The 100: Season 6 Explores Echo's Backstory, Says Tasya Teles

CBR

The 100: Season 6 Explores Echo's Backstory, Tasya Teles Promises

By Sam Stone

Published Apr 3, 2019

The 100 star Tasya Teles says The CW series' sixth season will finally reveal the backstory of her character, Echo.

Despite being a key character on The 100 since its second season, much of Tasya Teles' Echo has remained a mystery to audiences, the other characters, and even Teles herself. A member of the Azgeda royal guard held captive on Mount Weather and used for her fresh, healthy blood before her rescue by Bellamy Blake, Echo's background has gone relatively unexplored for the subsequent three seasons, even as her character has steadily grown in prominence. Fortunately, with Season 6 of the popular post-apocalyptic series, that's all about to change.

While talking with the press on the series' Vancouver set this past November, Teles said Echo's enigmatic backstory will finally be revealed over the course of the upcoming season, providing insight on the character as she leads her fellow human survivors in colonizing a strange, new alien world. For Teles, the reveal is something she has been hoping to explore for some time.

"That's one of the things that I've been hoping for and asking for for the last couple of years. Even for myself as an actor, I had ruminated about what her backstory was, so to have an opportunity to share that for the first time was really exciting," Teles said. "It's good to have a lens into what creates a person and how they came to be the way that they are. I'm really excited to be able to share that with the audience and explore her storyline a little more."

In addition to exploring Echo's past, the sixth season will involve a stronger focus on her romantic relationship with Bellamy. The two characters initially had a decidedly more hostile relationship before settling into an uneasy cooperation. After taking refuge on a space station for six years to avoid a toxic storm sweeping through the only habitable portion of Earth, this antagonism transitioned into romance off-screen during a time jump between Seasons 4 and 5. While the beginnings of this relationship weren't seen, the couple's dynamic will be given more attention in Season 6.

"We're going to see the two of them, they worked together well as a pair," Teles promised. "We're going to definitely explore that relationship, but we also are going to see more of how the relationship strengthens each of them, and what is it that each provides to the other within that. But they operate as a great unit."

As more and more of Echo's personal life and history is unveiled to audiences, fans shouldn't expect a happy origin for the battle-hardened character. As a brutal undercover operative and experienced warrior, Echo's upbringing was not an ideal one, and that past and will inform the character's direction in Season 6 and beyond.

"There's definitely some trauma," Teles teased. "All the characters have their sorts of trauma that they go through but hers is unique and it actually lends itself really nicely to what she can offer in Season 6 in terms of Spacekru might be feeling a certain way about something but she, because of her upbringing that we learn, she has a different spin and different tactics that she wants to use to approach some of the challenges that they face."

The 100 returns on the CW for its sixth season starting April 30 at 9 pm ET/PT. The series stars Eliza Taylor, Paige Turco, Marie Avgeropoulos, Bob Morley, Henry Ian Cusick, Lindsey Morgan, Richard Harmon and Tasya Teles.