TV Review: SNOWPIERCER: Season 2, Episode 1: The Time of Two Engines [TNT]

Snowpiercer The Time of Two Engines Review

TNT‘s Snowpiercer: Season 2, Episode 1: The Time of Two Engines starts off where Season 1 ended – at the precipice of a revelation for one of the lead characters on the show, Melanie Cavill (Jennifer Connelly). It’s that moment that the viewer has been waiting to see resolved since it was introduced in 994 Cars Long – Melanie’s dead daughter being alive and what that would mean for Melanie – and it does not disappoint. In point of fact, it is gloriously complicated.

The fact that the unexpected happens – a dog prevents Melanie from running to her daughter and embracing her – makes the scene so much better than if the expected happens. That small tweak makes the scene more memorable. It keeps the emotional and physical breach between the two characters intact and the full reunification of mother and daughter from happening. It preserves that segment of their story-line for later usage in the season.

Alexandra’s Personality

Alexandra “Alex” Cavill (Rowan Blanchard)’s unmoved recitation of what happened to her and her grand-parents says a lot about her personality – she is able to control emotion instead of being ruled by it. In all of her scenes with her mother in The Time of Two Engines, Alex executes this feat far better than Melanie.

Animosity of the Left-behind

The fact that the people Melanie Cavill helped hire, some of whom made it onto Big Alice, have animosity toward her for being left behind, is completely understandable, especially since they’ve never heard her side of the story or have listened to the decision-making behind her choice to leave with Snowpiercer.

The Doctors

The two doctors, Mr. Headwood (Damian Young) and Mrs. Headwood (Sakina Jaffrey), will be far more entertaining than Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons (Fitz-Simmons) were on Agents of Shield. It was very quirky how the doctors’ internal (and behind-closed-doors) monologue was external in The Time of Two Engines, talking about a subject while the subject is within earshot.

Also telling is how the Headwoods watch the person that most-likely interviewed them for employment enter their arena from above in Big Alice.

Goop is a nice touch when it came to introducing the doctors and their innovative minds to the viewer but Goop is a mere plot device (a cure-all), an easy cope-out to quickly heal grievous injury on the show.

It would have been better if Melanie accumulated outer scars like a self-chastising priest, scars to mirror her internal wounds that she carries silently, like Sergeant Barnes in Oliver Stone‘s Platoon.

Melanie’s Exterior and Interior Growth

Years of human capital and precarious situation management abroad Snowpiercer have taught Melanie many lessons about human nature, leverage, and most importantly, chess.

Melanie calculates correctly that Mr. Wilford (Sean Bean) will try to leverage coupling and uncoupling Big Alice to his advantage as she had leveraged pain and suffering against the Tailes to gain their compliance.

Unbeknownst to Wilford in The Time of Two Engines, Melanie has grown in the expertise of leverage over seven grueling years as Snowpiercer’s leader and supervisor, beyond Wilford’s old memory of her.

Melanie knows what she is dealing with when it comes to Wilford but Wilford doesn’t when it comes to the new version of Melanie. When Wilford makes his big move against Snowpiercer through Alex in The Time of Two Engines, Melanie is ahead of them, having anticipated the eventual gambit. The Wilford / Alex move wasn’t hard for Melanie to discern – it is the single greatest piece of leverage that Wilford has, his ultimate weapon to gain compliance, like taking arms and executions had formerly been for Melanie.

Train Dichotomy

The dichotomy shown between the two trains in The Time of Two Engines is stark: one train is built for luxury while the other is a work-horse, all business, with very little-to-no amenities. The ‘luxury’ that is present on Big Alice is all in Wilford’s private estate (residence) on the train.

The Frozen Man

Icy Bob (Andre Tricoteux), the frozen tall man, is interesting. I am guessing he is a result of an experiment by the doctors either to save his life or to test a theory that they had. Either-way, the fact that he can exist in the extreme cold makes him a boon to Snowpiercer in the long run.

Regarding his future on the series, I hope they show what Icy Bob looked like before his transformation.

The Tall Bridge

The viewer may have wondered what was going to happen to The Tail after Big Alice connected to Snowpiercer in 994 Cars Long. That was answered rather quickly in The Time of Two Engines. The Tail has become a bridge, a toll-less gate, a thorough-fare between two cultures, two worlds.

Not in any Tailes wildest imagination did they ever dream that The Tail would become the most important point in the entire train, the engines and farm sections notwithstanding.

My question is how does Snowpiercer, even though they are now linked together “forever,” fortify that point against take-over attempts and from Wilford’s army rolling through it with Icy Bob in the vanguard, trying to takeover Snowpiercer?

The Pregnant Back-stabbing Snake

Police Detective Andre Layton (Daveed Diggs)’s eventual mental decision not to be angry with Zarah Ferami (Sheila Vand) for her betrayal of Josie because Zarah is pregnant, him forgiving that betrayal in 994 Cars Long and in The Time of Two Engines makes absolutely no sense. Here is the twisted black and white situation now present between Layton, Josie, Zarah, and rebellious Tailes: because you are pregnant, you get to betray your former comrade, the tail, get that former comrade arrested, tortured, and murdered and you will suffer no penalty for your actions. On top of that, as the new arbitrator of law and order on the train, Layton will forgive you, will emotionally turn on a dime, extinguish all of his animosity toward you over Josie’s death, and be your friend, protecting you from other Tailes incensed by your betrayal and your presence.

Bull Dung.

Layton is not Jesus. Layton is human. Zarah betrayed Josie knowing there was the very real possibility of torture, of her being made an example of i.e. maiming, or death. Knowing all that, Zarah did it anyway.

Snowpiercer‘s writers want the viewer to be believe that for Layton, because Zarah is pregnant, that all is forgiven, understandable, and water-under-the-bridge.

That is a monolithic-grade turning-of-the-cheek on Layton’s part. Nothing in the writing of his character shows that he is capable of such a feat. He just had sex with the woman that he cared about and had feelings for (Josie) a few days ago, she is killed, and he instantly forgives her betrayer because the betrayer is pregnant? No. That is not realistic. That is fantasy (even for a fantasy TV show). No one’s personality and emotions are like that. No one can 180 like that. Pregnancy does not give someone the right to get a person tortured and killed and it certainly doesn’t grant them a comeuppance pass.

Zarah was in an impossible situation – her growing fetus or Josie – but Layton isn’t.

Layton never has to speak to Zarah again. Layton can have Zarah punished for Josie’s death after Zarah gives birth with a long sentence in the Drawers. Will he?

Nope.

The Android (Layton), the one that preaches justice and democracy, will have forgotten all about Josie by then, a file deleted from his hard-drive, never to be thought of again.

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