S3E3 – The First Blow
Here we are now, three episodes in… and to be honest, it feels like the show is going downhill. Is it just me? I’ve already forgotten most of what happened in the first episode, the second episode focuses most likely on characters I don’t like, and the big train-vs-train conflict they’ve been hyping up to is yet another cat and mouse game, just with extra steps this time.
I wanted to get this post out sooner… but as you might’ve seen on Twitter, I got a bit side-tracked by the presence of a mouse in my house. Let’s not dwell on that though, and just get into the episode.
Twists and Turns
Once again, Layton and Mr. Wilford come to blows. This time, however, their starting roles are reversed; Wilford’s train is the one weighed down, while Layton’s pirate Snowpiercer has the starting initiative. Thanks to last week’s EMP incident, Snowpiercer is able to ambush Big Alice in the dead of night in a maze-like trainyard.
One major difference, however, is that Wilford has all the guns now… including, for some reason, a harpoon launcher, built into the side of his train. Surely that wasn’t there the whole time… but I guess after the EMP device, anything goes now, huh? Guess ol’ Wilford needed a way to hunt down those elusive snow whales.
Anyway, with a straight assault being impossible, they had to devise a smarter means of taking power without needless bloodshed.
The means they came up with… yeah, I liked it. Not exactly the most exciting affair style-wise, but it’s not easy to make things look interesting in pitch-black lighting, and the episode did have some good moments of tension. The impromptu fireworks show was a neat way of blowing Big Alice’s cover, and Pike’s reluctancy to fill in for Ruth is refreshing in an odd sort of way. Wilford’s ultimatum, while extreme, is in character for him, and the double-team by Layton and Josephine was quite satisfying to watch.
One Train
I was expecting a bit more from it, for how much build-up there was, but it worked for what it was. Wilford the attention-seeker is now locked in solitary confinement, though I can’t imagine that’ll last forever. There were a few notable deaths (including Kevin, to the joyous fanfare of many), Javi gets a much-needed hug from Ben, and the writers remembered that the drawers exist… Miles, however, is still nowhere to be seen.
With the pre-Wilford status quo restored, the train’s people set their sights upon Africa, in the hope of finding a land where humans won’t instantly die of hypothermia, a New Eden… the Noah’s Ark symbolism isn’t exactly subtle here.
Also, yeah, that vote totally wasn’t manipulated in any way. Sure, there’s absolutely gonna be green grass and flowering trees in that one particular spot, and this survivor we picked up was from there, not some nuclear facility we stumbled upon in North Korea. Yeah, this blatant lie absolutely won’t backfire on them in some spectacular fashion, and surely this random person won’t crack after being placed so suddenly under the gaze of a thousand hopeful eyes. It’s not like she has social anxiety or anything… oh… oh no.
Well… let’s see how long it takes for this to blow up in Layton’s face.
Tyler DeWriter 