Previously on Snowpiercer, Wilford came aboard to assassinate Layton, Zarah almost killed Josie but then told Layton she’s alive, Melanie decided on a suicide mission to prove the future is outside, and Till discovered a conspiracy aboard the train.
Episode 3, “A Great Odyssey,” takes its sweet time getting to the literal odyssey, saving that for the end. Instead, the title refers to an emotional journey: Melanie and Alex’s attempt to reconnect before Melanie leaves Snowpiercer.
Will Melanie survive? Will Layton’s long-term plan to disrupt Wilford’s control of Big Alic work? And where do loyalties lie for the passengers?
1. “That’s some crazy s***.”
Alex has two crazy parents. Wilford, who feels entitled to play with everyone’s lives because he built the train, and Melanie, who is so desperate to prevent Wilford from controlling anyone that she agrees to jump off the train to start up an abandoned weather station as part of a plan to test whether the passengers can ever get off the train.
Rowan Blanchard is terrific as Alex, at turns angry, sad, and lost, as nothing in her life is solid. She knows Wilford is emotionally unreliable. She outwardly proclaims her loyalty to him But her subconscious hoped that her mother might be a savior, given the drawing she made of Melanie that she keeps in her bunk. Alex even calls her mother out for leaving her again. She’s not wrong, though Melanie claims she’s doing this to provide her daughter with a future.
Their tearful good-bye packs a punch, as Alex’s real emotions are allowed to surface.
2. Josie is as fierce as ever.
Jose’s awake and she’s still dedicated to the rebellion. She takes the news of Layton’s fatherhood with ease, giving up on their personal relationship. She takes the news of his alliance with Melanie less well.
I’ve been wondering all season why the Tailies have been willing to forgive the cruelty of the rest of the passengers over the last seven years. It seems that Josie is going to be the one who remembers all those old grievances. “You’ve given them nothing we promised,” she tells him.
Layton claims that he hasn’t forgotten. Josie clearly has doubts.
3. Layton has a long term plan for Wilford
As I’ve said before, Layton has been somewhat lost in the shuffle this season as the spotlight turned to Melanie. Layton is still in the background for “A Great Odyssey” but we see the beginnings of his plan to disrupt Wilford’s hold on Big Alice’s passengers, starting with allowing Pike to create a black market for food in exchange for weed.
Kevin paid the price of being tempted by the food available on Snowpiercer. Will the others on Big Alice be so tempted or will they remain terrified of Wilford and Icy Bob? (Icy Bob is pretty terrifying.) Layton also seems keen on allowing Wilford to underestimate him. But is he underestimating Wilford? Perhaps, given this Sean Bean character knows how to play the game of thrones. (Forgive me, I could not resist.)
4. When will we check in on the rest of the passengers?
There are many characters shuffling around Snowpiercer that we haven’t as yet seen. Audrey of the Night Car has appeared but we have no idea what her long-term loyalties might be. There has been little of the first-class passengers who might be expected to resent and fear the Revolution that ended their cushy existence. There is the rest of the Brakemen, the peacekeepers, who have basically been disbanded to fend for themselves.
“A Great Odyssey” does provide a glimpse of the Breachmen, who repair the train. They’re the equivalent of firefighters and they seem to be waiting for the next crisis to decide whether to throw in with the Rebellion or Wilford. Given one of them sports a Wilford tattoo, Wilford seems to be the answer.
Miles, Josie and Layton’s foster son, has been absent so far too, as have most of the other children. What is their life like now? Are those employed to teach them still doing so? Or has that been disrupted too?
5. The train is its own character.
Continued belowAll those different cars with different levels, hiding secrets inside a monstrous moving thing that might fail at any moment. That’s Snowpiercer.
“A Great Odyssey’s” best scene unrolls as Snowpiercer heads around a sharp curve, almost derails, and then begins chugging up the Rocky Mountains, like a dystopian Little Engine That Could. Melanie talks to the train and feels its movements in the walls as if she’s half-machine. Alex is beginning to learn the power at her command as an engineer as she works with Melanie to push the train up the mountain.
Wilford, of course, sees the train as one long extension of himself. That’s one super-sized phallic symbol.
But the train seems to have its own ideas of where its loyalties lie.
