#Snowpiercer goes off-track and never fully recovers

Snowpiercer almost goes off the rails as does the plot

This installment of TNT’s Snowpiercer had an interesting setup, but it’s derailed (both literally and narratively) by an unprecedented crisis. It begins with a labor strike from Third Class. The residents are understandably fed up with the murderer of one of their own walking free, and their refusal to work means that the entire train system is thrown out whack.

As such, Melanie is obviously presented with an interesting dilemma on how to deal with them. She gave them representation at the trial, so any further allowances might look like appeasement.

At the same time, she doesn’t want to be too harsh because the atmosphere of the train needs to be calm for society to survive. Living in a constant state of fear would make things too unstable.

It’s a tricky balancing act, which is engrossing despite how briefly it’s touched on here. Honestly, the whole episode should have focused on this conflict.

A manufactured crisis sends Snowpiercer down on a different road

Sadly, said conflict is cut short when an unprecedented leak almost causes the train to derail. As is often the case on Snowpiercer, the technical aspects are on point here. The intimate camerawork, rapid editing, and (mostly) convincing effects all do their job of selling you on the train potentially crashing. As Snowpiercer turbulently speeds toward a bridge, we feel like the world is coming to an end. For these people, it is.

Unfortunately, like so many other times on this show, the moment is undermined by the haphazard characterization. The whole sequence is peppered with people contemplating what they believe are their last minutes alive. Again, though, we barely know any of them. The series would much rather tell us about these inhabitants and their relationships than actually show us.

We only get a handful of brief moments with characters reaffirming what we assume to be longstanding relationships, and even these feel fairly weak in execution. As a result, the supposedly poignant exchanges between the passengers instead come off as unearned.

Nowhere is that more prevalent this week than with the English train employee/enforcer, whose sole character trait thus far has been “obnoxious.” At best, he’s an extra from Peaky Blinders, so giving him the majority of the drama this week makes no sense.

Because these characters don’t draw us in, the entire set-piece merely winds up as a contrived way to stave off the Third Class strike. You can practically hear the writers grasping at straws:

“Oh, no! We’ve stirred up all this hostility in Third with the trial, but we want to save the epic revolution for the season finale. Let’s have the train spontaneously run into a crisis, which only Wilford can solve. That’ll smooth things over for a few episodes.”

The only substantive element to come out of this ordeal is the revelation regarding the drawers and the larger project they’re involved in. It turns out that Melanie is actually placing these people in suspended animation. In case Snowpiercer ever fails, these inhabitants will have the chance to start again in the future, and the near derailment makes this plan seem all the more relevant.

Suffice it to say, I was not expecting such a twist, surprising yet perfectly in character for Melanie. Highly reminiscent of Horizon: Zero Dawn, this plot point is an intriguing addition to the Snowpiercer lore and might make for more compelling storytelling down the line.

It lays the foundation for uncharted narrative territory while keeping with the theme of the train being essential to survival. In conjunction, it theoretically allows the series to maintain its message about classist factions being unviable and still progress the plot past that of the inevitable train crash.

If the writers have any sense, then they’ll zero (pun intended) in on this reveal as we move into the season’s second half. Not only would the moral and ethical ramifications make for some thoughtful questions abut long-term species survival, but it would also feed naturally into the growing tensions surrounding the Wilford regime. Plus, it would give us an excuse to focus more on the central characters than the supporting ones.

What did you think of the sixth episode of Snowpiercer? Were you on the edge of your seat? Are you intrigued by the drawer plotline?

Snowpiercer airs Sundays at 9 pm on TNT.