TNT
We are off the train this week as the episode ‘Many Miles From Snowpiercer’ rewinds a bit to just after Melanie leapt off the train to make her way to the research facility to see if her theory about the planet warming is true. Luckily, she has a snowmobile to cart her supplies to the facility but it’s still a long way from the tracks, and the depth of the show was too much for her transport. She made it to her destination with just barely enough juice left in the battery in her suit. Luckily she was able to get the place fired up and plugged her suit in for a recharge.
But, just after getting everything operational, there was an avalanche that destroyed her snowmobile AND the sled with her food rations for the month, and there are only a few packages of crackers at the facility. And an arm. There’s an arm in the refrigerator. There are also three dead, frozen bodies (one missing an arm) at the facility, those who were left behind to keep tabs on things. That does not bode well for Melanie who, after successfully connecting to Snowpiercer’s weather balloons, starts to go a little bonkers, receiving visitations from Wilford, Layton and Alex.
The Wilford visits finally give us some context on his relationship with Melanie, and through flashbacks we see how we got to this point in the story, prior to Snowpiercer’s launch. Wilford grudgingly — and privately — acknowledged Melanie’s work on creating his ‘eternal engine’, but even she questioned just how eternal it would be. But Melanie’s achievements in building Snowpiercer were always overshadowed by Wilford’s desires. She insisted on having 12 geneticists on board the train, but he insisted on a larger security force. He compromised and offered her six but she held fast to her twelve. Before the train left the station, half of her team was held outside even though they had tickets. Wilford ordered the guards to kill them. Wilford also insisted on having his Night Car, which Melanie called a brothel, saying it would be good for the morale of the passengers to have some entertainment and distraction.
Melanie could see even then that Wilford would be a tyrant if he were allowed to run Snowpiercer, and Bennett told her she had one option. As news of a revolt at the tail was making its way to the engine (from Commander Grey, who got left behind along with the Folgers and others last season), Wilford decided to head to the back to deal with things personally. Melanie was still waiting for her family to arrive, but she knew she had just one chance to make sure Wilford did not re-board Snowpiercer … and she took it, moving up the train’s departure from Chicago six minutes early, leaving Wilford — and Alex — behind to die to save the people who were already on the train. Melanie did what she thought was right and spent seven years keeping that facade intact. Of course, it all came back to bite her in the ass because out of context her actions seemed to everyone else that she was the one who was the tyrant, launching her own coup against Wilford. It certainly gives us a new spin on Melanie’s character.
But, she’s still dealing with hunger and the elements. On Snowpiercer, they were unable to connect to Melanie with the last balloon, although they told the passengers they had done so successfully. At the station, the reason they were unable to connect was because a storm blew over the antenna. Melanie was able to fix it, and from what we could see she did finally connect to all twelve balloon. But there was still a nagging question — who is eating her crackers that she’s so carefully portioned out? Wilford helpfully reminds her that there is an arm in the fridge but she’s not resorting to cannibalism. Setting a trap — with a piece of human flesh — Melanie caught the culprit: a rat.
How did a rat survive seven years after the freeze? Melanie dips the rat into some homemade ink and tracks it to a hole in the wall. Tearing the wall apart she is shocked to find a natural hot spring and a multitude of rats. Now she’s got her source of protein, happily roasting rats for dinner, but she’s even more encouraged to discover the planet hasn’t died, and perhaps this is an indication that it can and will come back to life. Alex shows up to comfort her, to tell Melanie she understands why she did what she did, and that she’s proud of what she’s doing now. It gives Melanie some much needed comfort, even if it is all in her head, a justification for her actions.
But a month has passed and it’s time for Snowpiercer to return and pick her up. But … two days have passed and the train has not returned and she hasn’t been able to raise them on the radio. Suddenly she feels the earth rumble and realizes it’s Snowpiercer. Melanie quickly suits up and runs down the mountain, only to see the train fly by, calling out to the engine to slow its roll. But it never slows down and the last thing Melanie sees is Alex at the window, screaming. Melanie has been left behind.
Or has she? I’m willing to bet this is probably a dream because it took Melanie some time to get up to the facility and she had a snowmobile most of the way. Her environment suit runs on a battery which was almost dead by the time she got to the top. It seems inconceivable that she would have enough juice to get back to the tracks on foot, especially if the train was close enough to cause the building to shake. Also, it was a treacherous journey for the train to even get up the mountain in the first place, so why would they come back just to fly by her like that with no advance warning that they were on the way? It’s either a dream or Wilford has gained complete control and just did that as a big F U to Melanie. It just seems improbable to me, and I think Melanie is dreaming. Perhaps she’s actually still unconscious outside the facility when she got knocked down trying to raise the fallen antenna. Perhaps she never did connect to the last balloon. Perhaps she never found a hot spring in the walls of the facility. Perhaps this is the last we’ll see of Melanie Cavill. What say you?
Snowpiercer airs Mondays at 9:00 PM on TNT.
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