TNT
The first season of Snowpiercer was a slow burn, taking four episodes to really kick into gear after the solving of the murder mystery that served to really move the story forward. Over time it was revealed that Melanie Cavill was posing as Mr. Wilford to keep the train’s denizens placated. Of course they eventually found out and there was a revolution that gave the Tailies control of the train with Layton now in control. But they all got a surprise by the end of the season when from out of nowhere a second train appeared, attaching itself to the tail of Snowpiercer, revealing that Mr. Wilford was in fact not dead.
And that’s where Season 2 begins with a young girl named Alex (Melanie’s daughter) making demands on behalf of Mr. Wilford in exchange for getting the train under power again. If they don’t comply, everyone on Snowpiercer will freeze to death if the train isn’t in motion. And with the second train, Big Alice, firmly attached to Snowpiercer they aren’t going anywhere until Mr. WIlford gets his shopping list fulfilled. Meanwhile, Melanie is still outside but beginning to experience the effects of hypothermia. She is desperate to keep Wilford from taking over Snowpiercer but there’s no way she can uncouple the two trains. Where Snowpiercer was 994 cars long at the end of Season 1, it’s now 1,034 cars long with two engines on opposing ends. Melanie does manage to chop her way through the power coupler to restore control — and heat — to Snowpiercer, but Big Alice is still acting as an anchor. During Snowpiercer’s 19 revolutions since it first left Chicago, Big Alice has undergone some ‘improvements’ to make it significantly more powerful than Snowpiercer. Melanie has one more trick up her sleeve that involves an explosive device but she is very nearly killed when the trains start moving as she’s trying to place it at a critical juncture. That will come into play later. For now, she needs to get back inside (she tore a small hole in the shoulder of her protective suit) and with the trains running again, her only option is to board Big Alice … where everyone is waiting for her.
With Big Alice attached to Snowpiercer, this changes the dynamics of the class system on the train. The tail is no longer the tail, so Layton and the others feel this elevates their status. The tail now is a border between the two trains and Layton needs to muster his ‘troops’ to protect Snowpiercer at all costs. Ruth Wardell is more than happy to welcome Mr. Wilford back onto Snowpiercer, but Layton isn’t so sure he’d be the benevolent leader Ruth feels. Plus Wilford is now holding Melanie hostage, so Layton gives Ruth an ultimatum that she’s with him or on her own. After a failed attempt to board Big Alice to rescue Melanie — Layton’s group fended off by a new menace resembling a ‘roided out Frankenstein’s monster who can withstand extreme cold — that resulted in their own hostage, Kevin (Ruth’s hospitality counterpart on Big Alice), Ruth has a slight change of allegiance when Kevin tells her that Wilford doesn’t care if she or anyone else on Snowpiercer dies, he just wants control of the train. Ruth reluctantly helps Layton, stating she is on the side of Snowpiercer.
As Layton tries to formulate a new plan to keep the train safe, there’s another wrench thrown into the mix when Zarah is about to be accosted by a couple of Tailies who hold her responsible for Josie’s shocking death in Season 1. When she blurts out that she’s pregnant, Ruth becomes a mother hen because this is the first pregnancy on the train since they began their neverending journey. To Ruth this is a sign of hope for civilization, so she goes all out to give Zarah (and Layton when he reveals he’s the father) the finest of accommodations in First Class. Zarah is more than okay with this arrangement.
TNT
On Big Alice, Wilford and Alex, who appears to have no allegiance to her mother, believing Melanie left her and her grandparents behind to die so she could steal Wilford’s train, have Melanie tossed in the brig. Alex does come to ask her a few questions, and Melanie reveals she sent some men to get her family but they never came back. Alex eventually tells Melanie that the men did come but her grandparents refused to leave. Melanie said they wanted to die at home. But apparently Wilford did rescue Alex and now he’s brainwashed her against her own mother, which could cause problems for Melanie.
Because of the hole in her suit, Melanie has a touch of frostbite, so she’s sent to Big Alice’s medical team who are … something. If you conjure up an image of ‘mad scientists’, these two would be the picture you’d get. They’re very animated, very talky, and they’ve retrofitted the medical bay to turn it into some high tech science lab. They’ve even developed something they call ‘goop’ that is a biological material that will repair Melanie’s frostbite damage without leave so much as a scar. All of this indicates that the docs were probably also responsible for the creation of the behemoth that fended off the attack from Snowpiercer.
With martial law enacted on Snowpiercer — which doesn’t make those who just fought for and formed a democracy on the train — Wilford finally has a sit down with Melanie to have a heart-to-heart with her about handing Snowpiercer back over to him. She refuses to play his game, and then he reveals that Alex is Big Alice’s engineer. With Melanie refusing his demands, he orders Alex to bring the trains to a halt yet again, hoping the threat of freezing everyone on Snowpiercer to death will change Melanie’s mind. But Mel is counting on her mother-daughter bond to still exist as she tries to reason with Alex, telling her she’ll have all of those deaths on her conscience. Wilford tells Alex to detach the trains, which will leave Snowpiercer dead in the water, ready for Big Alice to swing around from the other side to take control.
Melanie keeps trying to talk Alex out of doing it, but in one more act of defiance she hits the controls to detach the trains. Apparently Melanie was actually counting on that because the coupler is where she placed the explosive charge and when the mechanism shifted, it went off, joining the two trains permanently. Wilford orders Alex to throw the train into reverse, but she finally has an attack of conscience, refusing to do his bidding. He finally allows her to put the trains in motion again, giving Melanie the upper hand … temporarily.
The second season of Snowpiercer is off to a good start, and it’s going to be interesting to see how the two dynamics of the Snowpiercer passengers deal with those from Big Alice (we don’t really know how many are on board), and how things will change once Mr. Wilford sets foot on his train. Will he rally the First and Second Class passengers to turn on Layton and his rebels? It’s certain to be interesting to see how the show begins to come into line with the movie.
The good news is the show has already been renewed for a third season, so whatever happens is not going to be resolved quickly … and we know for sure that Sean Bean is not going to die this time!
Snowpiercer airs Mondays at 9:00 PM on TNT.
What did you think of the season premiere? Tell us in the comments section below!
Share this post
