Snowpiercer: 5 big questions after the Season 2 premiere

Snowpiercer started off season two in epic fashion. On the 119th revolution, Snowpiercer‘s 994 cars were joined from the rear by Big Alice and her 40 cars.  The set up for conflict between the two separate worlds is obvious.

While there has been discussion about the direction of Snowpiercer, there are miles of track left undiscovered. With just a slight amount of imagination, it’s easy to see multiple story arcs and questions in the upcoming episodes and seasons.

One such question lies with Melanie staying outside the train. At a certain point, it’s just too cold outside to survive. Will her time outside the train have long-lasting ramifications?

Will rebellion be perpetual, or will there be a relative peace between the two separate environments? One thing is for sure, the longer they fight, the less time they have to focus on living. On to the questions from this episode.

Who are the key additions in Snowpiercer Season 2, Episode 1?

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About halfway through the episode, a new character is introduced. Standing roughly 6’9″ and 350lbs, this is the most menacing man left in the world. Literally.

Apparently, his name is Icy Bob, not to be confused with Oiler Bob, and he’s the enforcer. Essentially he’s The Mountain from Game of Thrones and is an unstoppable force who is impervious to temperatures lethal to other humans on the train. That’s an awfully powerful pet to have for Mr. Wilford.

Aside from Icy Bob, there is a new weasel named Kevin. Within mere hours he breaches the secure link between engines in order to trade away drugs for some fruit. Naturally, Pike is on the other side of the deal, and it leads to an assault on Big Alice, where a few guys who look like Peaky Blinders extras meet their fate.

Last but not least are the idiosyncratic Dr. Headwoods, a husband and wife pair who have retrofitted a Big Alice car into a med bay where they can reverse the effects of frostbit with synthetic tissue gel.

Who is Alex’s dad?

Speaking of Mr. Wilford, is he Alex’s father? If he took Melanie off the farm at a young age, where she was fixing tractors as a teenager and eventually became his protégé, it stands to reason she’d be impressionable. The rumors are swirling, and it would be an incredibly intense pressure point between Wilford and Melanie since, at the current moment, Alex is essentially a spy, the main engineer, and leader of the Snowpiercer scavenger hunt.

Why didn’t Mr. Wilford fix the connection link?

Melanie told him it was a big flaw more than seven years ago, but he didn’t do anything about it. He had time to sit and wait, retrofit various other portions of Big Alice, but did nothing about the equivalent to the Death Star thermal exhaust port?

He had enough foresight to equip Big Alice with the means to shut off Snowpiercer’s power, and even to act as an anchor, then used a secretive Rocky Mountain test track to ambush his former train, but didn’t repair a massive flaw he knew about during prototyping?

Is the Earth warming up?

It appears so, but analysis is incomplete. Outside it’s roughly 118F below, and even when protected, Mel almost goes hypothermic. Before she sabotages the uplink between cars, the temperature in Snowpiercer’s tail section drops to -12F. Even a small cut in Melanie’s suit, exposing her for a minute or two, causes some serious looking frostbite blisters.

Based on the preview, however, and the snow Melanie saw, temperatures appear to be rising.

Did Melanie infiltrate Big Alice to cause the conflict?

Simply put, did Melanie board Big Alice to start the conflict between engines? Was she curious about the changes/additions, the people she obviously knew before the world froze, or was she strategically fighting for the people she has known for the past seven years? Or maybe she wanted to see Wilford again?

Snowpiercer airs Mondays at 8/9ET PM on TNT.