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Exclusive: “The 100” EP Jason Rothenberg on this week’s game-changing episode, “Thirteen”

AE: Awesome! On a related note, the way that the internet is now, you’re right there with the fans interacting with them on Twitter, do you enjoy that, or does it sometimes get clouded by all the negativity?

JR: I definitely enjoy it. I think it’s incredible. It’s definitely a double-edged sword that access to the people who star in and create the television shows we all love is so direct now. When I was younger, I could not imagine being upset with a storyline and emailing the creator of that show or publicly tweeting that person and saying, “You asshole!” you know? That would have been something that wasn’t possible a few years ago. And so, while yes, the negativity is sometimes hard to deal with, I never fail to see it as anything other than a blessing that our fans are so passionate, and I understand. This is an episode that’s going to inspire some very intense reaction, and in part, that’s what we were trying to do. Anger and sadness and all of those things are part of the experience, I think—the drama.

AE: What’s it like in the writer’s room when you write a scene, or an episode like this, that you just know is going to make everyone lose their minds?

JR: It’s funny because this season, and our first season, we were a mid-season show, which means we were writing the whole season before it ever aired. So there’s not a lot of like, “Oh my God, they’re going to crucify us for this!” or “They’re really going to love this!” kind of thing. It’s just, we’re trying to tell the best story that we can, and honestly, entertain ourselves, entertain me. If it can get past me then usually it’s gonna make it all the way to the air. That said, we’re also not naive. There is a big following now, and we anticipate reaction. The good news is, as I said, we’re not reacting to it week to week because the show’s already in the can.

AE: Every episode, but especially this episode, in particular, is very female-heavy; Clarke, Lexa, and Octavia are all huge parts of this episode. Did you guys sit down and go, “Okay I want five-10 of the most badass female characters we can possible come up with? Or did it just evolve to that?

JR: You know what, we’re obviously very proud of the women in our show, but we don’t write them as “female characters” necessarily. They’re just people. There’s no—and I say this all the time—but it’s not “What is your gender?” or “What is your sexual orientation?” or “What is your race?” That doesn’t matter. It’s “Are you strong, or not?” “Can you save my life today?” or “Are you going to kill me today?” Those are the things that divide the people in this show. It’s about survival. And nobody cares who you love or who you sleep with or what color you are. Maybe that’s why the women in this show are so strong, because we look at them as “Are you weak or are you strong?”

Credit: Liane Hentscher/The CW

AE: On that note, when you guys decided Clarke was going to be bisexual and interested in Lexa, was that a conscious decision, and did you know that having your main character be part of the LGBT community would be huge?

JR: Thinking about how it’s going to resonate in the LGBT community wasn’t really part of the process in terms of, “Wow, this is going to be really big in that community.” It was more of how we feel here. We definitely wanted that to be something that is dramatized the way that everything else in our world is dramatized. Meaning, it doesn’t matter! It doesn’t matter that she’s straight or gay or bi. It just matters who she loves, to her. And is she a good character or a bad character, is she weak or is she strong? That’s a little simplistic because I realize that we live in the real world, and in the real world people are fighting for equal rights, and it’s really important. And I’m part of that fight, just by helping to portray gay and lesbian and bisexual characters like that, and I’m proud of that for sure. But again, within the context of the universe of the show, it’s not an issue.


AE: And I think that’s what people gravitate toward and connect to. In this world that doesn’t look anything like ours, that’s one part that we would love our world to look like. It’s an interesting juxtaposition. No, we don’t want to be at war like the Skaikru and Trikru, but this part of this world would be awesome.

JR: Well, yeah. I also think that the truth about human nature, for better for worse, is like the expression—and this doesn’t necessarily apply specifically—but, “There are no atheists in foxholes.” It’s like when you’re in a situation where it’s life or death, and you have to depend on the people that are with you for whether you’re going to survive the day, those types of divisions drop away. I think that’s the real world too, it’s just human nature. I wish it didn’t take that, I wish it didn’t take situations where our lives were in danger or a military situation for those dividing lines to drop away, and maybe I’m being naive to suggest that they do completely, even in the real world, but I do think that’s something we’re trying to dramatize, that part of human nature, or that instinct to pull together when things are really difficult and overlook the things that divide us that shouldn’t divide us.

AE: On the life or death note, the pace of this season is absolutely insane. I keep saying that every single episode feels like a season finale. How have you been able to keep up that pace, and are you going to keep it up for the rest of Season 3?

JR: [laughs] Well, we’ve always told stories really fast, that’s just the way I like to do things. Some people have argued too fast at times, I know there’s been some criticism about it, the Bellamy story for instance, this season. That’s just the way my mind tells stories. I feel like every season is its own movie, really, that’s told in 16 parts. And I like to be able to really reshuffle the deck every season, expose a new part of the world, introduce new characters, and tell a new story. So, some of that quick storytelling at the beginning of the season is necessitated by the demand of telling such a big story in such a compact amount of time. So the answer to your question is – and I really appreciate you saying that every episode feels like a finale—that we like every episode to be an event. We need things to happen all the time on this show, it’s an eventful world, it’s not a soap opera, it’s not a world where people can spend a lot of time processing their feelings. Again, because the other shoe is about to drop all the time.

AE: Do you have an ideal number of seasons you think it would take to fully tell the story? Or are your plans more open-ended so it could go on forever?

JR: I feel like this is not the kind of show that’s built for a forever run. That said, decisions like that aren’t really in my power, so I’m going to tell the story for as many seasons as I’m interested in it. And right now, I think it’s incredible, I’ve never been happier creatively in my entire life. I love these characters; I love this world. I definitely see an end point; if I could wave a magic wand and I controlled things, I would be able to get us to a really cool end point in the right amount of time. I’m not going to say how long that is because, again, that’s really not my decision.

AE: Do you have a favorite scene that we didn’t get to see? Something you wanted to see that didn’t end up being written, or was written and didn’t end up airing?  

JR: The truth is, unfortunately, a lot of times, these episodes, director’s cuts come in long, and we have to get it down to 42 minutes. Usually, we do that by cutting out the stuff that’s not that good, so if something’s really good, it’s usually going to end up in the show. Occasionally, things have to go because you get down to that point where you’re at 46 minutes, and you need to lose more. For instance, in the last episode, in 306, there was a little bit of a scene between Monroe and Monty, right after Jasper and Abby have their scene about whether or not he should take the chip, Monty, and Monroe are sitting there having a drink together and the camera’s on them, and they shared a little bit about what was going on in their heads. Which was, on Monroe’s side, “I trust Bellamy, I’m going to follow Bellamy.” And Monty was questioning what Pike was doing, and the fact that Clarke and the others are on the other side, and his mother was on the wrong side, as it is in our minds, and he’s following his mother. And we sense that, and I really wish that could have been in the show because frankly I think people rightly have questions as to why Monty and Monroe were on that mission in 306. I’ve actually thought about putting that out as a clip for people; it had to go for time, sadly. But anyway, good question because it made me think of that. Maybe I will put that out.

Check out The 100 on The CW, Thursday nights at 9/8c, and tweet along with us using the hashtag #LadyKru!

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