Written by contributor Christina ‘DZA’ Marie
The TNT show Snowpiercer is based on the graphic novel of the same name. Climate change has so totally screwed up the planet that it’s become uninhabitable, with a global temperature of negative one hundred degrees Celsius. But before it got too bad, a billionaire built a giant train called Snowpiercer, designed to keep humanity alive until the freeze is over.
First class passengers are those who were able to purchase million-dollar tickets and live in luxury. Second class passengers are specialised workers, including medical staff, education, and hospitality. They don’t live in luxury, but it’s still pretty nice. Third class passengers have less room, more restrictions, and have to do “unskilled” labour, suuch as cleaning crews, security, and food.
Then we have the tail. They’re the stowaways: unable to afford tickets and unable to procure jobs aboard the Snowpiercer, they piled on right before it left the station. Conditions are horrible: almost no food, no heat, no privacy. Very few people are allowed to move up to third class. Revolutions are ruthlessly put down with executions and loss of limb. The rest of the train is hoping they die out soon.
Fast forward seven years. One of these “tailees,” Andre Layton, now the world’s only detective, gets pulled up-train to investigate a murder. He takes the opportunity to make allies and get information to help with a revolution, hoping that this time they can break the class system for good and be treated like human beings. (Fun fact: Layton is played by Daveed Diggs, who played Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson in Hamilton, and I honest to god did not recognise him. He is good.)
The murder itself is solved in about two episodes. The trial takes another two. The rest of the season is all about the fallout, as the focus of the season is not about murder but about revolution and class warfare. It’s a very effective way of introducing the characters and the worldbuilding as Layton visits different cars on the train and talks to a variety of suspects and witnesses.
Snowpiercer’s big villain, other than class ideology itself, is Melanie, the head of hospitality. As early as the pilot, we’re shown that she’s the real power of Snowpiercer, the woman behind the curtain, but the writers take great care to humanise her and all the other antagonists. Yes, she tortures and murders people who get in her way, leaving four hundred people in the tail to die of sickness and starvation, but she doesn’t do this out of a sense of malevolence. She does it because she genuinely believes it’s the right thing to do to preserve humanity.
This nuance of Melanie spreads to the other characters, too. Layton has to make some tough ethical decisions later in the season. There are several people in second and third class who have their own reason for taking certain sides: a security guard gradually works her way to becoming one of Layton’s greatest allies, while another third class citizen betrays the tail. Some people in second class risk their lives to help the tail, while others side with Melanie because they don’t want to risk damaging the train with a war. If the train goes, they all go.
This takes what, on the surface, looks like a black-and-white, good vs. evil, the oppressed vs. the oppressors story, into something much more nuanced and gray.
The science fiction setting really helps bring out the various themes. There’s the obvious one of class warfare and how people need to share resources. The head of the train is spacious, luxurious, even has a bowling alley. The tail is dark, dirty, and crowded. The problems our characters face are designed within the train itself. Had it been designed to prioritise human life over profit, a revolution wouldn’t be needed.
Snowpiercer also mentions the problems of climate change, and how that led them to where they are now. Once in the beginning, when Layton is narrating the origins of Snowpiercer and how the tailees had to force their way onto the train or die in the cold, and once in the finale when another character laments about how they didn’t take the threat seriously at first. They’re practically throw-away lines, but they don’t need to say more. The setting itself, a frozen wasteland where Los Angeles and Chicago used to be, speaks volumes.
Overall, I love this show. Not only are the characters complex and engaging, they’re also diverse in race, gender, and sexuality, a rarity in televised science fiction. It creates an unsettlingly realistic dystopian and extremely relevant themes of today. And it left us on one hell of a cliffhanger for season two. Five stars. Cannot wait for more!
