“Terms and Conditions” is episode eight of season three of The 100.
In the previous episode, “Thirteen”, where Murphy was being tortured by Titus, there was a drop capsule with the word ‘Polis’ on it – several letters had been lost, and it actually said Polaris – the capsule was from the destroyed station. The station itself was destroyed by the others and the AI on it, Alie, had hacked the nuclear launch codes and fired missiles at every major city, destroying much of the planet. Titus, whilst trying to protect Lexa by removing what he considered to be a threat – Clarke – by killing her. He planned to use Murphy as a patsy, and kill Clarke with a Skaikru weapon; unfortunately he accidentally shot Lexa herself. Major oops moment that, and it’s becoming very dangerous to become involved with Clarke – that’s two lovers who’ve died as a result of being involved with her.
In the back of Lexa’s neck was a scar, inside which was something that Titus said contained the knowledge of the Commanders. The thing was an animate piece of technology – A.L.I.E. 2.0, the upgraded and, hopefully, fixed version of Alie, and what she is looking for, presumably to destroy. The A.I. will pick the new Commander. This episode, however, takes place entirely in Arkadia.
Pike and Bellamy are informed that they have lost contact with one of their recon teams, which was forced to engage the Grounders. The Grounders are establishing a blockade against Arkadia. A parley party approaches and demands Pike surrender himself to them – or suffer the consequences. Bellamy shoots both members of the party, which probably won’t go down well.
Arkadia has got maybe a week of rations left if they can’t send out foraging parties due to the Grounders. Security is being tightened up, access to the prisoners is being restricted and Pike wants to start carrying out surveillance on the inhabitants of Arkadia to prevent any more orders being leaked out. Monty is put in charge of this but, although he’s on Pike’s side at the moment, he seems to be having doubts – and he may not be the only one. That’s probably not going to be popular with everyone, and may start cracks developing.
He is being spied on by Kane and his associates admittedly, and Pike wants to hunt down and punish those he considers to be traitors. Although they do not consider themselves to be traitors – else they would capture Pike and hand him over. Kane does tell Pike to hand himself in, as that’s the only way to end the war. Pike’s way is to kill as many of the Grounders as needed to make them stop. Neither believes the other is right.
Arkadia doesn’t have the ammunition they need for a prolonged war though, so Pike has a plan to basically shock and awe the Grounders into submission. However, the Grounders tend to react to force and death by throwing a lot more people into the field, so Kane things this is disastrous. However, this is a setup – but whose? Arkadia is starting to rip itself apart, and people are getting angry and confused.
Jaha is talking to Raven about what happened to the thirteenth station; she and Alie believe it fell into the ocean. Of course, we know it didn’t all end up there. Jaha wants to expand the population of the City of Light to increase Alie’s power, but they need more resources to make more chips – and Jasper looks like a suitable recruit, as he’s desperate for alcohol and no more is being made. They need to steal the chip maker to make more chips, and Jasper can help.