The second season follows Wilford’s taking over of Snowpiercer, Melanie’s attempts at a research station to discover if the earth is warming up, Till’s (Mickey Sumner) promotion to train detective to investigate attacks on tailies, the rekindling of Audrey’s (Lena Hall) masochistic relationship with Wilford, and severely frostbitten Josie’s (Katie McGuinness) transformation into an ice woman.
Whenever I watch this show I’m reminded of the best of cable television. Nowadays people talk about the streaming originals or the premium cable drama, those ‘anything is possible’ dramas that attract many simply cause they don’t have the FCC compliance requirements that basic dramas do. TNT, always reaching for some hit on their hands, struck gold when developing “Snowpiercer” from its comic (and infamous movie adaptation) to the small screen. In so doing it’s demonstrated that even basic cable packages can make hits and the sneering many HBO fans give to ABC or CBS needs a pause. “Snowpiercer” succeeds on a tight budget by delivering us more character twists, an on-the-nose condemnation of our current world, and a Mephistophelian antagonist this season.
After a catastrophic global freeze, all of humanity shuttles on to the infinitely-moving train Snowpiercer. Its inventor, the great Joseph Wilford, formed neat classes between every car with the uber-rich getting steak tartrate before heading to the brothel “Night car.” Meanwhile, the refugees on the tail end of the train bite into black-gel protein cakes and occasionally resort to cannibalism during food shortages. Except these tail-enders (“Tailies”) are fed up with being on the bottom. Season One saw them launch a revolution and expose one of the greatest lies of the whole train: Joseph Wilford isn’t on the train. Instead, lead engineer Melanie Cavill (Jennifer Connelly) fabricated him to keep the peace. Season One saw the entire train’s class structure fall to shambles just in time for a second train to capture them, hold them hostage, and threaten to destroy all of humanity.
“Snowpiercer” is back baby! This roughshod drama lives to fight another day. While Connelly’s character gets short shrift (largely due to scheduling conflicts) we find a much meatier antagonist in Sean Bean’s Joseph Wilford. The Big Bad unites the two trains and conspires to take back the train Melanie Cavill once stole from him. We get more train conspiracies. Daveed Digg’s lead protagonist Andre Layton gets his leadership of the train tested. This season we’re going to see friends become enemies and enemies become friends. I know that’s a cheesy tagline but it speaks to the entire 180 this second season does of the world of “Snowpiercer” that almost everything entirely flips upside down.
At the center of this is Sean Bean, having the time of his life. He glowers, menaces, grouses and chuckles through the show. Bean eats up the scenery as nobody else does. Diggs’ character suffers the price of cool exposition so his character remains unchanged but the shows’ ancillary characters suffer at the hands of Bean the most. The show’s ancillary characters always made it so interesting to watch.
The show lives and dies by its ensemble cast (especially with Connelly written out of most of the season.) Mickey Summers’ Detective Till broods her way into a noir police detective with brutish grace. Annalise Basso’s LJ Folger gets humbled after her mutilation spree by joining the sanitation department and cleaning up other people’s trash. Katie McGuinness’ Josie returns to the show, draped in prosthetics and makeup, for an impactful transformation. Newcomers Rowan Blanchard, Aleks Paunovic, Sakina Jeffrey, Damian Young, and Tom Lipinski round out the new ensemble as dark mirrors to the characters we already know. All actors turn in memorable performances.
The greatest turn of character comes to Alison Wright’s head of Hospitality Ruth Wardell. The character, despised throughout season one, comes to be an important architect of this new society being built across Snowpiercer and an important ally against Joseph Wilford. Her character’s full reverse from last season solidifies her place among the top of this cast, garnering more empathy from us than expected.
The show makes do so well with its tight constraints. Previously I’ve lauded its unique and claustrophobic locations. Executing such a wide variety of locales all while making them appear to be part of a moving train takes incredible creativity and workmanship from the entire crew. The show’s leaning into its darker themes maybe shows a change in television content, but not without purpose. Violence takes a dark place on this show. Between stabbings, freezings, head-bashings, and crossbow-firing, the show’s body count gets up there at times. Season Two featured enough suicide and suicide attempts it ended multiple episodes with a reference to the suicide prevention hotline. Despite being a broadcast television show it’s not always for the faint of heart.
The theme of the movie soaked deeply into the DNA of the show as season one hammered home class inequality and injustice. Its theme felt literalized through the invention of the train cars. After a massive revolution, however, the entire class structure is thrown into chaos. Season Two takes advantage of that chaos by running this new version of the train as a sort of experiment “How do you build a country?” It comes complete with a border (the second train “Big Alice” attaches to the tail end of Snowpiercer), a police force, and a shuffling of the passengers. This dive into geopolitics writ small takes a quick side step once the ticking clock gets introduced: the planet might be warming.
It’s a writing move designed to write Jennifer Connelly’s character out of the majority of the show. Engineer Cavill must leave the train and survive in a research station for one month, gathering data to see where the Earth is warming and how humanity can start rebuilding again. This interest in climate change becomes the central theme of the second season and it hammers home climate changes’ impact, tying it with wealth disparity the moment Wilford scoffs. “Snowpiercer” has never been shy about its themes but this season impressively literalizes its broader message multiple times. Sean Bean’s character even muses what a powerful, wealthy, white man can do to damage society. Multiple characters yell at Wilford telling him the wealthy ignored climate change and caused the world to freeze. Wilford refuses to accept responsibility, and our heroes gawk: How could history repeat itself? It’s so on-the-nose it seems preachy, but the show’s never pulled its punches. I don’t think I’ve heard the word “climate change” so many times in one television show ever. In fact, there’s a running theme of people refusing to believe in science and how science might save us all.
“Snowpiercer” has never been about subtlety. Instead, it has kept a broad message of societal progress encapsulated within this constantly developing world. The show works best when it’s hyper-focused on one problem spiraling out into the larger conflict. Sean Bean carries the show on his back for a long while, making it tough for Daveed Diggs to come out of his shadow, but it creates room for everyone else to grow and develop. With Season 3 on the way in January, and a Season 4 renewal already confirmed, TNT knows it’s got a hit on its hands. Given the desired longevity of cable television, “Snowpiercer” might easily run out of steam (pun intended) but for now, it’s still a solid win and a thrilling ten episodes.
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