2nd season of TNT’s Snowpiercer left the proverbial station this Monday night, wasting no time in causing a new dynamic between trains as he released the the tiniest suggestion of a main development.
Caught and arrested by a suppressed Big Alice supply train, the 994-car Snowpiercer has a 40-car jack on its back. Melanie’s undead daughter, Alex, shouted demands, issuing a “shopping list” (food, beer, books, chickens and Mr. Wilford’s favorite whiskey, etc.;) to be filled out by Andre & Co., so that your boss would not disengage the trains and leave Snowpiercer dead in the frozen water.
Meanwhile, Melanie – who had been thrown off the train the last time we tuned in – crawled under the coupling and started severing Big Alice’s connection to Snowpiercer’s systems. After a mutant-looking giant from Big Alice dragged its required food, Big Alice started its engines and trains started to move. Melanie shot between two wheels towards the hills along the track, where she realized that her suit had been punctured and she was freezing to death. While she was lying there, a snowflake fell on the surface of her helmet. This is a big business, we were reminded when she reported it to Ben, because the world had become too cold to even snow. So … the frozen Earth is starting to melt? Before boarding the accelerating train, Mel picked up a bottle of freshly dropped white substance.
Melanie was welcomed aboard Big Alice by Kevin, a bitter former colleague who electrocuted her with a cattle prod and led her to Mr. Wilford’s suite, where she was also reunited with her dog, Jupiter. Melanie urged Wilford to tell everything – how Big Alice waited for the moment to strike, taking a shortcut using the test trail in the Rockies before intercepting Snowpiercer in Chicago. Wilford, however, wants only one thing: the “keys” for Snowpiercer. And if he doesn’t catch them, he will “cast anchor” and make his old train stop below zero.
At that moment, Alex arrives and, while Melanie is shocked and very happy to see her daughter alive, Alex is “clearly disappointed”. Melanie explains how she sent people to pick up Alex, grandma and grandpa, but they never came back. Alex, however, is only concerned with informing Wilford about the “confusion” of a situation on the other train, including how someone named Layton is in charge (with the help of “that blonde in the cleaning service”) and how she didn’t see boots tall. She then causes Kevin to take his mother to prison.
Andre, however, has been researching the new world order, making sure that enough people are taking care of the tail, which is now a “frontier”. During a board meeting at Night Car, Ruth suggests that Melanie is “sorting things out” with Wilford, but Andre says, “A 40-car parasite doesn’t work out here” – and that, although tired of the revolution, they just fought , they need to hit Big Alice “before they hit we. ”After the meeting, some tailies intimidate Zarah about cheating on Josie, but Andre ends things, during which he learns that Zarah is pregnant with her child. Ruth is a little satisfied with the idea of a baby being born in Snowpiercer (and the “hope” that this brings), so she safely installs future parents in a first-class home that was vacated by an elderly couple who had cyanide left of the revolution. At Ruth’s request, Andre heads to the train via the PA system, saying that, given the new developments, they should put their democracy experiment on hold and “extend martial law until further notice”
Alex visits Melanie in the brig, saying that she remembers “less and less of the old world”. She explains how Grandma and Grandpa didn’t leave with the men Melanie sent, and Alex didn’t want to leave them behind. Alex then questions his mother about the snow sample found in his snow suit. Melanie says she was just curious, as she hadn’t been off the train in seven years, but Alex feels that they are lying to her. Melanie is taken to Big Alice’s makeshift medical clinic, where two crazy doctors treat her cold sore by applying what they call Goop, a “revolutionary” synthetic fabric ointment that heals and leaves no scars.
Meanwhile, at Snowpiercer, Pike and a counterpart from Big Alice on the other side of the door start to negotiate – fresh food, for example, for a pot of QP “Amazing Alice”. Andre eventually (and quite literally) sees what’s going on, but sees an opportunity. He causes Pike to start another trade, except this time when the door is unlocked, a small army of Snowpiercer passengers (snowmen?) Pulls it open, before attacking the other train. Andre, Till and others progress quickly through the first cars, only to be stopped by that mutant mountain of man, which is somehow impenetrable to the below-zero external air with which he begins to attack the attackers.
Wilford, fresh out of the bathtub and in the middle of dinner with Melanie, finds out about the raid, but scoffs at the plan to hold Kevin hostage, of all people, to exchange for Melanie. He then fights with Melanie about how she was “fixing tractors on a farm” at age 17 when he pulled her out of the “dirt” and invited her to help him build this new world. He drags Melanie to the engine and orders Alex stop trains completely. He threatens to disengage the trains and pull Big Alice away, unless Melanie makes Layton surrender. When Wilford gives the order, Melanie tells Alex not to obey, saying that “an entire world will die. You don’t want that in conscience. “
Relentless, Alex goes ahead and flips the switch … and it triggers an explosion on the train, on the coupling. As we saw earlier, Melanie planted a sticky bomb when she was outside, and now Alex is unable to disconnect Big Alice from Snowpiercer. Trains are permanently attached. Admittedly impressed by his mother, Alex mocks Wilford, “She caught you”, and he grudgingly orders the trains to move again – while Andre on board the Snowpiercer observes: “It will be a long cold war”.
What did you think Snowpiercer ‘s return, Melanie’s masterful movement, and the prospect of a welcome global warming?