TNT
After a week off, TNT is doubling up on the Snowpiercer Season 2 finale … and this is a game changer as Wilford continues his dominance over the train and its passengers.
The ‘rebels’, as we’ll call them, really made a huge mistake by trusting Miss Audrey. Yes, there are Wilford fanatics on Snowpiercer — LJ Folger, for example — but sending Wilford’s former lover to Big Alice to seduce and betray the man was a colossal mistake. She willingly fell right back into his arms, and Wilford seduced her even further by letting her work her magic on Kevin to soothe his mind and bring him back into devoted service. It’s quite frightening how easily Wilford can manipulate people, to the point that they couldn’t even see through Melanie’s charade until Layton exposed the whole operation.
And that was another colossal error on his fault. Yes, conditions were terrible for the Tailies (who shouldn’t have been there in the first place, if we’re being honest), and yes, the class system on Snowpiercer was bound to cause those disgruntled in Third to attempt an uprising at some point. Third was only marginally better than the tail, so it would have happened sooner or later, Layton just made it happen sooner. Of course, if LJ hadn’t gone on a killing spree, Melanie would have never had to bring Layton up-train in the first place so a revolution would have been a long time coming.
And now it’s all fallen apart faster than it happened, and not having Melanie on the train to battle wits with Wilford has only escalated Layton’s downfall. And the turncoat Miss Audrey has only made Wilford’s ascent all the easier. He’s got Roache and his family tucked away in a drawer, and now Javi has been transferred to Big Alice’s engine while Alex finds herself in the brig for showing her true colors now that she knows the truth about Wilford and Melanie.
But Wilford is simply insidious. He knows he’s got the support of a large portion of the adult population on Snowpiercer — even though they don’t realize that he had one hundred of Big Alice’s two hundred passengers culled, a thinning of the herd one might say. Who’s to say it won’t come to that once he takes over Snowpiercer? And now he’s reopening a car that has been closed off for some time to lure the children into his arms with a carnival atmosphere and a twisted puppet show that basically paints Melanie as a traitor who got what she deserved when she left the train. That was really the last straw for Alex.
But … Melanie is alive. Javi was able to make contact with her from Big Alice (and let’s be clear, all of this is taking place before the episode in which we saw the train speed past her on the mountain). But Layton is now on Big Alice, condemned to work in the waste car, literally shoveling shit as his punishment. But he’s soon joined by another, Ruth, who turned down Wilford’s offer to be the head of Hospitality once again … if she told the passengers that Melanie is dead. Now she finds herself in the same spot as Layton, but Javi was able to get a note to them that Melanie is alive.
With Bennett on Snowpiercer and Javi on Big Alice, the pair were able to communicate a plan to divert the train and pick up Melanie. The only problem was that once the train switched tracks, Wilford noticed the suddenly rougher journey. He was told by Alex that it was just avalanche debris, but LJ blew her cover by pointing out she’d seen Melanie do the same thing, pretending she was talking to Wilford. That’s how he knew Alex was playing him and they were on the way to pick up Melanie. That’s how Alex eventually ended up in the brig. But Wilford had his security team cut through the engine room doors to take control of the situation — with poor Javi becoming a casualty in the process. So now we’re caught up to Melanie watching Snowpiercer fly past her, sparks flying as Bennett tried to apply the breaks, Alex pounding on the window calling for her mother as the train got further and further away. Melanie knew at that moment that Wilford was forcing the train to pass her by.
But all is not lost as Layton and Ruth are able to overtake the guard who brings them their meal supplement (and if you’ve seen the movie, you will recognize the bars of jelly the Tailies were given as food) and get out of their stinking prison, making their way back up-train to formulate a plan to double back for Melanie. But the only way to do that is uncouple part of the train which is basically impossible at this point with Wilford in control on Big Alice. But the train does actually have a weak point — the aquarium car, which apparently was designed as sort of a fail safe to manually uncouple in an emergency. With Breachman Boscovic now on Layton’s side, everything is in place to uncouple and rescue Melanie.
TNT
But Wilford still has once ace up his sleeve: Josie, or the new, improved Josie. Despite the protestations of the Doctors Headwood, Wilford orders them to prepare Josie to exit Big Alice and make her way up-train to stop Layton, giving her a tool to breach the engine. Josie seems brainwashed enough at this point to actually carry out Wilford’s plan but her exit from Big Alice sets off a breach alarm on Snowpiercer and Layton realizes that Josie is on her way. With Boscovic in place to uncouple the aquarium, Ruth is on the other side carrying out her part of the mission and making her way back but she’s blocked by Wilford and his men.
Knowing Wilford won’t just let Layton take part of the train to save Melanie, he’s got some insurance — Miss Audrey, who came to try to sway Zarah with the idea that Wilford needs her because she’s pregnant. Zarah wasn’t having any of her bullshit, and Audrey was surprised with a punch in the face, knocking her out. Now she’s Layton’s leverage, and it seems to work as they face off against Wilford at the aquarium. Wilford has his men stand down, but he knows they are at the crucial point of the train and he makes sure to step just over the car’s threshold to keep Layton from carrying out the uncoupling.
And then Josie appears. Layton had managed to communicate with her before they went to the aquarium car, and she has arrived at just the right moment, now using her tool to crack the glass of the aquarium. As cracks appear, the water beings to instantly freeze — sadly, killing all of the sea life contained within (no much sushi on Snowpiercer) — causing the entire aquarium to explode, uncoupling the train the hard way. Wilford made it back to his side of the train, and Layton and his crew watched as they drew further away from the rest of the train. Ruth also watched, happy that the mission was a success and then had the realization that she’s stuck on Wilford’s side now. The fates of Josie and Boscovic are unknown. Could Josie have survived the explosion, or did she make her way further up-train (or down) before that happened?
Now Snowpiercer and its handful of cars is stopped on the mountain, Layton and Alex making their way to the weather station to bring Melanie home. But … she’s not there. They find the hard drives with all the data Melanie collected from the weather balloons that proved there were portions of the Earth that are warming, and Alex finds a note from her mother saying she knew what had happened with Snowpiercer and that as she had exhausted all of her supplies at the station (apparently she went through the rat population in the hot spring) that there was nothing for her to do but walk ‘into the white’. Layton and Alex never do find her body (and yes, he did find the hot spring where I figured she may have been staying to keep warm) so they take the data back to Snowpiercer and forge ahead … to Season 3, leaving us to assume Melanie is truly dead and wonder if Ruth will survive Wilford’a wrath and rejoin him while Layton, Bennett, Alex, Zarah, and Till fire up Snowpiercer to try and reconnect with the rest of the train they left behind. Hopefully they manage to do that sooner rather than later because they probably don’t have much food now that both the cattle and fish are gone.
So until next season, we’ll keep on guessing. TNT hasn’t revealed a return date for the series as of yet but keep watching our social media accounts for that announcement.
Both seasons of Snowpiercer are available to purchase on Apple TV.
What did you think of the finale? Tell us in the comments section below!
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