‘The 100: Jason Rothenberg Talks Clarke & Lexa, The Questions Facing Bellamy

Clarke may be pushing for peace on “The 100,” but while Lexa is also in support of that goal, changing years of the “blood must have blood” tradition won’t come easy.

Also making it hard is that inside Arkadia, Chancellor Pike is continuing to push his (controversial) agenda – at first attacking and slaughtering what were peaceful troops sent by Lexa, and more recently, setting up a large boundary around Skaicru, and pushing out the Grounders to protect the future of his people.

Also controversial has been Bellamy’s involvement in Pike’s big moves.

With the stakes getting higher every week, Access Hollywood hopped on the phone with “The 100” Executive Producer Jason Rothenberg for more insight into the characters’ mindsets, including whether Clarke realizes that Lexa’s right hand man, Titus, clearly has some issues with her decisions and her influence on his Commander.

AccessHollywood.com: Does Clarke have any idea that Titus is [probably] not cool with her?
Jason Rothenberg: Clarke knows people and she definitely senses the tension with Titus and knows that she’s attempting to influence Lexa in ways that Titus probably isn’t going to be OK with. Certainly in Episode 6 we saw the scene between the two of them and he was waiting for her creepily in her room and so, I think the answer to that is yes, and she understands that it’s a difficult course that they’re charting together, this course of non-violence really, of peace, and that it’s going to be hard for the world, especially the sort of atavistic warrior culture that is the Grounder world, to sort of change. Change is hard and so, I think she anticipates it, but she believes in Lexa. She believes that Lexa is going to be able to get it done, and there’s probably a little bit of, by the way, that some of it is self-preservation because she knows that if Lexa doesn’t chart that course, they’re going to wipe out her people and that means not just Pike, who probably deserves it, and arguably Bellamy right now as well, but also the people she loves.

Access: Speaking of Bellamy, what did he really think was going to happen when he handcuffed Clarke, recently? Did he think Pike [was] just going to talk to her and everything was going to be cool? I thought he put her in a very dangerous situation.
Jason Rothenberg: You know what, Pike has not demonstrated a willingness or a desire to kill his own people – ever, yet. Maybe that’s something that’ll happen, who knows, but right now, [Bellamy] believes that Clarke is in danger out there and he honestly believes that he’s doing that for her own good, in that moment — that ultimately, he’s going to keep her safe by keeping her here, and that eventually she’ll come to see things his way and that eventually, the Grounders will attack and he’ll be proven right. Now whether or not that’s crazy, certainly is in the eye of the beholder, but in his mind, when he was handcuffing Clarke, he was not handcuffing her to like, take her to be executed or take her to be punished, he was taking her to Pike in order to talk about how they were going to move forward and that she was probably, if she didn’t want to stay, going to be sort of a royal prisoner in Arkadia the way that she, by the way, was a royal prisoner in Polis, when the season started. 

Access: [So…] the Octavia situation… Bellamy, I feel like he’s in a really tough spot right now. What kind of challenges are we going to see him facing going forward with his sister kind of being a wanted woman at this point?
Jason Rothenberg: Certainly it’s going to test his following of Pike’s philosophy and way of governing unlike anything has before. I think ultimately, Pike is a smart enough guy, Pike knows how important Bellamy is and in that scene, you’ll notice as they start to talk about Octavia, he pivots and puts blame on somebody else and is smart enough to know that that’s somewhere that Bellamy probably won’t go and doesn’t ask him to, at least in that. But, the question for Bellamy is how much farther will he go? At what point does he, sort of — whether you want to say wake up or what point does he find a line in Pike’s governing tactic too far to go, too far to cross? Will that happen? We’ll see.

Access: [A dark path] that [some of the characters are going down] is the cult of this AI situation that’s going on with Raven and Jaha. How much darker is that going to get? Just watching that, wow! You just want to tell them, ‘No, spit that out!’
Jason Rothenberg: (laughs) Yeah, that story, I mean, it definitely gets darker. It definitely becomes more and more important. We begin to realize what the real cost of taking the chip is and that’s a story that we’ll tell in a huge way as we go forward.

Access: I gotta ask you about the potential for romance on the show. Obviously Clarke and Lexa are growing closer. Is there anything that kind of stands in the way now that — I feel that forgiveness has kind of happened. Like they’re getting ready to move past what happened at Mount Weather in Season 2.
Jason Rothenberg: Yes, I think that the only thing that stands in their way right now is the politics on the ground. Is there a world where if there’s a war between… the 12 clans and Skaicru, where Clarke, as a member of Skaicru — is she going to be safe, is she going to be welcome, is she going to survive it — that’s the only thing that could keep them together, and to me that’s the stuff of a good love story — they love each other, but they’re not going to be able to perhaps stay together, because they are on opposite sides of a war. And if she stays in Polis with Lexa, then she’s a traitor to her people, and if she leaves, then she leaves the woman who she’s obviously now falling in love with. So, it’s a tough situation. But… I think forgiveness for what happened last season has certainly been earned by Lexa at this point.

WATCH: ‘The 100’: Alycia Debnam-Carey On Clarke & Lexa In Season 3

Access: Something seems to be brewing between Abby and Kane — or am I totally wrong there?
Jason Rothenberg: No, you’re not totally wrong. There’s definitely something brewing. I love both of those characters and I think that it’s interesting for sure. The actors have such great chemistry and it’s definitely something that we all see here too.

“The 100” continues Thursday at 9/8c, after “Legends of Tomorrow” on The CW.

— Jolie Lash