Snowpiercer Review: Born to Bleed (Season 3 Episode 6)
The identity of the bomber is revealed on Snowpiercer Season 3 Episode 6, “Born to Bleed,” with massive ramifications for Layton.
The entirety of “Born to Bleed” is a follow-up on something that we had criticisms of during the last episode, which is that there are real consequences for Pike and his actions. There is real, genuine fallout here and it isn’t swept under the rug in the way that it appeared it might.
The problem with this episode is the same one that we have had. It is not fully apparent what Pike’s actual motivations are for trying to blow up Layton. That is something that was already crucial and is even more so given that this leads directly to his death.
What Pike wants feels poorly drawn and that becomes apparent during the final confrontation between the two of them. Layton is almost desperately asking Pike what he wants out of this and we’re only given the barest of an answer. It’s impossible to know this, of course, but it seems that it’s because the writers don’t actually know.
It appears that they want this conflict between Layton and Pike that ultimately in the death of the latter but they haven’t put a lot of thought and effort into what is actually driving that. It’s just something that they want to happen and aren’t overly concerned with how much it makes sense.
A part of this goes to the fact that Pike’s perspective on his dynamic with Layton feels like a retcon, despite this being brought up on the last episode. His reasoning hinges on him acting as Layton’s enforcer for all this time and that simply doesn’t track with what we saw of them during the first season.
What we saw there was a Pike that was constantly at odds with Layton and fighting with him on how to break out of the tail. At the end of that season, Pike sells out Layton for a nicer life. This doesn’t add up to one person owing the other their life and doing dirty deeds as a result of it.
What this feels like is an episode that needs certain things to happen for plot reasons, not because they make sense.
That also connects to Audrey, who the show has deeply struggled knowing what to do with and especially so since her personality transplant last season. When she went over to Wilford’s side, that was a case of the show needing her to be a certain thing for the plot and not because it was at all consistent with her character.
That is a dangerous place for a show to be in. That is a trap that far too many like this have fallen into and Snowpiercer needs to be careful of that.
What did you think of this episode of Snowpiercer? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Snowpiercer airs Mondays at 9/8c on TNT.
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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.