TNT
It’s been ten months since we last saw Snowpiercer, and Season 3 debuts with a gap of six months in the storyline. There is a bit of drama in the premiere, but one of the season’s big reveals doesn’t happen until the last few minutes of the episode. I hope I’m wrong, but this had the feel of the fourth season premiere of Star Trek: Discovery, which spun its wheels and went nowhere while turning one of its most-loved characters into someone you couldn’t wait to leave the ship. On Snowpiercer, Miss Audrey may not be the most loved, but I thought she was cool and interesting. Now I wouldn’t mind if they just dropped her off at the next frozen train station. Hopefully things will get back on track (no pun intended) sooner rather than later.
But at the end of Season 2, there were two trains (again) as Layton’s attempt to detach Snowpiercer from Big Alice resulted in a true — and spectacular — disaster as the aquarium car froze and exploded. What the denizens of either section of the trains have for protein now is a question since they lost the livestock in Season 1, and now the fish are gone (although we did see Layton and Ruth being fed those awful jelly bars that featured prominently in the movie). As things stand now, the ten Snowpiercer cars are making stops around the globe to extract ice samples to prove Melanie’s theory correct that the earth is warming. Wilford has determined that Big Alice and the other thousand-plus cars are about a month behind Snowpiercer and he’s certain that he will catch up to them soon to recouple the trains and take out his vengeance on Layton. But he still has Zarah while Layton has Miss Audrey, and Ruth and Pike are running their own resistance on Big Alice right under Wilford’s nose, hiding out in various compartments and sending supplies to various passengers in what my be preparations for an uprising.
Things, however, aren’t as great on Big Alice as Wilford would like people to think. Water pipes are frozen, cars are losing heat, they need to conserve energy. Kevin suggests a simple culling to reduce the population, but Wilford knows that any number of casualties in anything but a natural manner would jeopardize the return of Miss Audrey. There are also reports of unauthorized water usage, and Wilford is confident Kevin will be able to sniff out the culprits in the same way that his dog sniffs out disloyalty (just ask Javi — who is alive and piloting Big Alice — how that feels). After a visit to LJ and Osweiller, who are now the proprietors of the Night Car, Kevin has learned that the Second Class Watermaster has been handing out tokens for hot baths (actually it was Pike who offered the token) to those who are helping the resistance. Kevin and his goons capture the Watermaster and the woman enjoying her bath, and in exchange for them not losing an arm, the Watermaster reveals the location of the resistance leader (Ruth) in the bowels of the train. Pike gets wind and moves her up to a currently unused and unheated First Class car, hoping Wilford won’t think to look there, and the two water thieves are punished by having buckets of shit thrown on them by the other passengers.
Meanwhile, Bennett is making his return to the idling Snowpiercer, and Alex is urging them to get moving before the engine burns up, leaving them stranded and ripe for the picking when Big Alice catches up to them. We also learn that Josie survived the explosion of the aquarium car (somehow), and that Miss Audrey is being held in a makeshift cell in the library (even though Alex warned them to keep her under higher security). Wilford’s other ‘enforcer’ Sykes and another passenger who was in the wrong place at the wrong time are also ‘captives’ but are allowed more freedom than Audrey, for obvious reasons. Sykes is basically guarding Audrey and acting as a waiter at mealtime. But Audrey knows that something is going on with the longer than expected stop, but what she doesn’t know is that Bennett has fallen through the snow and ice into an underground bunker, much like the one where we last saw Melanie. Layton and Josie were also spotted leaving the train, so Miss Audrey believes this is her chance to take control and get Alex to go back ‘to daddy’.
TNT
Bennett is in bad shape, injured and running out of oxygen but Layton and Josie reach him in time to hoist him out of the bunker. Snowpiercer has begun to suffer some outbreaks of fire in the engine and Alex has to get the train moving forward to cool things down, which means their main three ‘leaders’ are now stuck outside until — or if — Snowpiercer comes back. Before they left the train, Layton shocked Josie with a kiss, which certainly complicates relationships with the pregnant Zarah on Big Alice. While Josie gets Bennett on a slad and begins to head back to the rendezvous point with the train, Miss Audrey has been let out of her cell and made her way to the engine, taunting Alex about Melanie and how it would be best for all of them to go back to Wilford. Till had been connecting wire in a compartment below the floor, and was trapped (and briefly knocked out) when Audrey entered the engine and kicked the floor panel shut. But there is a crawlspace.
Audrey is playing mind games with Alex, and outside Layton is running out of air. He had shared his oxygen with Bennett and lied to Josie, but he has enough to make it out and back to the train. Before he exits the bunker he sees a red glow through a panel of frosted glass and decides to investigate. He finds a generator … and blood splatter on a wall as if someone had been shot in the head. There are some noises that draw his attention. Going to investigate, he is surprised when someone comes out of the darkness and attacks him. It is a violent fight but Layton manages to over-power his attacker and renders them unconscious. The fight, unfortunately, has severely depleted his oxygen but he manages to find a connector to give him a booster. The lack of oxygen has caused him to hallucinate about a tree in the desert. Back on the train, Audrey has shifted the engine into high gear to get back to Wilford, but Till surprises her and the other guy with a whack to the head with a big wrench. She can see Alex is questioning everything but convinces her to put the train in reverse to pick up the others waiting outside.
Josie and Bennett board the train but Josie insists on going back for Layton. Bennett tells her that Layton’s oxygen ran out five minutes earlier. Stunned, she is overcome by a sense of loss for a moment, but as she turns to look outside again she sees Layton walking toward the train … carrying a body. Back on Big Alice, Layton is opting out of the ‘shit show’ to have lunch in the medical bay as Dr. Headwood is doing something with an unconscious Zarah. Is she drawing out amniotic fluid, or injecting the baby with something? If Wilford is intent on being there, we have to assume it’s something more than just a routine medical exam. On Snowpiercer, Layton is sitting with the new ‘passenger’ who is unconscious. It’s a woman. But as he sits, he has another brief vision of that desert oasis. Is this a memory? A vision of the future? Hope that the earth truly is warming? We’ll have to wait and see how the season progresses.
What did you think of the season premiere? Tell us in the comments section below!
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