Ryan McGee | March 9, 2015

The most interesting character dynamic on television is happening in one of the most unlikely places.

To be fair, it’s not unlikely if you’ve been watching The 100 all season, but this is a show that is still far from the radars of most people. I wrote about this show last Fall, as part of my overall praise for what The CW is doing so right this season. (In next week’s column, I’ll add ‘iZombie’ to that network’s win column as well.) But while I really enjoyed that show in early November, it’s taken the proverbial leap in subsequent months, and that has a lot, if not everything, to its depiction of the show’s two haunted leaders: Clarke and Lexa.

I’ve seen The 100 described as ‘Battlestar Babies,’ and I’m definitely guilty of defining this show as the YA version of that recent television masterpiece. But I confidently put this show in the some conversation as Ron Moore’s ‘Battlestar: Galactica’ right now, even while carefully noting that trying to ascertain which show is “better” misses the point. In Clarke/Lexa, The 100 taps into something that makes it incredibly different from most programs of any genre on any network: The almost casual insistence that leadership and strength have absolutely nothing to do with gender and everything to do with backbone.

Take last week’s episode, the first part of the second season’s two-part finale. “Blood Must Have Blood, Part 1” opens with Clarke and Lexa at the center of their respective armies, laying out a dangerous but potentially successful plan that has been an entire season in the making. Not a single person in the room questions their authority, savvy, or centrality. Two girls forged into women through the hardships each has endured unquestionably rule over all within earshot, and not a single person there has a problem with it. That’s not to say these two women are perfect, nor that all is hugs and puppies within the different factions. It’s just that Clarke and Lexa being petite, blonde, and young doesn’t enter into anyone’s minds at all. These two are fierce. These two are strong. These two are leaders. These two deserve to be followed.

Where the true genius of The 100 this season lies in placing actors Eliza Taylor and Alycia Debnam Carey into the roles traditionally associated with men and then not commenting on this fact at all. It reminds me somewhat of the recent video game Dragon Age: Inquisition, which I’m currently playing, and in which the main counsel has a mixture of men and women making decisions based on merit instead of gender. It’s SO OBVIOUS to those in both worlds that these women have earned their place that even saying something as sexist as, “You are as good a leader as any man,” never even comes close to happening.

And yet, The 100 doesn’t paint Clarke and Lexa as remotely perfect, either. Their decision to not inform their followers of a missile attack from The Mountain Men paints both in a negative light, even if their motives are somewhat understandable. Rather than pillorying them for this decision, those in the show that have subsequently learned about their morally dubious decision have reacted in various ways. Octavia’s trust in Clarke is broken, but Marcus Kane notes that Clarke’s decision is a byproduct of those made on the Ark. The 100 is rife with ripple effects, all of which produce murky, disturbed water in which answers under the surface are impossible to see.

Lexa’s betrayal last week only strengthened my love of this pair. Sure, seeing them kiss the week before felt like the startling yet somewhat inevitable end result of two people that identity with each other so closely. But Lexa’s betrayal didn’t negate that kiss but rather deepen it. That love wasn’t false, and didn’t die when Lexa made her deal with the Mountain Men. Both love and betrayal exist simultaneously, which feels a heck of a lot more realistic that a straight-up heel turn by the leader of The Grounders. That betrayal is as complex as the kiss: The latter is rife with respect and longing that bypasses sexuality in favor of pure recognition of a kinder spirit, and the former takes the acknowledgement of that kiss and suggests that it’s not enough in a world in which survival is far from guaranteed.

I don’t know where the finale for this show is going, but I highly recommend everyone lamenting the lack of complex relationships in television show see what The 100 is doing with this pair. It’s quietly revolutionary in ways it shouldn’t be in 2015. And yet, since so few shows depicts any characters that aren’t middle-aged Caucasian male anti-heroes with this type of nuance, it’s indeed worth celebrating.