Morgan: I wonder why, Eric!
IGN: [Laughs] She obviously went through a lot last year but going into this season, where is her head and her body at as far as moving forward?
Morgan: Her leg has just gotten worse, basically. You last saw her in Season 2 with the bone marrow extraction and the bomb at the dam. She was already vulnerable to begin with and then just thrown into hell all over again. They don’t have the medical tools to fix her. They have help at Mount Weather but Raven is being stubborn and doesn’t want to go through any kind of surgery again or anything to fix it. That may be dumb of her, which isn’t really part of her character, but her stubbornness and her need to fix herself without anyone’s help is in her character. She’s going through chronic pain with her body, to where she wakes up every day in pain, she wakes up in in the middle of the night in pain, and that’s taking a toll, just mentally. With this pain comes a great depression. You see Raven in the beginning as just probably the worst she’s ever been. She’s not letting anyone in, not talking to anyone. Her and Wick broke up. So she’s kind of alone in her dark cloud and won’t let anyone help her out.
IGN: Abby is trying to get through to her. Is Raven listening at all or is she just filtering her out too?
Morgan: It’s funny, because Abby is the person in the best position to help Raven and who cares about Raven the most, in her vicinity and thus Raven is pushing her the farthest away and completely blocking her out. Raven loves Abby and I think she really sees her as a mother figure she’s always wanted but Raven is refusing anyone’s help because she feels too inadequate within herself. Coming from such a person who is used to being able to fix anything, she can’t understand how she can’t fix herself and she refuses to let anyone see her weakness. IGN: The characters on The 100 have gone through these crazy transformations since the show began.
Morgan: Oh my god, we look so different. I was just talking to Devon [Bostick] about that, because, you know, he has the new shaved hair and facial hair and everything. We were just talking about that and I was like “God, we all looked like such babies.” You really see us grown up now and he was like “Yeah, we were kind of little kids. I went from playing 16 to 24.” But with that said, everything they’ve gone through really makes them grow up quickly. I think you see that with all our characters. I think everyone’s character has evolved. We’ve all begun to carry ourselves with a little more gravity and a little bit more pain and maturity and an understanding of the complexities of the world and I think that’s what you gain when you become an adult… It sucks! [Laughs] Continue to Page 2 as Morgan discusses her big theory about Raven’s mentor, Sinclair, and more.
IGN: Another character that Raven has a connection with is Sinclair and the two of you have some good material together in one of the early episodes this season. Obviously, we know he was her boss but is he someone that she looks up to?
Morgan: Yeah, Sinclair is the Chief of Engineering. When we had her first scenes together, I remember writing in my script “Obama.” Sinclair would be like Obama to Raven. He’s someone she highly respects and really admires and wants to do her best for. He is someone that has become a mentor figure for her and seen her potential from the beginning. He’s the reason why she got to be a mechanical engineer at all. She owes a lot to him and always wants to impress him and do well… But I secretly think he’s her dad.
IGN: [Laughs] You do?
Morgan: Yes! Come on, we don’t know who Raven’s dad is. We look alike. He’s the Chief of Engineering. My guess is that he hooked up with my mom, they had a secret love child, and because he was kind of high up in the status of the Ark and my mom was kind of in the lower parts, they couldn’t be together. So they had me and he Mrs. Doubtfired himself all throughout my life. So slowly he was, like, leaving a wrench at my little pod. And slowly, “My doll is missing but look at this book on mechanics,” and somehow I became interested in mechanical engineering. And also he’s the one with the heart murmur and he gave it to me. IGN: I like this theory! You’ve thought this through. Have you shared this with Jason or anyone else on the show?
Morgan: Oh, everyone knows. I’ve been pitching this for a season and a half. I still think it’s true. We have time. We have plenty of time.
IGN: The 100 panel today is very cool because it’s focused on the women of the show and this show has been applauded for the portrayal of these characters. Did you start to realize at a certain point how this was different from the norm on network TV, as far as how at the forefront the female characters are in a large ensemble like yours?
Morgan: Yeah, it’s funny for me because I didn’t grow up with TV. When I started acting for fun, I would get the breakdowns; the character description and you’d get a project and it’d be ten male roles and two female roles and the girls were always blah blah’s girlfriend or blah blah’s wife or blah blah’s ex-wife or the slutty girl who takes her clothes off or the hot one at the bar. It really started to become a trend to me… All the women were portrayed as helpless or sexually unraveling to men. And I was like, “Why can’t this cool ass doctor or cool ass detective be a girl?” I started reading scripts and saying in my head “This character could easily be a girl… and why is it not?” I remember when I got the breakdown for Raven, I was; like, “Oh, this is awesome! She’s a mechanical engineelo… I love this!” I am a very independent and very self sufficient person, as a female, and this is someone that feels like me, finally. I felt like I was putting on my push up bra and my ditzy face for a lot of stuff and I was tired of playing at the lowest point of my intelligence.
Raven lets me play at the highest point of my intelligence. That’s the kind of female representation and character I’d like to use, myself, as an instrument to the world. It is a little unfortunate that it’s 2016 and our show is one of the first shows that has the majority as strong female roles. But I’m glad it’s happening now if it’s to happen, finally. I think representation matters so much because once you see it… It’s like Star Wars -- once you see Rey and a female character in a powerful position, it suddenly doesn’t seem so weird anymore. It suddenly doesn’t seem out of place. You’re like, “Oh, yeah! That’s the way it should be the way it is!” Then out of nowhere, there’s so many more female leads and so many other shows, like Quantico and what not. I think that’s fantastic. If we can represent, hopefully it will begin a trend so that it’s no longer a trend, but it’s the norm. It won’t be a new thing. it’s just reality. The 100: Season 3 premieres Thursday, January 21st at 9:00pm ET/PT on the CW.
Eric Goldman is Executive Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on Twitter at @TheEricGoldman, IGN at ericgoldman-ign and Facebook at Facebook.com/TheEricGoldman.