Review: 'Snowpiercer' finds its groove in Season Two
Posted Wednesday, November 10, 2021 at 3:32 PM Central
by John Couture
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this news story. The opinions I share are my own.
I would say there are only a few films that I've seen in the last decade that continue to occupy daily space in my mind. Most movies these days are akin to the disposable friends that Tyler Durden waxes intellectually about in Fight Club, you see them, enjoy them, and forget them.
One movie that continues to stand the test of time for me is Snowpiercer.
A bleak and dystopian look at our future survival during an ice age on a train, Snowpiercer was directed by Academy Award-winning director Bong Joon-ho and stars Captain America himself Chris Evans and remains a cinematic highlight of the last decade. That said, the film was based on a graphic novel and left many questions unanswered.
Last year, Snowpiercer, a TV spin-off was born and set seven years after the great freeze and about 10 years before the events of the film. This allowed the series' showrunners enough rope to create new characters and yet still keep many of the same elements from the movie.
The TV show varied greatly from the film, but most of the differences could be explained away by the passage of time. Why wasn't Daveed Diggs' character Layton not in the movie? Well, he must have been killed at some point in the intervening years between the series and the film.
The reverse thoughts though were more challenging to simply dismiss.
Why weren't any of the characters from the film in the TV series? There are various theories out there and I'm not willing to lose my theory that some of them are but under new names. The biggest theory involves multiple trains and it got a big boost with Snowpiercer: The Complete Second Season.
In season two, an entirely new power struggle emerges, causing a dangerous rift as people are divided between their loyalty to Layton and to Mr. Wilford, who has a new train, new technology and a game plan that keeps everyone guessing. While Layton battles Wilford for the soul of Snowpiercer, Melanie leads the charge on a shocking new discovery that could change the fate of humanity.
Daveed Diggs returns to headline the series and the Hamilton actor continues to display his amazing skills here. If it wasn't clear before that Diggs was set for a major post-Hamilton bump, his work on this show certainly cements his A-list status for years to come.
Jennifer Connelly's Melanie has both the most emotional arc of the season and the least screen time of any returning regular. This season takes her character off the train in an effort to prove that the Earth is healing but also forces her to abandon her newly reunited daughter.
The second season continues to feature the barbaric action that has been a hallmark of the series and the movie. While the first season saw the culmination of a class civil war, the second season brings a whole new train of agitators that will certainly prey upon the shaky alliance that the first season forged.
The ringleader of this new incursion is none other than Wilford himself, played diabolically by Sean Bean. When you cast Sean Bean, you're guaranteed two things: a great performance and an inevitable death scene. Of course, Wilford is slated to survive to the movie, but as in Season One, perhaps the Wilford we see in the movie isn't the real Wilford.
Time will tell.
Much like Season One, the real selling point of this collection is the added features. Snowpiercer: The Complete Second Season is chock full of goodies including a great deep dive into the Wilford character. For only 10 episodes, it's clear that Warner Bros. has invested in this property and that can only mean great things for fans like us going forward.
With Season Three set to hit the tracks in January 2022, Snowpiercer: The Complete Second Season is the perfect companion to help you get caught up or refreshed on the series. With no end in sight, save for the film 10 years in the future, it looks like Snowpiercer is here to stay and I can't wait to see where they take it next.
Snowpiercer: The Complete Second Season is now available on Blu-ray and DVD.
