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Train detective Andre Layton caused himself a world of trouble in the second episode and desperately needed to earn back the trust of Melanie and Mr. Wilford, but he also knows they need to give him enough latitude to conduct the investigation and solve the murder. The problem is the one witness to the crime — who had been wrongly accused and sentenced to ‘the drawer’ — is still very out of it after being revived by Dr. Klimpt. There’s also the issue of Melanie not allowing Layton or Till access to the witness, claiming she’s still unconscious. But she’s not.
But Till is having a relationship with Second Class passenger Jinju and she revealed to Till that their witness Nikki is conscious. That, however, seems to have been a set-up as Jinju notified Melanie after Till left that Till knew about Nikki. Till immediately told Layton and they made it to the medical car before Melanie and noticed Nikki’s mouth, specifically her blackened gums, a sure sign of Kronole use. This is a callback (or call forward, more properly) to the movie in which the drug Kronole was what Curtis was using to pay Fuyu to help him advance through the train to the engine. In the movie, Kronole was suggested to be ‘industrial waste’ and a large wad of the stuff could be used as an explosive. It was also highly desired as a hallucinogen by the passengers in First Class.
Now in the series, Kronole has been in use in the tail section for two years but Melanie seems to not know of its existence. Layton points out that Nikki’s condition and appearance is from Kronole and deduced that it was actually made from the drugs Klimpt uses to put the prisoners in ‘the drawers’ to sleep and keep them in a comatose state. On Snowpiercer, anything can be of value to anyone else and Klimpt admitted he’d traded some of the drug for the items he needed in sick bay. And now Melanie realizes this could unleash an epidemic of addicition on the train. Not to mention, Wilford isn’t getting a cut of the action so we have to wonder if she’s more concerned about the passengers or lining her own pockets. We also see Melanie putting together a message from Wilford sound bites to play before Fight Night that suggests that Wilford is dead, or doesn’t exist at all (except for the fact that Roche said he shook Wilford’s hands a couple of times, so who knows).
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Melanie has other issues on her plate as well. Besides murder, cannibalism and illicit drugs, there’s that little matter of what some of the passengers are referring to as an ‘extinction event’ — the destruction of the cattle car which will seriously impact the food supply. So why not move Fight Night up from its scheduled date to distract the passengers. One of the wealthiest families in First Class isn’t falling for the distraction but Melanie needs them to play along, which they do, but they also seem to be very interested in the train detective, particularly daughter LJ and their bodyguard Erik.
Layton already knows Osweiller has been trading sexual favors in the tail for Kronole, but the question is who is main supplier for Kronole? Layton manages to get the information out of Osweiller and forces a one-to-one meeting with the kingpin, Terrence (never Terry). Terrence is actually quite willing to give Layton the information he’s requesting but, offering Terry (as he called him) his wedding ring, Layton says he needs one very small thing. What that was, we don’t know but it must have been substantial because Layton was granted an earlier request he made of Melanie.
While they were questioning Dr. Klimpt, Layton noticed a bag of hair, his son’s hair. Before he could totally lose his mind, Melanie assured him that the boy, Miles, was in school and doing very well. Layton wasn’t going to continue the investigation until he saw Miles and Melanie granted that wish. Miles was actually doing well in class, and he had his own bed and his own fork! But Layton insisted that he needed to relay this information to his mother Josie. Melanie said Till could give her the message but Layton said Josie would not accept any information as true unless it came from him. So whatever he got from Terrance afforded him that chance to see Josie through the window in the door to the tail section. As the parted with a kiss, Josie returned to her place in the tail and removed something from her mouth — a capsule containing some sort of microchip that we’d seen passing through many hands throughout the episode. The chip has the ability to unlock doors so this is just what the Tailies need to move forward with their insurrection.
But Layton and Melanie only have more problems on their hands by the end of the episode as a shadowy figure murders two people on the way to the medical car before stepping into Nikki’s room. As he steps into the light, it’s revealed to be the Folger bodyguard Erik, and his arrival does not look good for Nikki. And it also opens up the question about how deeply the Folgers are involved in this. We know they seems to have either bankrolled the Snowpiercer or have some other deep pocket connection to Wilford, so are they also funding the drug trafficking on the train? Does Nikki have dirt on them or on LJ? The two seem to be about the same age so they could have been BFFs and Nikki just knows too much. But we will have to wait for the next episode to see how this visit plays out.
Snowpiercer airs Sundays at 9:00 PM on TNT.
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