Television

‘Snowpiercer’ season 1 episode 9 review: ‘The Train Demanded Blood’

An uneasy alliance is formed while the Snowpiercer loses more passengers…and cars.

July 12, 2020

Layton is forced to make a terrible sacrifice, Snowpiercer lightens its load, and it seems nobody much cares for Robert and Lilah Folger as Season 1 pulls into its climax.

The war is won. But not without its costs. Snowpiercer is no longer 1,001 cars long. And not everyone they left behind was a privileged first-classer whose own daughter was happy to lead to their death. Even for a planet of subzero temperatures, that’s cold, LJ! Melanie may have given Andre control of the train, but Layton’s decision to abandon the tailie prisoners will weigh heavily on him.

Snowpiercer 1.9.2

There’s also a lot of questions remaining. What’s with the recently reawakened drawer folks? Something seems…off about their unprecedented recovery.

And what happened with Osweiller? He refused to join Team Layton, but never fought on any side. Politically, his non-involvement may prove a prudent move going forward.

I suspect Ruth will survive Season 1, but then what is to be done with her? Will she be shoved in a drawer or granted some leniency to restore the peace or because she’s useful.

I also wonder who else was on those cars that got left behind. Certainly, Snowpiercer probably lost some valuable, skilled workers, which could create a set of new problems.

And finally, is everyone really going to play nice after all their history? Some of the character conflicts seem resolved way too easily. Jinju and Bess are on the same side again now, but their truce comes only by proxy. Layton and Melanie formed an alliance for mutual advantage, but we haven’t yet seen Bess and Jinju reunited on screen. I suspect there will continue to be personal and emotional fallout from their having chosen opposing sides in the revolution.

Zarah played a major role in Josie’s death, but her pregnancy with their child seems to have neutralized Layton’s legitimate anger. A baby may force a reconciliation of some sort, but I hope the writers don’t have Layton completely let Zarah off the hook. Zarah should suffer consequences, especially if Layton can’t hurt Melanie herself because of their politically necessary truce. But something tells me Miles is still going to do something drastic when he finds out Melanie murdered Josie.

“The Train Demanded Blood” was one of the stronger entries this season. The action worked better this week than last week’s far more action-heavy episode. The strategizing largely made sense other than the amount of unwarranted trust that seems to be given to LJ, whom they all know is a sociopathic killer. Granted, that’s more an issue from last week as LJ seems to have been acting completely independently now.

I am confused though why the writers chose a completely random character to be the one to liberate Melanie from her execution. Why not have Osweiller or Terrance fulfill that role? Even Jinju herself turning up shows tighter economy of storytelling. A random guard we’ve never seen before feels too much like a plot contrivance when it could have been a moment that serves one of our established characters.

Speaking of Jinju, we still don’t know what her connection is to Melanie even after Melanie explained her own backstory to Ruth last week. Bennett and Javi would have had to have been in the loop because they’re literally operating the train. But why did Jinju have to know? And why is she so fiercely loyal to Melanie? I’d have liked to know more about Jinju by this point, and I really hope we learn her story in the finale.