The Ending Of ‘Snowpiercer’ Season 4 Is A Fitting Full-Circle Moment

Snowpiercer began aboard the titular train, so it’s only right that it ends there, too. The Season 4 finale, fittingly titled “Last Stop”, sets up a very familiar premise — the good guys having to fight from the tail through the carriages to defeat the bad guys in the nose. Episode 10 is an action-packed throwback to season-long plots condensed into a single 45-minute span but with world-ending stakes.

What more could you want from the last ever episode of this series?

Right on Schedule

The stripped-down setup streamlines the action in this finale. It’s all heading in a single direction, with a singular purpose. Nima, protected by the few remaining IPF soldiers, wants to launch Gemini from a point in the middle of the frozen ocean. Everyone else wants to stop him. And, really, that’s it.

Of course, this is threaded with individual character moments, such as Melanie and Alex discussing their relationship, Mr. Wilford’s death, and Alex’s true parentage; Josie, numbed through experimentation, going postal in pursuit of Dr. Headwood; and Layton and Ruth readopting their leadership roles in a time of utmost crisis. But the goal — for most of the episode, anyway — is the same for everyone, allowing “Last Stop” to whip up pace, buoyed by the ticking-clock device of Gemini’s imminent, potentially calamitous launch.

This also gives all the characters appropriate stuff to do. Layton leads from the front, in the thick of the action. Ruth negotiates Snowpiercer’s future. Boki does Breachman things. Melanie and Alex do science stuff. You get the idea.

Rocketman

One of the truly surprising developments of Snowpiercer Season 4, Episode 10 is that the good guys fail to stop Gemini’s launch. Nima ensures that once the process is activated, it cannot be stopped from the train. This is his moment.

Nima’s a complicated figure, so it’s hard to know what his “moment” really is. Melanie posits to him that the original launch that froze the world in the first place was entirely his fault; he knew he was behind schedule and couldn’t figure out the problem, and the arrogance of the “smartest man in the room” compelled him to go ahead with it anyway, consequences be damned. And that’s exactly what he’s doing here. Despite all the evidence pointing towards Gemini being another world-ending catastrophe, Nima’s arrogance, his need to be the one person capable of saving the world, has led him to doom it again.

And he dooms himself, too. Once Melanie and Alex realize that despite their meddling the launch can’t be stopped, they flee the car, leaving Nima behind to freeze to death as the roof opens. He’s chilled in place staring up at the sky as his creation tears off into the upper atmosphere, so he doesn’t see what happens next.

Snowpiercer | Image via AMC/Netflix

Crisis Averted

Thanks to Alex sabotaging the rocket, once its inner works become exposed to the frigid atmosphere, they freeze solid, and the rocket explodes. Crisis averted.

This is a deceptively simple solution to what seemed like a very complex problem, but it’s clearly in service of allowing Snowpiercer Season 4 to have the happy ending it deserves, seeing the show off with real emotional resonance after a very torrid time being bounced around networks.

This is why you could perhaps argue that it’s all a bit too easy. Everyone makes it back to New Eden with Snowpiercer in tow. There are no major deaths or losses, no last-minute cliffhangers that suggest things may take a turn for the community, no lingering animosities or rivalries in the camp. Snowpiercer‘s finale might have redone its initial premise — complete with Melanie taking to the train’s tannoy to announce the weather forecast, in a nice little throwback — but it veers away from the temptation to complicate things. Everyone ends up in the same place, on the same page.

To sum up:

• Layton and Ruth are now co-chairs of New Eden’s council.
• Oz moves out of the mountains and into the community proper.
• Javi takes Sykes away on Snowpiercer to keep the engine from freezing, showing her how to drive a train and, hopefully, working on their blossoming romance.
• Josie forgives Dr. Headwood and gets past her rage.
• Miss Audrey hasn’t lost her vocal talents.

Sure, there’s some dispute about how long the warm pocket of New Eden will last, but that’s a matter for another day. And besides, the show’s final lingering shot of some flowers growing out of the ice suggests that the climate is becoming a little more amenable. And it’s on that note of hope that Snowpiercer fittingly ends.