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Tuesday, April 30, 2019

The 100 Interview: Bob Morley Previews What's New and What's Same Ol' in Season 6



The 100 takes the characters we know, puts them 125 years in the future on a brand new planet as the show starts Season 6 in "Sanctum." What's being called Book 1 finished with last year's finale and now the story moves to Book 2. 

We visited the The 100 set with a group of reporters and spoke with Bob Morley about what's coming up for Bellamy, including what his relationships are like after what happened before the Earth was destroyed last season. Read on for edited excerpts from the conversation. 

What’s the relationship going to be like with Bellamy and Clarke now that they’re kind of leaders again? Last season there were some challenges, so how are they going to work through that?

They still have to kind of resolve what went down last season with Madi, putting the chip into Madi, being left in the fighting pits, and being on opposite sides of warring factions. So that’s something that definitely is touched upon and they have to figure out a way to be able to get through that. But it’s really taking in that mantra from Monty, “Do better and be the good guys,” that they’re both trying to adopt and work upon. It’s a work in progress, as it is most seasons. The challenge of trying to do the right thing and even trying to define what the right thing is and the “good guy” terminology is in a new planet where everything’s new basically.

In the beginning of the season, how do they decided who to wake up and why to wake those people up?

BOB MORLEY: I think it comes down to – like the exciting thing about this season is there’s a whole kind of new adventure squad and a whole new group of people. Bellamy obviously has ties to Spacekru, but you know, this exploring this new planet he’s not too familiar with, there’s a bit of deliberation about who to take. I don’t want to spoil that just yet, but yeah. I don’t want to spoil that at all in fact.

Can you tease anything about Bellamy’s relationship with Jordan [Shannon Kook] because that relationship was kind of sprung onto him a bit.

BOB MORLEY: It’s kind of funny, at the end of the season he kind of becomes this surrogate parent, him and Clarke, with Jordan. Jordan’s such an interesting character because he’s spent his whole life on a spaceship with just his mom and dad. I know if I spent – what is he like 24?  -- 25 years with just my parents, I’d probably be a little bit insane. Take from that what you will. Shannon’s a great addition to the cast, and he’s a lot of fun. Jordan is a very quirky kind of character that I don’t think we’ve necessarily seen that much on our show, so I think Bellamy is a little taken back by it, not really sure how to deal with that situation, but it’s an exciting addition that’s for sure. 

Are there any parallels between his relationship with Jordan and Bellamy’s relationship with Octavia, who was in kind of a similar situation, where she grew up a little bit confined?

Yeah, I guess there’s always those parallels. I mean, we all grew up on a spaceship, now that I’m thinking about it, so I guess it’s not too far removed from what they were used to. In terms of the parallels, Jordan and Bellamy haven’t gone through those trials and tribulations that Bellamy and Octavia have, so there’s not all that baggage there that has to be unpacked. Maybe there are some similarities, but they’re jumping off at two different points basically this season.

Bellamy and Madi kind of developed a bond in the finale. How do they kind of pick up and do they rely on each other at all?

Now that Clarke’s back on the same side now, it’s more of a Madi/Clarke situation there. Bellamy, as always, kind of has to think about his family with Octavia. He’s more or less dealing with Spacekru because that was kind of defined as his family -- and Octavia. Not that Madi isn’t part of that, but it’s definitely more of a Madi/Clarke situation because they were on opposite sides of the war at the end of Season 5, so it’s something they have to deal with too. When it comes to storytelling, I’m sure that that’s the story that you’ll see. Bellamy and Madi are probably going through a lot of stuff off-screen. 

Talking about Spacekru, do they still see themselves as Spacekru and the Grounders? Is there Wonkru still? 

I think Wonkru kind of disbanded, especially at the end when Indra said, “You broke Wonkru,” to Octavia. Whether or not Octavia is taking that on board, I don’t know. Maybe you can press Marie about it. It’s very much about exploring this new world, and it’s not necessarily – old alliances aren’t hanging around as much as they have been previously. So yeah, press Marie. You’ll probably get more answers out of her. 

On Bellarke.  Any chance it’s going to be this year that we might see them?

Oh wow, I don’t know. I guess just as much chance as there was all those other years? That’s just a minefield right there. Have you guys had this soup? [Morley picks up a cup of soup.]

On Jordan

I wouldn’t say socially inept, but [Jordan] definitely has an awkwardness about him. There’s a real charm to him too that I think he’s really been able to encapsulate what Chelsea brought to Harper and Chris to Monty. It’s quite sweet actually. He looks crazily like the two of them melded together, which is great casting. But yeah, he does bring his kind of like a naive charm to the character that we haven’t seen in the show before. It’s quite nice. 

What can you tease about fun stuff coming up for Bellamy and Echo because they’ll pick up right where they left off, I assume?

I think we delve into a bit more of Echo’s backstory this year, which is quite nice. I think it’s something that we needed to flesh out and to start to understand where Echo is coming from. But yeah, those two, still very much in love. But yeah, we’ll be looking a bit more into that backstory there with Echo. Tas [Tasya Teles] does some great work, which I’m really excited for everyone to see. We’re going to get into the emotional realm with Echo and Bellamy, so yeah that’s a story to check out this year as well. 

Exploring this new world, were there any flashbacks in your mind to Season 1? 

BOB MORLEY: For me as an actor, I’m like, “Yeah this is kind of funny,” because it does feel like the show’s been recreated. We’re doing a new planet, and I think there are even some lines about déjà vu or “We’ve done this before,” or this, that and the other. So there are callbacks for sure. It’s once again building a world. We’ve had the last five seasons kind of fleshing out the Grounder mythology and all that, so this year it’s much more figuring out a new world and building that story behind those new people that we come across.

This is a show that reboots itself almost every season. Now that you’ve kind of reached the point where you’re literally blowing up the world and starting completely fresh, do you think that there’s actually a way to top this and do it again this year?

Look we’re definitely giving it a crack. We have some new writers to the team. You can tell there’s like new voices coming in. The show feels quite different. We still hold strong to the same core values and stuff like that – whatever values we do have, brutal values – but yeah, having a new set of writers, you can hear their voices come through and the world being totally different. It’s different for sure, but it’s exciting. I’ve always thought that Jason and his writing team have found a way to recreate the wheel almost every season, and this is basically just doing that all again but on a larger scale. 

The 100 premieres Tuesday, April 30 on the CW.

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