The Curious Case of John Murphy

One lazy Saturday, when I had nothing to do, I decided to give ‘The 100’ a shot. While it had an interesting premise, I had, for the longest time, resisted watching it because I did not want to invest in a show that I might have to leave mid-way (wouldn’t be the first). Three episodes into season 3, I am in love! The show is brutal and unrelenting. Just when you think you have prepared yourself for what is coming, the show flips everything around and you are left gasping.

The show’s basic premise is about a group of people struggling for their lives in a post-apocalyptic world. So it’s no surprise that the show has plethora of characters, each of whom is going through their own personal struggles and a collective battle. When you have a dozen or so main characters, each of whom are well etched, it is tough for any one character to stand out. And yet one character does, and spectacularly so. And his name is John Murphy, popularly known as Murphy.

Essayed flawlessly by Richard Harmon, Murphy starts off in Season 1 as a side character you don’t even pay attention to. He is Bellamy’s crony, there to do his dirty work and take pleasure while doing it. Murphy is a bully who has aligned himself to the biggest bully in the field. It doesn’t matter to him that Bellamy’s motives are entirely different from his own. Murphy simply enjoys the freedom and the power and is happy to abuse it. He gleefully pushes a girl’s face near fire and pees on a guy, just for the heck of it.

But then, he is lynched, by the very mob that he had been antagonizing, for a crime he did not commit. The truth comes out and Clarke and Finn manage to save him. Unsurprisingly, this becomes the turning point of Murphy’s character. When he returns after a brief disappearance, he is at his darkest and evilest. What Murphy does at that point is unforgiveable and yet, you understand why he is doing it. He is angry and you know it.

SPOILERS: He kills two people, probably burns down the food shack (it is subtle, but I am inclined to believe it was him), takes Jasper hostage, hangs Bellamy, shoots Raven and even uses up some of the precious gun powder to make his escape. SPOILER END.

Season two starts with Murphy and Raven having a candid chat and for the first time, Murphy’s self-deprecating humor shows through. “Yeah, I would’ve shot me too.” I don’t know many characters that possess that kind of honest insight about themselves. He even goes on to help Raven, the person he’d shot and the one who had tried to shoot him. His reason? “I don’t want to die alone”.

From then on, Murphy begins a journey of deep introspection. We see him accept that he is not the good guy but he tries to be useful. I for one was very surprised and impressed when he gives it his all to save Bellamy and a minor character (Mel). Later, Murphy becomes the voice of reason while Finn spirals into madness. He tries to stop Finn, as the latter loses control and the outcome is devastating.

Later, in a brilliant move, the show writers pair him (not romantically) with Thelonious Jaha (The Chancellor of the Ark) as the duo go on a journey of self-discovery. The writers could not have chosen two more unlikely characters to pair up. Murphy is the guy that everyone likes to hate while Jaha is the former hero who finds himself becoming irrelevant in the changing world. Both of them are striving to find a place among their people and both are failing.

And so, Murphy follows while Jaha leads. But the latter is chasing a dream, a notion so vague that it might as well be an illusion. Here Murphy brings in some wry humor as he gets increasingly frustrated with Jaha’s madness.

Jaha is a good man but he has lived by the motto of “sacrifice for the greater good” and he takes that belief to the point of fanaticism. There is nothing and no one Jaha wouldn’t give up, if he believed that it was for the ‘greater good’. So much so that even Murphy is horrified. The end of season two sees the duo part their ways for Jaha’s brand of insanity is too much for Murphy to take.

Season three begins with Murphy trapped in isolation for forty days and Richard Harmon portrays the character’s pain marvelously.

I shall not delve further into what happens with John Murphy, because to be honest, I am still not sure what is happening with the whole ‘City of Light’ arc and how it connects with the rest of the story.

Suffice to say though, John Murphy is a rare gem of a character whose journey needs to be seen to be believed. He is not a ‘good’ person. By his own admission, he’s the guy everyone hates. But Murphy shows that even the ‘bad’ people can do ‘good’. As the dark, morally compromised world unravels itself, Murphy finds himself caught right in the middle of it and somehow, is the lesser of the two evil. He has the capability to kill, but he is like an animal. He attacks when cornered or in pain. The cruelty of humans, the ability to kill people for an idea is something that Murphy finds abhorrent. And therein lies the beauty of this complex character. In fact, he is one of the main reasons I love the show as much as I do.

As a writer, I find him very intriguing and his character arc is something I would be following very closely. I want to know what route he takes from here on and will this character retain his true self through the journey? Will he ascend or descend? These are questions I am eager to get the answers to. And if the past two seasons have been anything to go by, the writers of ‘The 100’ will exceed all expectations.