Snowpiercer Review: Setting Itself Right (Season 3 Episode 8)
Snowpiercer Season 3 Episode 8, “Setting Itself Right,” goes on the hunt for Melanie and finds themselves trapped in an environmental hazard.
The progression of this season has been really baffling, particularly this back-half of it. Typically in seasons past, this would be the point in which the dial would be at eleven and stay there for a little bit. There is a very distinct void of that here. This is the type of episode a show would do if it had five or six more episodes left in the season, not two.
It makes one wonder what the show is actually trying to do this season, which isn’t really clear. There’s a lack of tension and it’s taking a lot of the energy out. Any that we’ve had in recent episodes feels manufactured, like Pike going after Layton. It happened just to happen.
When Layton had to be up against Melanie or Wilford, it was a very well-defined antagonism. You knew why he was at odds with both of them and it made sense. Now there is nothing and it shows. There is simply the hope of getting to New Eden, which might be a good endpoint for the season but leaves it kind of aimless until then.
“Setting Itself Right” is a fine episode but it’s just that, no more no less. The real sour note of the episode is the death of Asha (Archie Panjabi) and even then there’s a limit to how upset we can be. We got so little of her throughout this season and what we did has been her being despondent and aimless. She didn’t really do very much.
It all feels like a waste. It’s a waste of a character and a good actor. It makes one wonder what the point of bringing Archie Panjabi — an excellent and dynamic performer — was if they were just going to kill her off a few episodes later.
What makes it even worse is that it is a death that only functions to motivate Layton to keep his secret. If anything, it makes the previous episode, which was already not great, entirely pointless. Layton went on this journey of self-discovery just to arrive at the point that he was at before this.
The cherry on top of all of this is how utterly predictable this all feels. Of course, the episode that has a little bit of emphasis on Asha, a woman of color who has stayed mostly on the sidelines all season, is promptly killed. It’s not surprising but it is disappointing.
Snowpiercer‘s writing in the past has always been better than what they’ve given us the last few episodes and that might be the most damning thing of all.
It’s not uncommon for a show to hit a slump in its third season. It’s happened to more series than we can count. Let’s just hope that it can find a way to bounce back for its final run.
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.