Wonder Con 2014: The 100

This past Saturday at Wonder Con 2014, some of the cast of the new CW series The 100, including Eliza Taylor (Clarke), Isaiah Washington (Chancellor Jaha), Devon Bostick (Jasper), Bob Morley (Bellamy) and Lindsey Morgan (Raven) as well as Jason Rothenberg, the show’s executive producer, took to the stage at the Anaheim Convention Center.

After seeing a sneak peek at the opening scene of tonight’s episode entitled “His Sister’s Keeper”, the panelist got down to business talking about the new futuristic drama with Jason sharing that viewers will start to see much more of “The Grounders” starting in this episode. He further mentioned that actor Ricky Whittle (from the box office movie Austenland) is “The Grounder” who was seen standing over Octavia at the end of last week’s episode; and he will play a key role in tonight’s episode.

The direction of the panel was wide and varied, covering a number of plot points including the following:

• Viewers just might get to see, in flashbacks, why Bellamy shot Chancellor Jaha; and the very important reason WHY Bellamy chose to shoot him;

• John Murphy (recurring guest star Richard Harmon) may have been banished, but the surviving members of the 100 have not seen the last of him;

• With the arrival of Raven on Earth, the dynamic will obviously change between Clarke and Finn (series regular Thomas McDonell) and her “MacGyver skills” will be put to use especially with Clarke’s goal of reaching ‘the Ark’;

• Jason does not see Kane (series regular Henry Ian Cusick) as a villain because Kane is “honest and wants to keep humans alive” after all he convinced Jaha to not join the 300 volunteers who sacrificed their lives for the rest of the survivors on ‘the Ark’;

• Jasper was actually supposed to die after being speared in the pilot, but “Devon was so great” (according to Jason) that they “knew we had to keep him around”; and,

• The show will continue to delve into the darker, baser levels of the human condition simply because of the circumstances the surviving members of the 100 find as each day passes; and it is possible that once communication is established with ‘the Ark’ that others could come down to Earth too (but nothing was confirmed).

There was also a good bit of joking going on during the panel with some of the cast giving Eliza and Bob (who are both Australian) a hard time about their accents. Devon, Lindsey and Isaiah all started using their own brand of Australian accents to tease while Jason shared there will be a lot of accidental Australian on the blooper reel for the first season. Eliza also revealed she was a dialect coach in Australia so that background has helped her to maintain her American accent while in character.

During the audience Q&A, Jason was asked if the show was following the book “The 100” by Kass Morgan on which the series is based; but he shared that “the show is written in a different direction than the books (with) neither beholden to the other”.

The take-away from the panel came from Jason when he said, “you never know what will happen, but the show is about how they will survive, not just about who will couple up”. To see what happens next, check out the clip below and make sure to watch the next new episode of The 100, which will air on The CW tonight, April 23 at 9/8c.