Ryan Shoots First: Snowpiercer (S1 Ep5) “Justice Never Boarded”
Episode 5 of Snowpiercer has an amazing title. “Justice Never Boarded” sounds like the type of direct to Prime movie we would review on this site. And after the Law and Order jokes of last week, the sandbag of the murder investigation is over and we are getting down to some good oldfashioned class warfare on a train.
If you need any proof of the business picking up we see LJ peeping for her upcoming trial. While casually playing games and generally waiting for her rich privilege to bail her out she reaches up and casually pops her fathers glass eye out. Oh wait there is more! She then proceeded to place it in her mouth and swirl it around before it being popped back into place. Her mother would later explain to Melanie that LJ herself gouged his eye out in a fit of spoiled rage. Remember back in the beginning when I talked about Snowpiercer being a secret sequel Willy Wonka sequel? Tell me this scene isn’t some messed up Veruca Salt stuff right here.
Moving on to the bigger picture resentment isn’t just growing between the tail and the train, even the third car residents are getting frustrated as Ms Audrey pullsa trick and sends a platter to first class that some in other countries would find delectable. Even the Night Car which is designed to be a safe space for everyone is being drawn into choosing sides. Melanie in an attempt to please everyone gives the third class residents a seat on the tribunal. This in turn though upsets the first class passengers who not only paid handsomely for their seats but kinda helped fund the whole train.
On to LJ’s trial, all the nasty details are revealed about the trophy’s LJ has been keeping from her victims and Audrey is using this platform to rile up the crowd to their plight as the backbone behind the train. LJ puts on her best poor white girl show about how sad her story is but it doesn’t work. The tribunal found her guilty on all charges. However, Mr. Wilford comes over the radio and announces LJ will be pardoned due to her age and bright future. As you can imagine this goes ever well. Again like last week SnowPiercer lucks its way into some pretty relevant story telling for current events but has yet to really catch on with a large audience. Meanwhile the Tail is frantically trying to find Layton. This leads Josie to the drawers where she discovers the sleeping bodies of many of the youths that were taken away for “Apprenticeships” a few weeks ago. She eventually finds Layton and despite the delicate nature bringing someone out of this deep sleep seems to be she rips out the IV and it all seems to work out, lucky Layton has made some friends in his time up car. The episode ends with Layton with Zarah safe for now.
This week seemed to get the train back on track (no pun intended…I think?) After spending a few weeks seemingly trying to show us that not everyone is good or bad we dived right into Rich= Evil. With the train divided I like the idea of the revolution likely needing to include more than just the tail to work. Layton can be the main to unite the train against the head of the snake.
