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SYFY WIRE Interviews

The 100's Bob Morley talks about rebooting the series for Season 6

By Bryan Cairns
The 100 Season 6 poster

The 100 hit the reset button in the Season 4 finale, "Damocles – Part Two."

In order to escape McCreary's missile attack, Bellamy, Clarke, and Earth's remaining population boarded the Eligius and blasted off into space. Due to limited food supplies and no place to call home, everyone entered a cryogenic slumber for 10 years. Unfortunately, when Bellamy and Clarke awoke, they discovered 125 years had passed. To further complicate matters, the ship landed on a new planet, where Monty and Harper's grown-up son, Jordan, greeted them. Governed by a peaceful society, the inhabitants appeared to be happy and enjoying life. However, this utopia proved too good to be true.

When The 100 returns on April 30, the survivors soon learn that an eclipse-induced psychosis turns the locals into raving lunatics. Now Bellamy and company must once again rely on each to survive … or risk being swallowed up by this world's madness.

During a The 100 set visit in November, Bob Morley, who plays Bellamy, spoke to SYFY WIRE and other members of the press about his character's tough decisions, shifting relationships, rebooting the series, and directing an episode.

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

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, exploring this new planet he's not too familiar with, there's a bit of deliberation about who to take.

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

They still have to 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 is trying to do the right thing, and even trying to define what the right thing is and the "good guy" terminology, on a new planet where everything's basically new.

The 100's Bellamy and Clarke

Can you tease anything about Bellamy's relationship with Jordan because that relationship was sprung onto him?

It's kind of funny, at the end of the season, Bellamy 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 Kook'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.

Bellamy and Madi developed a bond in the finale. How do they 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 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 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. 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.

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

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, so this year it's much more figuring out a new world and building that story behind those new people that we come across.

The 100's Bellamy

I feel like to some extent 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 are 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.

Can you talk about directing this season?

Yeah, I actually just got an email from Jason [Rothenberg] just now. I'm going to have a chat with him and go through it again. I did the two-month workshop class at Warner Bros., which is really, really, really helpful, and I'm very lucky to be able to direct on this year, and with this cast and this crew. I wouldn't want to do it with anyone else, and I feel very comfortable on this show. It's a terrifying challenge, but it's something that I think I've been leaning towards. I've been reluctantly kind of – like I've been actively pursuing it, but also reluctantly kind of saying I want to do it.

So, when Jason and Ed Fraiman gave me the call, I was very surprised. I think it's something that I want, but I'm also terrified of it too. It's a big crew, and it's a big cast. It's quite an undertaking, but I'm just trying to get my head around it all and forge on. It's going to be cool. I'm really excited to be able to direct my friends and be able to sit there and enjoy their work as opposed to me being in the scene and my head, like running a thousand miles an hour thinking about my performance, I'll be able to sit behind the monitor and just kind of enjoy it, enjoy watching them work. That's a really cool thing for me.