Snowpiercer Review: The Last to Go (Season 3 Episode 2)
Snowpiercer Season 3 Episode 2, “The Last to Go,” can best be described as the calm before the inevitable storm.
This season is all built around the clashing of two proverbial armies: Layton’s and Wilford’s. The runaway train versus Snowpiercer. That is a conflict that the show could drag out for many episodes but there is also a time limit on how much you can build up to that.
For a show that is mostly static and set within one large place, it’s always been good about shaking up dynamics and the status quo therein. The environment might always be the same, or very similar, but the thing that constantly keeps it interesting is the evolving power struggle.
In that regard, there’s an almost audible ticking clock on how long the two factions can remain separated. Sooner or later, the two sides will have to meet again and the show has evidently chosen the former.
What results out of that is a kind of lull that sets the stage for the coming battle. It allows us to really see the difference between what Layton’s version of the train was and what Wilford’s now is. Layton leaned towards a more socialistic mindset and Wilford is of a more fascistic, cult-like design.
It’s not a shocking development, since this is something that’s been around when Melanie was impersonating Wilford, but there’s very much an aspect to this that borders on scientology. Snowpiercer, as the train, has always used language that reflects that with terms like “the Eternal Engine” or the deific way they treated Wilford on the first season.
It’s put into a really stark view here with the marriage between LJ and Osweiller and the ways that the traditional ceremony has been altered to fit into the realm of the train. Even more than that, Wilford’s self-aggrandizing role within that. He is the one leading them through the steps and making sure to remind everyone that they are alive because of him.
It’s a show of force to the rest of the train, something to tell them exactly what is owed. That is something that the audience really didn’t need to be spelled out. We all understand what is happening there and it is unnecessary for the show to spoonfeed us on two or three separate occasions what is actually going on.
What the series wants to point out is that LJ and Osweiller are also potentially big players in this game, which just feels odd. It reeks of the kind of positioning that would have been on Game of Thrones and is a little bit out of place here. Snowpiercer has never been so much that kind of show, despite some similarities between the two.
Ultimately, this feels like eating your vegetables before moving onto the actual entree of the meal. We have done the place-setting and now it’s time to get into the meat of the season.
What did you think of this episode of Snowpiercer? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Critic Rating:
User Rating:
Snowpiercer airs Mondays at 9/8c on TNT.
Follow us on Twitter and on 
Instagram!
Want more from Tell-Tale TV? Subscribe to our newsletter here!
Drew Koenig
Drew has an ongoing, borderline unhealthy obsession with pop culture, but with television in particular. When he's not aggressively trying to get out of a perpetual state of catching up, he can be found passionately defending the ending of Lost. More of his online work can be found at The Lost Cause and he also co-hosts The Lost Cause Pod.