Ryan Shoots First: Snowpiercer (S1 Ep3) “Access Is Power”
The beef on the train is frozen never fresh as we start Episode 3 of Snowpiercer. This week starts with the kids taken last week and a voiceover from the doctor who looks after the people in the drawers. We see a small vile extracted from a body and then sold around the train for various nefarious purposes. It appears to be an access chip into first class. Credits start.
We open on Andre after getting beat up last week. He remembers when Zarah left to go up to the third class train. He’s woken up abruptly and hooded as he is taken out of his cell. Melanie is briefing employees on a “personal message” from Mr. Wilford himself. They decide to move a prize fight up to distract the people from the repair and unrest in the train.
Back with Andre huge is taken to meet Melanie. The witness from the first murder is still unconscious. Shawn was looking into moving krono which the train considers a new drug but its been in the tail for years. This episode is bouncing all over the place as we cut to the sushi chef doctor and Bess who are sleeping together. Bess finds out Nikki is not unconscious but not to push it. Andre and the head of police track down our cop from last week who was trading Krono for uhhhh oral satisfaction. Turns out he is working for some Krono drug lord in third class. So we have foreign drug mobs now too and they plan to try to run off Andre.
The first class people are not falling for the distraction of fight night and know something is up but they are gonna play along for the sake of the train. Andre and Roche are starting to bond a bit when Bess comes in and tells them Nikki is awake. Back down below Melanie and her head engineer are looking at solutions to fix the issues in the train. He proposed moving the tailies into third and cutting the tail. Bess and Andre are able to talk to Nikki and it appears she has been given Krono but Melanie interrupts and ends the questioning. Andre and Bess discover krono is a synthetic form of the stasis drug and the doctor guy knows something about how it’s made.
Commercial break
Andre, Bess and Melanie are interrogating Klimpt about Kronos when Andre discovers Miles’ hair and he is enraged. Melanie calms him down by telling him he made the apprenticeship program and Andre is able to talk to him. Back at the tail they are on that the train is struggling and not on pace. They are a day behind and fear they will be uncoupled. Andre and Bess plan to use fight night to confront the janitor who is the head of the krono ring.
Commercial break
Melanie is using software to splice Wilford recordings into a recording she can playback to the train. Bess and Andre get into the fight night, Melanie comes on the radio to explain what the winner receives and then replays her message from Mr. Wilford. Andre is able to go talk to Zarah who tells him who is who in the janitor gang. She returns his wedding ring she has kept all these years. He tells her he considered staying here with her but the tail needs him. We cut back to Nikki and it looks like power has gone out in her train as she leaves her room. Nikki wanders into the fight night and Bess finds her meanwhile Andre is led by one of the janitor people as a big fight breaks out in the crowd of the fight.
Commercial break
Andre gets his meeting with the head of the Janitors Terrance. Terrance gives him some info on a first class guy that was with Shawn. Andre tells him he needs something else and gives Terrance his wedding ring. Back at the cleared out fight car Andre tells Melanie he has a description of a suspect but won’t give it up until he gets to see Josie in the tail.
Commercial break
Josie gets to talk to Andre and Andre tells her Miles is doing well. They kiss before they are pulled apart. Back in the medical car Someone knocks out a guard outside Nikkis room. The man bashes his way into her room it’s the man the young first class passenger LJ made eye contact with earlier. He tells Nikki “you don’t remember me” and unscrews the light bulb. Back int her tail Josie pulls out a small vile with a pass key that Andre slipped to her when they kissed. As the episode ends.
The show seems to be spinning its wheels a bit. I can see what it’s doing but this episode consisted of move to a train talk, move to a train talk. I don’t understand how Nikki was able to just get into Fight Night when we saw police and bouncers at the entrance earlier. It seems this first class family and LJ have something to do with it and now we have drug lords and janitors involved? The show could benefit from picking a lane and sticking to it. It somewhat feels like it’s trying too much but at the same time not moving anywhere. Hopefully some direction comes soon as the issues on the train grow that could jump start the story. Ironically a story about a train is having a hard time staying on track.
I disagree with your assessment that the show should pick a lane and stick to it. I think that just one lane would reduce this show to just another detective/cop show, when we already have so many. To me, all of the issues on the show are what make it so good! Whether it’s Andre investigating the murder or the kids becoming apprentices (glad they didn’t die!) or the class warfare of the different sections of the train, I don’t mind the jumping from one storyline to another.
Yes, Nikki should not have just strolled into Fight Night. But if I can believe that tracks were laid in the snow all over the world and a train with 1001 cars has been travelling on them for 7 years, then I can suspend disbelief enough to not think twice when Nikki easily entered Fight Night.
I don’t think the first class family (of which I think LJ is a part of) have anything to do with the murder or the drugs. I think they’re just another storyline, like Andre and Zarah’s romance or Miles getting his own fork. But I could be wrong.
Anyway, I’m really enjoying this show, and I hope you start liking it, too because it must be a real bummer to recap a show you don’t like 🙂 !