Interview with Jason Rothenberg, Executive Producer of The CW's The 100

A new episode of The 100 titled “Long Into An Abyss” airs tonight (December 10) at 9PM on The CW.

We spoke with the show’s Executive Producer, Jason Rothenberg, about the current status of several characters on the show, those new opening titles, and yes, the “Bellarke hug” from a few weeks ago.

You can find the interview below, where our questions for Mr. Rothenberg are posted in bold, but his answers are not.

KSITETV’s CRAIG BYRNE: Is there any possibility for redemption for Finn, and where did all the rage come from?

JASON ROTHENBERG: Yes, he can be redeemed, for sure.

The rage came from – if you think about the journey that Finn’s been on… last season he was obviously the peace maker and the voice of reason to a certain degree, but that didn’t go very well for him, and then he got taken in Episode 11, taken off by the Grounders to be killed at the end of 11, saved by Lincoln and then he and Lincoln saved Clarke and back in 12, he killed a Reaper in 12 so he killed for the first time in that episode, and then in 13, he picked up a gun during the battle at the drop ship, during the Ring of Fire battle, and got even bloodier.

So, for Finn – I’ve said this from the beginning of the season – his story is one of innocence lost. He’s every kid that we sent to war, that goes into this thing thinking ‘okay, I’m going to do this right. I’m here for the right reasons.’ But you know, war is Hell and it changes you, and it [messes] you up in many ways, as it has [with] him. And this season, as it started he was a prisoner, and that was horrible, and then he comes home to realize that his friends are gone. He knows that the 48 are missing. He thinks the Grounders have them. They have Clarke, the girl that he loves, and he’s on a mission to find them. And then he finds a guy, who tells him facts, has Clarke’s watch, and tells them where to find Clarke, and he kills that guy. So, we’re beginning to see him circling the drain. He’s getting darker, and it continues on. He came to that village in episode 5 and he finds their clothing now. When Mount Weather took those kids in the finale, they stripped them, because they couldn’t bring that radiation-soaked stuff in to Mount Weather as President Dante said in Episode 1. The Grounders are scavengers and in fact found that stuff. When Finn gets to the village and finds that, what’s he supposed to think? He, of course, thinks these are the people that killed the girl that he loves and all of his friends, and so he went a little bonkers in that moment. Is it horrible and tragic? Yes. But it also could have been a different story. If he was right, then all of the things that he’s been doing make him a hero, right? If it fact they were the people who killed his friends or he rescued them, then he’s a hero. The tragedy is, of course, that they’re not there, and we know that, because we’ve followed Clarke’s story at Mount Weather. But he had no way of knowing that.

So, now that she witnesses this thing, will Clarke be able to reconcile that? Will she be able to accept that he was trying to do this thing to find her and to save her and her friends? I think she probably will. And I think that for Finn, it’ll be a reckoning, personally. He is going to have to deal with the fact that he did this. That he was wrong, and that all of those people didn’t have to die, and that’s going to be rough. But, I think he will probably be able to work through it, and she’ll probably help him.

I really pushed hard to get those. Both the studio and the network were actually incredibly supportive and open to the idea. I was surprised, because we’re burning 30 seconds of air time on them, but I think that any good epic sci-fi show should have an epic title sequence. For me, the idea was let’s expand the universe, let’s show a view of this world that we haven’t seen before, because frankly, we can’t afford helicopter shots and aerial photography, so this company, We Are Royale, we hooked up with them, and went back and forth, and they generated it. Our composers, Marc Dauer, Liz Phair, and Evan Frankfort created the song. Sometimes things just work, and it really does. And frankly, the fact that it’s only 30 seconds, to me, is awesome, because I love title sequences, but when you watch these cable shows that have, like, a minute and a half title sequence, you fast forward it, let’s be honest. But the 30 seconds, I think, is digestible.

Sometimes while we were making it, I wished we had more time, because there were so many more things we wanted to do, but the art of getting it into 30 seconds is like a haiku. It’s an art in and of itself, and they did a really good job at We Are Royale.

Could we ever get the music from the opening credits on iTunes or anything like that?

I have no idea. I assume… our composers are doing such an incredible job that that stuff should be available somewhere, sometime, but as far as I know now, it’s not.

The hug between Bellamy and Clarke when they were reunited – is that a sign of where their relationship has gone?

They are comrades in arms, and until she talked to her mother in the beginning of Episode 5, Clarke thought they were dead. She thought Bellamy and Finn were dead when she shut that door in the drop ship in Episode 13, and so, seeing him – now granted Mom told her that they were alive already – but seeing him there was an amazingly emotional moment for her. She was overjoyed.

If Finn was there, the hug would have been equally overjoyed and there probably would have been a kiss, as well. Because she loves Finn. That is a genuine relationship. Now, the Bellamy and Clarke story – that’s evolving. They’re recognizing how important each of them is to the other, and to the overall cause of survival, and that story is like she’s the Princess and he is the Knight, and that’s how I kind of look at it. Eventually, you love your Princess, and you’ll do anything for her. Is it a romantic thing? Not necessarily, but, perhaps even more noble and important.

Is Abby just as hard as Kane when she needs to be?

Abby has proven that she does whatever the hell she wants to do to get whatever she needs. In many ways, Abby is the moral center of the show. Kane, in Season One, would say “I’ll do whatever it takes for the human race to survive,” and she says “I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure that we deserve to stay alive.” That’s sort of been her thing all along.

Do you have any other words to say to the fans who are reading this?

Keep watching. The season gets bigger and bigger and bigger. It’s almost ridiculous. We are now breaking the finale. The finale is Episode 16. It’s what we call “on the board.” 15 just came off. I’m writing it, and it is so big that it’s hard for me to fathom being able to pull it off. But I felt that way last season about Episode 13 and we did it, so I know we’ll do it. It’s just an epic show, and it really deserves an epic finale, and I feel like this season, we’ve been expanding it and expanding it, and I think we’re going to surprise people again at the end of the season, with where we’re going.

See images from tonight’s episode of The 100 here!