Top 15 Moments From ‘Snowpiercer’ Season 1
There doesn’t seem to be room for original ideas in Hollywood anymore. So many projects are either a remake, a reboot, or an adaptation of some kind.
This problem is only exacerbated by the continuous failure of these projects to capture the imagination of their supposedly built-in audience, much less the attention of the wider, uninitiated masses.
It is, for this reason, why everyone is more than a little apprehensive when news breaks that a generally well-liked project — movie, TV show, video game, novel — is being adapted or rebooted for TV.
Enter Snowpiercer, a reboot of a movie that was, itself, an excellent adaptation of French graphic novel — Le Transperceneige — and suddenly everything doesn’t seem so bleak anymore.
I’ve compiled the top 15 moments that captured the essence of this show and the characters contained therein.
1. Ivan’s Suicide
We only got to know him for an episode, but his words and death were huge. Living a hard life such as he has in the tail can take a toll on anybody, and sometimes the burden gets too heavy to bear, and with nothing in the way of mental health care available to the tailies, his last wish was to have a moment of privacy so he can hang himself.
2. The Tail’s Rebellion
From the moment we caught up with the residents of Snowpiercer, seven years after the unknown cataclysmic event that brought upon humanity the never-ending winter, it was glaringly obvious that the rigid, hierarchical structure of the train cars was a powder keg on the verge of exploding.
The first couple of episodes left those further up the train with a false sense of security, toasting to their perceived success in putting out the flames of the tailie rebellion.
They couldn’t have been more wrong, and if anything, only managed to stoke those fires into an inferno that ultimately consumed the pillars that supported the already precarious balance of the whole train. It culminated in Layton’s rousing speech and a chant of the tail’s mantra: One train!
3. Melanie Cavill Fixing Snowpiercer
If there was a scene that truly defined Melanie Cavill, it is when despite the thousand other metaphorical fires she has to put out, she still managed to join the engineering team and almost singlehandedly save the entire train by putting out a literal fire.
Before Layton came along, Cavill was the ultimate puppeteer, masterfully toying with the nuts and bolts of the eternal engine from behind a curtain of smiles and pleasantries as the head of hospitality.
Though her decision to let the passengers of the train go on deifying the presumably all-knowing Mr. Wilford came back to torment her, she did her best in an impossible situation.
4. Miss Audrey’s Dazzling Performances
In their new reality of trying to survive a post-apocalyptic world, cramped into a train no less, the entire population of Snowpiercer are short on entertainment, which, in a tense, closed system like this can prove catastrophic.
This is the vital gap Miss Audrey steps in to fill. Our introduction to this character is right at the beginning of a particularly hypnotic performance that, just like her audience aboard the train, had more than a few of us reaching for the tissue paper.
5. Amputation as a punishment
6. Layton Sparing Cavill’s life
Cavill’s hold on the train was already tenuous as it was, so Layton figuring out her big secret threatened to derail the balance she has worked so hard to maintain. She stuck him in a drawer which he was broken out from not long after, and though Cavill’s intentions were mostly nonmalicious, you can forgive Layton’s anger towards her.
After the scheming and backroom meetings on both sides came the confrontation, which happened at the most inopportune of times. But Layton knew the existential danger they faced at that moment superseded his need to get even.
7. Eating the cannibals
In the beginning, it seemed like a mere rumor propagated by the top 1% of the train in order to drive home the barbaric lows the tail has plummeted to.
Instead, on Snowpiercer Season 1 Episode 8, what we got was confirmation of how far the tailies had to go to survive.
8. Lilah Folger Jr’s Trial
Melanie Cavill wears many hats, and this is the first instance where we get to see her properly scheme her way out of a tight spot, effectively manipulating the sway the name of Mr. Wilford has over the train. After Lilah was convicted and sentenced to the drawers, ” Mr. Wilford” stepped in with a gesture of clemency for the budding sociopath.
Cavill simply looked on calmly from the background, as she is wont to do, knowing she has bought herself some much-needed time, however short it might be.
9. Josie’s Death
Josie was one of the very best and fought to her very last breath.
After being tortured by Cavill, who was, at best, conflicted about meting out such violence on another person, Josie decided it was only fair that she went out swinging. Her death is, without doubt, the one that’d weigh on Layton the most.
10. Bess’ Defection
Though the tail was the genesis of the rebellion that swept through the train in such violent fashion, it wouldn’t have been the success that it was if it weren’t for key allies from within the establishment they wished to topple.
It would’ve been oh-so-easy for Bess to look the other way, or even help crush the rebellion. After all, she had it better than most and had no reason to challenge the status quo.
Instead, Bess gave up a stable, loving relationship, and upward social mobility to fight on the side of the hugely disadvantaged angels, and in the process endeared herself to everyone watching.
11. Lilah sucking on her dad’s glass eye
12. Pike selling his people out for cake
13. Layton Sacrificing His Own People
The battle between the train’s jackboots and the revolutionary forces of the tail and their allies was fought to a stalemate. With every side forced back to the drawing board to try and come up with an effective plan.
The jackboots seemed to have the upper hand — courtesy of Pike — who suggested they keep the Rebels locked in a battle of attrition just long enough, and cracks will inevitably begin to appear in the rebel ranks. All seemed to be going to plan until Cavill switched sides and came up with a risky hail Mary.
In the end, it worked like a charm but getting rid of the power players came with huge collateral damage in the form of prisoners of war captured by the jackboots. A necessary loss of lives though it may be, it still wouldn’t make the experience haunt Layton any less.
14. Cavill Outed As Mr. Wilford
While the audience was clued in on the mystery of Mr. Wilford pretty much from the jump, Melanie’s reckoning had to wait until the tail end of the season. Everything came crashing down around her, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Melanie’s friendship with the Wilford-worshiping Ruth Wardell dissolved almost instantly, and it was disheartening to see her so helpless as the people she tried so hard to keep happy turn on her and sentence her to die by the aptly named lung device.
15. The Appearance of Big Alice
The news that the existence of Mr. Wilford as nothing more than a figment of the train’s collective imagination was only beginning to properly sink in before everyone aboard the train was thrown the mother of all curveballs — Mr. Wilford was alive and well, and he’s in a second train which may or may not house even more people.
Mr. Wilford didn’t appear in the flesh, instead choosing to send in a herald — Cavill’s assumed-to-be-dead daughter — to bring the good people of Snowpiercer ominous tidings of impending doom.
Also, if you’ve ever wanted to see one giant train opening up its mouth and sinking its mechanical teeth into the backside of another giant train, then this is the scene for you.
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What was your favorite moment from Snowpiercer Season 1? let us know in the comments below! and be sure to check out our list of characters who, like the denizens of Snowpiercer, could do with a bit of a break.
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ND Mohammed
ND is a TV zealot with a lot of strong opinions on why Avatar: TLA, Santa Clarita Diet, and Sense8 ended when they did. When not found in front of a screen watching the weirdest shows, he can be found in front of a screen playing the weirdest games.