Summary
An action-packed penultimate episode still has time for a bombshell revelation. Have the tables turned on Nima and the IPF just in time for the series finale?
The previous episode of Snowpiercer Season 4 ended amid a frustrating cliffhanger, so it’s appreciated that Episode 9, “Dominant Traits”, wastes no time by picking up from there. To recap: The IPF, now led by Nima, are attacking New Eden hoping to steal Big Alice. Combined with Snowpiercer, the two locomotives will create enough power to launch Gemini into the atmosphere.
This is a problem since Alex and Melanie’s testing has revealed that Gemini might not have its intended effect of thawing the world out, and Nima has a history of letting his ambition get the better of him, since the last time he launched something into the atmosphere, he froze the entire world.
“Dominant Traits” is the penultimate episode of Snowpiercer overall, since this season has already been confirmed to be its last. So, we’re talking real stakes here. Let’s get on with it.
Problems
This entire episode is a problem-solving exercise. And there are a lot of problems.
For one thing, Alex was sent by Nima to switch the tracks, allowing Big Alice to be taken out of New Eden. However, she takes her first opportunity to sabotage the system completely, which is good, but she still needs to be rescued from her IPF escort.
We move on to problem number two: There’s a sniper on the ridge keeping the entire community pinned down. Problem number three is that the ridge is booby-trapped and can be detonated to bury New Eden. Nima is reluctant to do this since it’ll also bury Big Alice in her current position and he needs the train to launch Gemini, but if Melanie refuses to help him, which she is inclined to do since he has been holding her hostage this entire time, then he might as well detonate the explosives.
Problem four is that Boki has been shot, and his resistance to the cold and the pain means he doesn’t quite realize how badly he’s hurt.
Solutions
Layton is able to rescue Alex and take her to the Town Hall, where she asks about Mr. Wilford. While the fact that Wilford ended his own life is true, Alex is a smart girl, and she intuits immediately that he did so because he was going to die either way. In other words, Layton would have killed him.
But there’s no time to ponder this since the IPF catches up and the two of them are forced to flee. Outside, stymied by a dead end, Layton fights the pursuing soldier while the sniper on the ridge takes aim…
But luckily, the sniper is at that moment being dealt with by Till. Despite Oz winning the game of rock-paper-scissors they played to decide who goes up to the ridge, Till slipped away to deal with the problem herself while Oz ran interference over the radio. Till is able to take out the sniper with seconds to spare and use his rifle to save Layton. Two problems down in one.
Josie also gives Boki a transfusion of her blood to get him back on his feet. With the fighting abated, Javi is free to work on a jammer that will interrupt the frequency the bombs are on, preventing Nima from detonating them. Everything seems to be going well, but Nima has a secret weapon.
Snowpiercer | Image via AMC/Netflix
Well, Now We Know How Alex’s Father Is
That weapon is Melanie. Nima marches her into town and gasses the place to thwart the ambush that New Eden had set up to take out the remaining IPF forces. Based on the armory, the gas is the lesser of two evils, which Melanie explains to Alex when she tugs her away during the ensuing chaos.
But Melanie has something else to explain to Alex — Nima is her father. He donated his sperm back in the day when he was an MIT engineer; still brilliant, but less insane. Melanie wanted to raise her child alone and never expected to see Nima again, but she wanted to make sure that her offspring was as genetically advantaged as possible. Thus, the smartest man she knew became her donor.
Alex processes this information remarkably well, all things considered. I wasn’t expecting Snowpiercer Season 4, Episode 9 to include a debate about nurture versus nature, but here we are, I guess. While Melanie uses the pretext of retrofitting Big Alice to quietly communicate with Layton, Alex keeps Nima distracted by asking for his side of the story on the daddy issue.
All Aboard
At the end of “Dominant Traits” — that episode title is making a lot more sense now, isn’t it? — Snowpiercer barrels into town, right over the track switch, ready to hook up. But, thanks to Melanie, New Eden’s citizens are waiting. Led by Layton, they hack through the disembarking IPF forces — who’re all out of ammo, as Josie discovered a little earlier — and board the train by force.
Nima, panicking, gets the locomotive out of there, secure in his plan to detonate the ridge behind them. But no such luck. Javi’s jamming device worked, and no explosion is forthcoming. When Nima turns around, Melanie and Alex are gone. He’s on his own.
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