TNT
Okay, so Miss Audrey’s singing didn’t soothe the savage breast of Pike. He wasn’t destroying that detonator to try to let bygones be bygones with Layton, he was just destroying the evidence. Pike has no intention of going down without a fight, and things get pretty awkward when Layton summons Pike and two other trusted Tailies to Big Alice (the most secure car on the train) to discuss going about finding the person who almost blew up Layton the same day his daughter was being born. Pike, however, did manage to continue selling his loyalty, but that was not going to last long with Till and Sykes beginning to put the pieces of the bomber’s identity together.
Their first discovery was the missing explosives, two blocks. The small bomb that nearly killed Layton was made from half a brick, which meant there was enough floating around for three more small bombs … or one big one. Till also discovered it was a fertilizer bomb, which led her to Lights who had previously built similar bombs. She denied any connection to the most recent bomb, but she did admit to Till that only a small number of people know about her ‘recipe book’ for bomb making. Checking the book … oops, those pages have been torn out. Lights and Till know for certain who the culprit is, and Till notifies Layton immediately.
As the phone rang on Big Alice, Zarah had just handed ‘Uncle’ Pike baby Lianna to hold. When Layton took the call and looked at Pike with the words ‘he’s here’, Pike panicked and threatened the baby. Zarah was freaking out and Andre did all he could to diffuse the situation before anyone got hurt, but Pike pretty much threw the baby at them to make his getaway. Zarah told Andre to go after Pike and kill him. Though Andre did manage to almost catch up to Pike, he unfortunately turned his back while coming down some stairs and Pike was able to knock him to the ground, exacerbating Andre’s concussion, allowing Pike to get away. But where can you go on a train?
Ruth, who has developed a relationship with Pike, doesn’t want to believe he tried to kill Layton and now she thinks she may be the only one who can help, but she’s ordered to alert Layton and Till the moment she finds him, not to engage with him at all. Pike does manage to get to his little bomb-making hiding place in the bowels of the train and he’s surprised by a visitor — Asha. She tells him she’s just made her space there because there’s just too much drama between all the different factions on the train, and that she’s faced scarier things than Pike while living in a hole in the ground for eight years. Whoops. With those words she just basically confirmed Pike’s suspicions that Andre is lying about New Eden. If there was such a place, why would Asha have been living in a hole in the ground. This only strengthens his resolve, but before he can leave Ruth shows up and tries to talk some sense into him. He’s not buying what she’s selling, especially while she’s wearing her teals.
She can’t stop a man with a bomb, but Josie and Miles may have a solution to the problem — settle things the Tailie way, a face-to-face sit-down because once a Tailie, always a Tailie. There’s no way Pike will refuse to honor that method of resolution. The only problem is that if there isn’t a resolution, it can advance to hand-to-hand combat … if both parties agree. Josie says this gives Andre all the power because he doesn’t have to agree to the fight. Sounds like a perfect plan. And Pike does show up with a massive chip on his shoulder, not really open to hearing anything Andre has to say. Pike’s issue with Andre is that he’s basically become a sell out, and Pike doesn’t really consider him a Tailie anymore. Andre tries his best to appeal to Pike’s Tailie roots, calling Pike his brother, asking him what he wants, telling him he wants Pike to be the baby’s godfather. Andre reminds him of how they went from foes to friends and worked side-by-side, but Pike reminds Andre that after he became the leader on the train, Pike just became Andre’s lap dog. And many of their own needlessly died, in Pike’s opinion. Andre took full responsibility for all of that, but when he brought up Ruth, that rubbed Pike the wrong way again. It finally dawned on Andre that Pike wants Ruth to take over the leadership once Andre is out of the way. Pike is certain she’d step up and be the leader everyone wants and needs, but Andre isn’t even going to entertain that notion. And that is a line in the sand that neither of them will cross.
TNT
So Pike calls for the knives. Andre tries to continue to reason with him, asking again what does he want? That only antagonizes Pike because no one in the tail would ever have the power to just offer anyone else whatever they wanted. Pike calls for the knives again, Zarah freaks out, and Josie reluctantly honors the request when Andre also yells for the knives. The two men fight a vicious battle, with Pike often getting the upper hand, probably aggravating Andre’s concussion even more, definitely cauing a loud ringing in his ears. He also slices Andre a couple of times, but Andre recovers long enough to get the upper hand on Pike, and as they held each other in a clench, one of them slowly slipped to the floor — Pike, with a knife to the heart.
Laid out for a funereal ceremony, the Tailies (and Ruth) pass by the body to say their goodbye, but will his betrayal of Layton draw more to Layton’s side or will Pike now be seen a a martyr for a cause? If he was working with others, someone is sure to step into Pike’s leadership role but who? The way Ruth looked at Andre as she passed by said volumes, and her relationship with Pike, her working with him against Wilford as part of the rebellion certainly puts her in a position to continue Pike’s work while still appearing to be following Layton. Ruth could become a very dangerous person moving forward.
Elsewhere on the train, Alex has tried to cozy up to Roche’s daughter in an attempt to get her to go speak to him. Ruth has made an attempt to get Roche to tell the ‘therapist’ (whom Roche says got the job because he boarded the train with the most books) what he needs to hear so Roche can get released from his padded cell and get back to work, but Roche seems a hopeless case at this point and he can’t put behind him what Wilford did to him and his family. He won’t even accept a visit from his daughter, but Alex does manage to convince her to see him, and she assures her that she has a way to make sure she gets in. And she does, making some vague threats to the therapist. Roche isn’t happy his daughter is seeing him this way and again refuses to cooperate with the therapist, but she seems to have made an emotional breakthrough.
Not having a breakthrough is Miss Audrey. She did manage to weasel her way into Wilford’s ‘prison’, which is the same car in which she had been held but he’s not locked in the cage, but what she finds is a shell of a man, still dealing with the complication of the suspension drug Roche injected into his heart. What Audrey finds is a man who is beginning to believe Layton’s science, that there is a place outside that is warming, a place where he and Audrey and live out their lives together. That is not what Audrey wants to hear. This is the man who built this train, the man with all the power. Getting off the train will take all that power away from him … from them. But Wilford thinks this trip to New Eden is a valid idea. Audrey storms out, leaving Wilford and us to wonder if she ever truly loved him, or if she just loved the benefits she got by being with him.
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