of this huge turn of events.Why did I do what, Eric? If you’re referring to the very, very tragic death of the beloved Commander then I would say that a lot of factors come into play when you’re breaking a season and it would be a lie to say that the fact that Alycia had another show that she was a series regular on and that I only had the use of her as an actor for seven episodes, six really… There was a date for certain at which we were going to lose her and after that it would be very difficult to arrange to see her again and that definitely played a big role in my decision to have the story go in that direction.That said, I also, around the same time that I discovered that, that she was a series regular in another show, I was fishing… It was between seasons. I had these two great stories. I had the AI story on the one hand this continuing Grounder conflict between the twelve clans and what I knew would be a difficult 13th clan relationship. And there was no point at which the stories merged. I was searching around for what I was jokingly calling “the theory of everything" - what was the grand, unifying theory of the season? Then I remembered we discussed this notion of reincarnation in episode ten of Season 2 and the idea that Grounder commanders were selected via reincarnation. I didn’t want to say that that was nonsense and I didn’t want to say that it was actual, sort of spiritual, mystical reincarnation and then I struck on this notion of technological reincarnation. I was reading Ray Kurzweil’s book The Singularity is Near. He believes that we’ll be able to upload our consciousness in the near future. What if in some way this was possible? What if we could technologically reincarnate and the spirit could in fact live on inside of this piece of tech? That’s sort of where the story was born. Once I struck on that notion, I was like, “Oh my god, it’s really sad that we have to do this, “ but ultimately it seemed like the best story, especially considering the actor was no longer going to be in the show.Yeah, again it’s hard to say could have, should have, would have, but the truth is I love her and I would have made her a series regular in a second. I tired but it was too late and that’s just what it was. As I was breaking the story between seasons, knowing we were coming back, I was thinking about it long and hard before the [writers] room even started, so it all factored into my thinking. It’s hard to say for sure… Were she not on another show, would I have not had this story play out? It’s hard for me to say yes or no. I can say that I adore her, I think she’s amazing. I miss her more than anybody else does, I guarantee it, and yet I still feel like the story was compelling and emotional and the kind of story we tell. This is a world where, we’ve done it before, no one is safe. The son of the Chancellor got killed in episode there. There are no happy endings in the sense of easy way outs. Episode five, as you well know, we killed 300 people… needlessly. They didn’t have to be killed. Then Finn got killed by Clarke in episode eight of last season. It’s just a world where bad things happen.What would I say to them? Well first of all, I totally relate. I hate the idea that anybody would be devastated to the point of not wanting to watch where the story went going forward, not only for my own ratings, but for the fact that I feel like the story, going forward doesn’t forget her and she doesn't go away as a character, necessarily, in terms of… I’m not saying whether we’re seeing her again but she lives on inside the flame and she lives on in Clarke’s heart. Clarke is going to be in mourning for Lexa, really, for the foreseeable future. This is not a show that forgets about people’s injuries, both emotional and physical. Part of the story is Clarke needing now to figure out a way, the way we all do... People in this show, we’re not killing people for the sake of killing people. We’re killing people because sometimes that’s what happens in our lives. People are taken tragically and suddenly and you still have to go on with your life and pick up the pieces and in Clarke’s case, be a leader and figure out how to save her people and yet compartmentalize this tragic loss. Can she now go forward and fulfill the sort of non-violent agenda of Lexa? Can she somehow influence the selection of the next Commander so that Lexa’s legacy lives on? These are all stories that we will see going forward and that I think are importantly activated by this very tragic loss and this episode.There was a lot of discussion of how, of course. I did love the idea… Well “love” is a strange word for it, but I thought it was compelling, dramatically, if it happened at the hand of Titus, who genuinely loves her. He’s there in that moment, trying to kill Clarke because of whatever political and emotional difficulties he’s having with the direction her influence has taken Lexa in. And then the drama, the Greek tragedy of being responsible for the death of this special human being who, it’s not a stretch to say, feels like a father figure for her. That was something I found to be compelling and dramatic and something we wanted to explore for sure. We finally get to a point where just as they found this moment of happiness, it’s taken away. But I didn’t want that moment of happiness to not exist.I hear your question, but I feel like it would have been too soon before that. I feel like definitely there were versions where that scene ended in a love scene and I felt like it was too soon. She’d literally just come around and just begun to forgive her for what happened. I didn’t want it to happen too quickly because then it would have been over and that wouldn’t have been right either. Taking out for a second, if it's possible, the idea that she’s about to die -- because of course, they don’t know that -- they’re about to leave each other’s worlds for god knows how long. Everybody has to retreat behind the wall because of the blockade. It could be years until they see each other again. Who knows? Obviously, in this show, that’s probably not going to be the case. [Laughs] But they don't know that. It’s like with your high school girlfriend where you’re going to college and she’s going to another college and it’s the last night you’re ever going to be together. I wanted to get the feeling of that goodbye moment and then, unfortunately, it takes a tragic turn. That was sort of the thinking in terms of why they would both be consummating their relationship in this episode, sexually speaking, of course, and leaving each other in this episode.[Editor’s Note: This next/final question and answer delves into a topic that could be considered more potentiallythan the others…]Well, like I said, the spirit of the Commanders are in the flame. Whether or not that’s means that’s how we see her again or if we see her again… I have to sometimes step back and realize that Twitter is really a small slice of the audience. We all are on Twitter obsessively and I love Twitter and I love the social interaction that that allows for fans to have access to the creators and the actors and us to them but if I were to spoil something like that because people on Twitter have seen a picture… There were fans around while we were shooting scenes in Vancouver too. So few people are so that into the show that they know that something like that could come about. But I’m also not going to say that that’s not going to happen because it is out there.

Eric Goldman is Executive Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on Twitter at @TheEricGoldman , IGN at ericgoldman-ign and Facebook at Facebook.com/TheEricGoldman