ReganX

Before this episode, I wondered if Layton’s visions of New Eden might be the result of undetected brain damage due to to lack of oxygen in the first episode of the season. The calendar is more mundane, but I prefer it as an explanation over Layton having mystical visions. I will be disappointed if Melanie isn’t actually alive, but I’ll be more disappointed if Melanie is alive in a real New Eden. Very little happening in this episode. They only have ten episodes a season, and would do better to have fewer episodes than filler episodes.

I think that LJ doesn’t much care who is being killed or tortured, she just wants to do it, or at least to watch. She can’t seriously think that Layton would buy that she is loyal to him, or trustworthy, but I’d say that she knew that she’d be able to get away with killing Kevin, so she did it.

The only possible explanation I can come up with is that Wilford got so used to being pretty much worshipped by the Big Alice crew that, once he took a few minutes to favour Josie with his attention, he assumed that he had her devotion. He also let her interact freely with his crew, and she seemed to be getting along well with any of them that she interacted with, plus the Headwoods cured her frostbite injuries, so he may have thought that she would help for the sake of his crew, and feel some loyalty to them.

It’s hard to believe that this episode is as long as the others when so little actually happened. I wouldn’t have thought that a 10-episode season would need what is, effectively, a filler episode. The traditions around a birth seem pretty OTT. We’re to believe that the Tail has an established tradition for naming when, apart from Winnie and maybe one boy briefly shown in the Pilot, none of the kids look young enough to have been born on the train? As for Third Class’ tradition of the naming tree, while sweet, is it really plausible, given that reproduction is so restricted, for people to be so invested in the babies of the lottery winners? I’d have expected at least some resentment. Same goes for ringing the bells on the hour throughout labour. It seems like rubbing it in that this person gets to do what you are forbidden to do. Also, given how long labour can last, it seems a bit premature to announce that a baby is due on that day. Josie’s lack of sensation in various parts of her body is not something I expected, and not something that bodes well for the baby. Have the Doctors Headwood unwittingly engineered a baby without a sense of touch? I wonder what Pike’s longterm plan is. He can’t expect to be able to control the train by himself. At minimum, he’d need engineers onside, or they’d literally go nowhere. Josie learning about engineering makes sense, especially when she’s the only person who can go outside for repairs. No sign of Miles, even when life systems are involved. Did he die in the flu epidemic and nobody bothered to mention it?

It’s definitely revisionist history, and it is revised again later to show that there are established traditions regarding a birth. I suspect that the producers wanted to use the First Class cabin to give the main characters a private meeting place, but not to have Layton seen to accept the cabin as a perk of being the new leader of the train.

Snowpiercer had a baby lottery. People can’t just have kids when they want to, they need to have permission to conceive, and if Melanie is to be believed, permission to have a child can even be withdrawn during a pregnancy. I suspect that, like in Ascension, the baby lottery may be linked to population, so if somebody on the train (outside the Tail) died, somebody else would be given permission to have a child. It’s not clear if every class is subject to reproductive restrictions, or if First Class has the option of having as many kids as they like. Josie said that the women of the Tail were being sterilised, but it’s unclear if this was a surgical procedure or if they were being fed contraceptives through the protein blocks. The last child born in the Tail was born five years before the Pilot. I assume that this is Winnie, since I haven’t seen any younger Tailie kids.

It’s 1,029. There were 1,034 after Snowpiercer and Big Alice were connected in Season 2, then the Aquarium Car was destroyed, leaving 1,023 cars under Wilford and a 10-car pirate train. The pirate train decoupled four cars, so they’re down to 1,029. As for First Class, it was out of commission under Wilford’s regime, and all of the passengers were put to work, regardless of their original class or whether or not they were paying passengers or train staff. Wilford intended to reinstate it. The Tailies are probably still in limbo, to an extent. They might have more freedom of movement but may not have been assigned living quarters.

He transferred to Life Systems in Season 2, and wanted to be one of the first colonists outside. You’d think that Life Systems is an area that Layton would want to touch base with, if they are devising ways to live outside the train. Winnie is the only child character who is still in any way prominent. I’m not counting Alex or LJ, since the actresses are adults even if the characters are not yet 18. It’s to be hoped that they’re feeding Winnie well, given the number of calories she must burn running around the train delivering messages.

No. Alex mentioned that couples were split up. They probably started out with some dependents. Chances are that most, if not all, of Wilford’s crew were originally supposed to be part of Snowpiercer’s staff but were left behind when Melanie left without Wilford, and we know from Roche that at least some of the staff were able to bring dependents. If the same was true on Big Alice, there were probably some spouses as well as children prior to the Cull. I thought that it was a nice touch that Wilford used the book club as part of his decision-making process.

I’m not surprised. Wilford isn’t exactly a longterm thinker. Even with Snowpiercer, he prioritised his comfort and pleasure over longterm sustainability. The man built a nightclub and had genetic engineers shot. He was thinking of who would be useful to him in the immediate future, medium-term at best. Apart from the Headwoods, most of his crew are on the youngish side so, six years ago, he would have expected that he’d be able to get decades of work out of them. He’d also have been able to count on at least fifteen years before fertility became an issue. If they hadn’t retaken Snowpiercer by then, making a new generation would still be an option, though I doubt he thought that far ahead. He was probably certain that he would be able to retake Snowpiercer long before he needed to worry about a new generation. I can see why he would decide that it wasn’t worth keeping young children, who wouldn’t be able to work for years, and definitely not worth keeping them instead of productive adults. What interests me is that Wilford seemed genuinely regretful. Also, when Big Alice caught up to Snowpiercer, her crew was obviously living in very straitened circumstances. Apart from Wilford, they all seem to have lived a bit better than the Tail in terms of accommodation and food, but definitely worse than Third Class. Would they have survived if there was no Cull, and they had to sustain twice the number of people, with no facility to grow their own food?

It struck me that Layton’s lie is one that can very easily be exposed. If Martin is still alive, he was able to look out the window of his quarters so, while he doesn’t know the details of the measurements, he is definitely going to know that they didn’t travel to the Horn of Africa and stumble on a warm New Eden. Sykes will also have seen that they didn’t travel through any green area. The word of a First Class passenger and a Wilford loyalist may not count for much among Layton supporters, but a third of the train voted against going to the Horn of Africa, so they could be very interested in what Martin and Sykes have to say.

One of the young girls from the Tail chosen for apprenticeship at the same time as Miles was placed in the Drawers. She may still be there.

Jinju is still alive, as far as I know, but hasn’t been seen since Season 1. The Last Australian is still alive, but wasn’t in the last few episodes of Season 2, or in Season 3 so far. The other last Australian hasn’t been seen since then either.

Considering that Snowpiercer has to keep moving anyway, why not just head in the direction of the Horn of Africa? If it turns out to be warm enough to support human life, they can decide if they want to settle, stay on the train, or split up if there are enough people who want the train option to keep it running without those who want to settle. If it’s not warm enough to be survivable, they keep going.

Sounds like something he’d do. Or what if he did the opposite of the Icy Bob/Frozie treatment, so the baby can’t survive in anything other than a very warm environment? That would be one way to scupper Layton’s plan to find a survivable place, if the baby can only survive on Snowpiercer.

Does anybody else think that whatever Wilford is having done to Zarah and Layton’s foetus, it’s not the Icy Bob/Frozie treatment? Or at least not only the Icy Bob/Frozie treatment? Wilford saw Icy Bob as a tool, and the same was (is?) true of Josie. Had Icy Bob survived, or had Josie decided to side with Wilford at the end of Season Two, the plan to break off the pirate train would have failed and Wilford would most likely have full control right now. I can see how a cold-resistant adult is of use but a cold-resistant infant is well over a decade away from being of any use to him.

That was my understanding. The first probe registered a temperature of -86 Celsius as opposed to -115 to -120 Celsius, but that was at over 4,000 metres above sea level. A New Eden, where trees and crops can flourish, seems implausible, at best. I’d have thought that best case scenario would be that the “warm” area would be like the coldest parts of Siberia, in winter. Survivable, with the right equipment and shelter, but far from ideal. It would then be a debate between whether to establish a stationary colony, where life would be tough but they would have a fresh start, versus continuing on Snowpiercer, and giving the planet more time to warm up.

Surely LJ can’t possibly think that getting on the right side of history is an option for her. I’ll be ticked off if the Horn of Africa turns out to be New Eden. It would make things far too easy if Layton is able to keep up the lie and it turns out to be true. Not impressed by the idea that we're expected to accept that there’s a part of the track that they haven’t been travelling on in any of their revolutions, that just so happens to pass through a warm area. I’m rooting for the Horn of Africa to turn out to be just as cold as everywhere else. I can’t see Asha’s sanity holding up until they reach the Horn of Africa. The Josie-Layton-Zarah love triangle needs to be resolved. It’s ridiculous. And where is Miles? You’d think that Josie’s child would rate a mention, instead of the focus being on Zarah’s pregnancy. I hope not, though I wouldn’t put it past them to use that to resolve the asinine love triangle. I was disappointed in Wilford last season when he didn’t make more of an effort to cultivate Josie’s allegiance. In his shoes, assuming that I gave the ice resistance treatment to somebody who wasn’t already loyal to me, I’d be giving them every reason to side with me. A suitable bribe - a First Class cabin with Josie’s name on it and, more importantly, advancement to Third Class for the Tailies - would likely have been more effective than chucking her out on a dangerous mission for no reward other than not being left outside to freeze to death if she succeeded. If the plan is to have Josie side with Wilford, I hope that they can at least give her believable motivation, and not some tripe about a woman scorned. I agree with rmontro about flipping leadership back and forth between Layton and Wilford. The show has apparently been renewed for a fourth season, and having them move from the train to a stationary civilisation would be too drastic a change in format. I would actually like to see a third option for train leadership instead of flipping between Layton and Wilford. I think that Wilford has earned too much bad feeling to get enough support to retake control of the train, and if the Horn of Africa is not so obliging as to make a truthteller of Layton, I can’t say him being able to retain control of the train once his deception is uncovered, or that he would want to keep control of the train over the objection of the majority of the passengers. Josie, Ruth, Pike, Roche, or perhaps all four of them, could be a potentially interesting option in terms of train leadership

I could see it. The trailer for the season has a Layton voiceover talking about there being warm places, and the people on the train having a say in their destination. Considering that they haven’t found any places that are warm enough to be survivable, I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that he might bluff to prompt an overthrow of Wilford, and then use the democratic process to buy time, in the hope that they’ll actually stumble on a survivable spot.

That’s probably why he’s keeping Javi under such close watch, and is breaking him down as much as he can without rendering him incapable of functioning. With Alex and Ben on the mini train, Javi is the only other person who could keep the train running if Wilford was eliminated. I suspect that, if an attempt was made to overthrow Wilford, his first move would be to kill Javi to ensure that he was indispensable.

I doubt it. Not only was amputation the prescribed penalty for at least some offences (drug dealing was amputation of the dominant arm, as I recall), it’s not the only way in which the cold was weaponised. “Lung of Ice” is an official method of execution. There also seem to be portholes in different parts of the train, including the Tail, which was originally the baggage section, about ten miles from the front of the train. The only difference is likely to be that, had Wilford been in charge all along, “pissed Wilford off” and “because Wilford felt like it” would be grounds for amputation. How fortunate for Ruth that preparing the port for her was apparently more elaborate than just opening it. Though given that we’re talking about Wilford, preparing the port could well have included gathering an audience for him. I wonder if there’s any significance to the use of the ointment that Mrs. Headwood used on Ruth, instead of just pouring water on her arm. Asha’s awareness of Snowpiercer’s existence reinforces the idea that its construction was no secret, which makes me wonder how the US government didn’t seize possession of it when it became clear that the planet was about to become unsurvivable.

Not that I can recall. Melanie was trying to establish whether the planet might be beginning to warm up by testing the air temperature higher up, since the temperature at ground level consistently measured at around the -120 degrees Celsius mark. I don’t think that there was any suggestion that there were already places that were warm enough to be liveable. Considering that Snowpiercer’s revolution takes it to every continent and covers more than 300,000 kilometres of track, it seems implausible that there could be warm places that they just happened to miss.

It’s an issue with energy in general. Big Alice originally had 40 cars, and now it’s got 1,023. The train generates energy while travelling, based on its speed - in Season 1, Melanie wouldn’t let Javi slow down because it would mean power cuts - and since its travelling more slowly, it’s generating less power. It’s not even moving fast enough to keep from freezing. That’s why it’s so cold, and it’s a safe bet that crop yields are impacted if they can’t keep the Ag-Sec cars warm enough, or if they can only maintain some of them. They can have all the ice they could want, but it’ll still take power to heat it. Cold showers would be hard enough to come by, given that crops and drinking water are certain to be prioritised over bathing when it comes to rationing available water. A hot bath is a major luxury, one the two people punished got by helping the resistance.

The idea of one car running hot and one car running cold has some potential, and it’s probably as good an explanation as we’re likely to get as to how the 1,023 car train could ever catch up to the 10 car train. From a storyline perspective, it also means that Wilford can’t play the benevolent savior. Everybody has to work, and Wilford being Wilford, he’s not only ruling with an iron fist but hoarding whatever luxuries are available for himself. If he had sense, he’d make it known that, while he plans to reinstate First Class and Second Class, placement there will not be based on tickets originally purchased but on labor and loyalty. It’d be a pretty tempting carrot. I’m not a fan of the idea that there were survivors all along, much less that there have been warm places on Earth than Snowpiercer just happens to have missed on its revolutions. The planet warming gradually, and the possibility of using Snowpiercer’s technology and resources to establish a stationary colony that can withstand the cold, would be one thing. It would mean weighing the possibility of making a life away from the train, which could entail generations of hard work and a basic lifestyle, against life on Snowpiercer. I think that it’s a cop out to have an Eden just waiting for them to move in, grow crops, raise livestock and build a society. The experiment on Zara’s fetus was creepy, and given Wilford’s stance that pregnancy carries privilege, I shudder to think of the price that he would expect to be paid for that privilege. I assume that it’s a refinement of the treatments that gave Icy Bob and Josie their ability to withstand the cold.

True. He was protesting that he was a man and he had rights, so , knowing Fred, it was probably a mix of him thinking "rights for me and not for thee", and of holding Canada and the United States to higher standards than his precious Gilead. It wouldn't surprise me if Fred was convinced that it was totally different for 'godless'/'sinful' parents to have their children taken from them than it was for a godly man like him to lose his son.