Summary
“The Sting of Survival” delivers classic Snowpiercer action in spades, as well as adding very interesting new aspects to the mythology.
After the season premiere barely featured the titular Snowpiercer at all, Episode 2 of Season 4, “The Sting of Survival”, is set aboard it almost entirely. And this is good news, since it feels like a real return to the show’s peak locomotive drama – cramped, tense, and smart, with the added benefit of three whole seasons of character development to inform the stakes.
Remember, the premiere ended with New Eden being besieged by a military force, totally unexpectedly. Layton’s missus died and his daughter was kidnapped. But we don’t catch up with him until the end of Episode 2; the lion’s share is set nine months prior and shows how The International Peacekeeping Forces took control of Snowpiercer.
Peacekeeping By Force
There’s something off about the IPF. “Peacekeeping” is a pretty inoffensive term, but it’s being deployed in exclusively non-peaceful ways here. We know they’re not above kidnapping babies. When they first arrive on Snowpiercer, led by Clark Gregg’s Admiral Milius, they shoot Bess Till in the shoulder to stop her warning the rest of the passengers. Peaceful!
But Milius makes it clear he’s on a mission of world-saving importance, and that Snowpiercer is vital to it. We’re supposed to allow for the possibility, I think, that the ends justify the means. But it’s difficult to swallow that idea in this very unashamedly comic book-y world, that isn’t exactly predisposed to moral grey areas.
Melanie, at least, knows what kind of show she’s in. She’s not going to give up the train without a fight, and that fight turns icy in short order.
Am I The Only Person Who Noticed That?
Brief side note here, but what’s the floating blood about?
Maybe I’m going crazy. But after Melanie and Ben start plotting to wrest control of the train back from the IPF, they rig up a launcher that fires a model of Snowpiercer straight through a porthole window and into the face of the guard outside. It’s enough to knock him out – though probably kills him, thinking about it – but the wound it inflicts allows his blood to float into the air. At first, I thought it was some other substance, but on a re-watch, it does seem to be hovering blood.
What gives? No idea, and Melanie and Ben don’t notice it, so it’s a mystery that can be shelved for later. Besides, the two of them have other things to worry about in the short term – primarily, Milius has locked 100 passengers in the market car and breached the roof, so they’re going to freeze to death unless Melanie ceases her subterfuge posthaste.
Of course, Melanie manages to save the day by sneaking through the engine’s intake from the outside of the train to open the market carriage doors through a jury-rigged failsafe, which is top-level Snowpiercer drama. But it’s only a temporary measure since she can’t stop the train from docking in a subterranean station where the objective of the IPF is made clearer.
Snowpiercer Season 4 | Image via AMC/Netflix
Global Warming
Melanie is introduced to Nima Rousseau, the leader of a team of scientists who have been working on a long-term cure for Earth’s temperature problem. It’s through his work that the warm spots Melanie discovered in Season 2 came to be – he has developed a compound that allows CW-7 to denature in the upper atmosphere.
However, a few warm spots aren’t enough. Eventually, they’ll cool down again. Unless, of course, they can be connected to a warmer web, which requires Snowpiercer to be used as a mobile launch platform. But the end goal of a fixed atmosphere is compelling. The IPF isn’t just here to consolidate power for themselves – we think not, anyway – but to work for the betterment of all mankind. That makes for a more compelling sales pitch.
Nine months later, though, things aren’t looking quite so rosy. Snowpiercer has been unrecognizably modified, and the passengers have been turned into a labor face under the cosh of a blatantly authoritarian regime.
Catching Up
After months of servitude, Ben and Till are ready to leave. The plan is for Till and Miss Audrey to escape on that track scaler Audrey arrived at New Eden on in the premiere, but of course, it all goes wrong and Audrey is forced to leave alone. Thanks to the premiere, we know that while she makes it to New Eden, she arrives too late to deliver the warning.
It’s only at the very end of Snowpiercer Season 4, Episode 2 that we see Layton, who is predictably fuming at these circumstances. But what’s he going to do?
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