WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for "The Blood of Sanctum," the Season 6 finale of The 100.
The 100 showrunner Jason Rothenberg revealed the post-apocalyptic series' upcoming seventh and final season would unveil the moral of the story by its eventual series finale, hinting that the underlying message would be a positive one, despite the constant violence permeating the show so far. However, by the end of its penultimate season, that overarching message to the popular CW series is becoming increasingly clear: The show is about new generations overcoming sins past from their predecessors to take the lead in an uncertain world.
Loosely based on the sci-fi novel series of the same name by Kass Morgan, the series had the adults of a space station orbiting the Earth send one hundred juvenile delinquents to the planet's surface to see if it was still habitable generations after a devastating nuclear war. Despite being abandoned in the ruins of the old world, the teenagers and young adults endured against the odds, creating an impromptu community in the wilderness while entering a tenuous peace with factions of humans that had managed to survive on Earth since the war. However, this peace would be disrupted by the adults from the space station landing on the planet themselves, leading to bloody conflict.
Later seasons would play further with the idea that the main characters would be forced to confront their forebearers mistakes at high cost. The second season featured a reclusive society that literally survived through blood transfusions from younger, healthier individuals. Season 5 had inmates from a maximum security orbital vessel emerging from cryosleep and landing on Earth, attempting to seize control of the various factions on the planet. Upon their defeat in the season finale, rather than recognize the younger generations as their new leaders, the inmates bombed the planet, rendering its completely uninhabitable, with the last remnants of humanity entering cryosleep on a spaceship as it scoured the cosmos for a planet capable of supporting human life.
This recurring theme would similarly be explored as the last survivors from Earth arrived on the alien world of Sanctum in Season 6. The main characters discovered that the Primes ruling over the general populace like living gods had secretly been transferring their consciousnesses into newer, younger host bodies for approximately two hundred years as a twisted means of gaining immortality. Plotting to use the new arrivals from Earth as a fresh batch of potential hosts, the two factions clashed, resulting in all the Primes but their leader Russell being killed by the end of the season finale.
Judging by all the loose plot threads from the Season 6 finale, this trend will likely continue on in the final season. Diyoza's unborn daughter, Hope, has emerged from a temporal anomaly on Sanctum as an adult looking for assistance to rescue her mother from unknown forces. The Dark Commander, a malevolent program of past tribal leaders from Earth has escaped deletion and uploaded itself to a mystery location, sure to surface again with bloody vengeance. The program is sins of previous generations personified, in a manner of speaking, and would make a logical final antagonist for the characters as the series nears its end.
In addition to its themes of survivalism and the extreme lengths individuals go just to stay alive, The 100 has not so subtly expounded that new generations are used and abused by those that came before, impending their own inheritance of society. With many of the older recurring characters killed over the course of Season 6, much of the remaining principal cast will forge ahead into an uncertain future. But, given the threats that they had faced over series' first six seasons, this may be the best opportunity for a fresh start.
The 100 airs on The CW Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT. The series stars Eliza Taylor, Paige Turco, Marie Avgeropoulos, Bob Morley, Henry Ian Cusick, Lindsey Morgan, Richard Harmon and Tasya Teles.