TV Review: SNOWPIERCER: Season 1, Episodes 9-10: The Train Demanded Blood / 994 Cars Long [TNT]

Snowpiercer The Train Demanded Blood / 994 Cars Long Review

TNT‘s Snowpiercer: Season 1, Episodes 9-10: The Train Demanded Blood / 994 Cars Long is the culmination of a season of high-end entertainment containing mostly well-thought-out twists and turns, good character moments, limited CGI, and acting that floated scenes and scenarios through rough batches of track.

Pike Made Empty

I hoped it wouldn’t happen, that my supposition was wrong regarding These Are His Revolutions, but it does happen in the final two episodes of Snowpiercer‘s first season. Pike (Steven Ogg) transforms from ardent rebel in First, the Weather Changed to full-blown, self-centered buffoon in The Train Demanded Blood and 994 Cars Long.

Pike, who should be Layton’s second-in-command, his trusted right hand, is now the show’s fool with no moral mooring or no cause but himself. He has thrown off the facade of caring about others, about caring for The Tail, about the cause of liberation. He has traded all that in for cake, good food, and clean sheets. He has become a cartoon version of the very people that previously oppressed him. And what’s worse, he lacks the ability to self-examine and see this for himself.

The Train Decoupling and the Sacrifice

When the train decoupling / re-coupling plan is initially mentioned, the viewer can’t quite picture all of its elements until it happens on-screen, even then its partially unbelievable. So many things could go wrong. It is only raw mathematical calculation and momentum that keep things on track (no pun intended). But it is the human element of the plan, human emotion, that almost derails it.

Police Detective Andre Layton (Daveed Diggs)’s great moment of realization during the train decoupling / re-coupling comes when he is again face-to-face with Melanie Cavill (Jennifer Connelly). She sees in his face and in his eyes the cost of the human lives Layton has just sacrificed for the greater good.

For his part, Layton sees Melanie differently after he decouples the train. Melanie is no longer a monster to be despised. She is now a human being who has been thrust time and time again into a position where she had to make impossible choices, where it was the salvation of humanity verses some vile act, something that chipped away at the old Melanie and began creating the new Melanie. That process has begun again for Layton. I say “again” because he had already gone down this track, briefly, when he killed the cannibals in The Tail to save innocent people from being murdered for food.

The Folger’s Comeuppance

It’s rare that power-grabbers and a villain get delivered their comeuppance so resoundingly and so thoroughly yet that is exactly what happens to Lilah Folger, Sr. (Kerry O’Malley), Robert Folger (Vincent Gale), and Lilah “LJ” Folger Jr. (Annalise Basso) in The Train Demanded Blood and 994 Cars Long. The best part about what happens to all three of them is that none of them see it coming until either its too late or its already happened.

When Lilah Folger, Sr. and Robert Folger know their fate is sealed in The Train Demanded Blood and Lilah Sr. begins to breakdown (great acting), it is her husband’s steel and affection that comforts her (or at least that is his goal). It also says a lot about their character that the Folgers verbalize their desire for their daughter’s well-being, realizing that their psychopath off-spring will be alone in the world with no one to protect her and shield her, like they had already done, from her own maleficence.

It is a beautiful moment of awareness, maternal longing, and despair between two doomed parents.

LJ Folger’s luxurious world-as-she-knows-it comes to a comical close in 994 Cars Long, when The Tail and Third Class’ disgust for her boils over. This should be a pivotal scene for a loathed yet complex character but it isn’t. The entire scene is a cartoon, led by a cartoon – Pike. The scene is all goofiness and flamboyant excess. Even LJ’s reaction to her parents’ death is off. LJ is a psychopath that castrated and helped kill two men. She has learned and fakes human emotions, a facade she threw off for Layton in Without Their Maker.

That is what makes LJ’s reactions so dubious in 994 Cars Long.

Why is LJ crying in 994 Cars Long? Whom are her tears for? Does she make herself cry and fake despair to get the room invaders to leave her family’s compartment? Is this some type of attempted emotional manipulation? I am not a psychopath expert. I don’t know what range of emotions they can or can’t feel. Maybe LJ’s tears are real. It just seems off when one thinks of LJ’s previous actions and displayed emotions.

And then there are LJ’s aggressive qualities (AQ).

Where is LJ’s famous temper, her boiling anger, her berserker rage when Pike puts his hands on her in 994 Cars Long? There is nothing. Not one ounce of her advertised, relevant, and characteristic reaction is present. This breaks character continuity. Case and point: Layton accuses her of murder and LJ attacks him with a knife yet Pike enters her parents’ compartment abroad Snowpiercer without permission, begins taking her parents possessions (all she has left of her dead parents), threatens her, physical takes hold of her, and  psychotic, hot-tempered LJ does nothing? It is character contradictions like this, and a lack of consistency, that break engagement with characters, scenes, and possibly entire TV series.

Layton is the New Wilfred & Chaos Follows

The interim between the overthrow of one regime and the installation of another sometimes does not go smoothly, especially when no fore-thought is given to the transition period. Never once does the viewer hear Layton mention this critical time period in his overthrow plans and the results of that lack of detail is on full display in 994 Cars Long. Everyone on Snowpiercer begins deferring to Layton, his judgement, and his command but outside of big issues, outside of those borders, people do as they please (the most flagrant example of this being Pike).

Door Nonsense

What makes no sense in 994 Cars Long and what never made sense on Snowpiercer are the implant door keys. A simple murder and excision would give you access to certain doors all over the train. After the revolt, top level implant door keys can be purchased. Who thought up implant door keys as a plot-point? It’s a stupid as military jacket sleeve keys from the Lost in Space remake on Netflix. Wouldn’t an encrypted key card, retina scan, and password (in effect, three keys) be much more secure than something that could be cut out of someone wrist, easily transferred, or sold?

It’s idiotic plot-points like this that drag Snowpiercer down rather than elevating it into the sublime science fiction stratosphere it sometimes deserves.

Obviously the lack of security with implant door keys is intentional by Snowpiercer‘s writers. They want people to be able to easily acquire them to make the plotting of the series easier and to facilitate part of the chaos after the rebellion has come and gone. The same chaos, however, could have been instituted through a different medium, not though a sloppy implant door key story-line.

The Odd Reconciliation

After what Zarah Ferami (Sheila Vand) did to Josie Wellstead (getting her tortured and killed) in The Universe Is Indifferent, and the fact that Zarah is pregnant notwithstanding, its hard to believe that Layton talks to Zarah, let alone reconciles with her. Zarah’s justification for her betrayal of Josie is weak, to say the least. The fact that Layton allows Josie’s betrayal/murder to be water-under-the-bridge, a few days after her death and while the wound is still raw and gaping, is unbelievable (though Layton’s reaction is not Layton’s fault. It is the fault of the person that wrote this portion of episode’s script, Graeme Manson). One would think Layton would never speak to Zarah again expect in regard to the child but this version of Layton is unfathomably forgiving yet he doesn’t forgive the trespasses of Second and First Class against The Tail (hence the rebellion). This is a large contradiction in character, one that need not be present if more planning had taken place with Layton’s character arc in correlation with human emotion.

The Second Train

The second train is one of the best surprises in 994 Cars Long / The Train Demanded Blood, second only to the decoupling and re-coupling of Snowpiercer. When the second train comes bursting through the snow, it is a shock but not a big shock if you are familiar with the source material for Snowpiercer.

It is the fact that this occurrence is coupled with the betrayal of Melanie by Engineer Bennett Knox (Iddo Goldberg) that makes the appearance of a second train even better. In this critical moment, Knox is more loyal to what could be aboard the supply train than to the person he has been taking orders from for the last six years. He knew the argument that Melanie would present before Melanie even presented it which is why he tries to keep the existence of the second train a secret for as long as possible, to shorten her response time and truncate the available options. It is a calculated, clever move and shows that Knox knows Melanie as well as Melanie knows herself.

The multi-train sequences during this part of 994 Cars Long adds something to the series that it previous didn’t have – a race against the inevitable i.e. Snowpiercer battling against a juggernaut that keeps coming and coming, like the creature in The Terror.

Acts of Courage against The Second Train

The viewer already knows that Melanie Cavill is brave but she takes it to another level when she ventures outside of Snowpiercer to deal with the second train. Running and jumping while un-tethered to Snowpiercer is an example of why Snowpiercer needs Melanie so much. She is willing to do what it takes to keep the train moving and its people alive, even if that means risking her own life to do it. It is unfortunate that no one witnesses or is privy to her acts of heroism on behalf of Snowpiercer.

Enter the Shocking Stranger

When the stranger (Rowan Blanchard) walks from the back of the entry port of the supply train to the opening cut into Snowpiercer, the viewer expects actor Sean Bean, the viewer expects Wilford. That is not who eventually stands before the assembled crowd. As the girl’s questions narrow to Hospitality and then Melanie Cavill, the intrepid viewer guesses who this young lady is before she announces it. It is an impressive surprise, with only one person there realizing the gravity of the girl’s identity (that person’s breathless exclamation punctuates the moment).

When it comes to Wilford, it is a good decision by the writers of Snowpiercer not to reveal him this season. Viewers already had fake Mr. Wilford during Season One. Save the real Wilford, and all the wonder and destruction that he brings with him, for next season.

The viewer that cares about human drama is looking forward to two reunions next season on Snowpiercer: 1.) Melanie and the girl looking for her and 2.) Melanie and Mr. Wilford. The former will be heart-warming and teary and latter will be a clash of wills (and possibly revenge). I am looking forward to second meeting the most. That is the one that will have the farthest reaching implications for everyone on Snowpiercer and the supply train.

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