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Season 1, episode 4: Cut the Shit

Spoiler alert!!! This is a rewatch recap of Snowpiercer s1e4: Without their Maker. Naturally, it is full of spoilers for that episode. However, it also contains spoilers for some other episodes of season 1 and season 2. You have been warned!

It’s Jinju’s turn to do the voiceover this episode. She sharpens a knife, but don’t worry - she’s just making sushi for her date tonight! The cooking scenes, however, are intercut with scenes of Erik dripping in blood from last night’s murder spree. Jinju’s monologue swings so rapidly between self-deprecation and assertions of saving the world that I think I need some of that First class Gravol.

After the opening credits and a cool outside shot of the train at night, there’s a knock on Melanie’s door. It’s Bennett. He’s come to stand next to Melanie’s little eugenics library (holy shit have you seen the titles of some of those books??? ‘The Science of Human Perfection’?! Yikes!) and straddle the line between flirting and patronising. She gives him the sarcastic response he deserves, and then they share a tangerine while chatting about goat farts.

Meanwhile, Till insists that she’s not afraid to be seen with Jinju: she just doesn’t want to walk to work with her girlfriend because there’s already enough track talk about her. I love Bess Till as much as the next queer fan of fictional violence, but… is she really interesting enough to garner track talk? Jinju thinks it’s bullshit, too, and calls Till out. Till then explains that she’s worried about what her friends will think about her dating uptrain. I love Bess Till as much as the next queer fan of fictional violence, but… does she really have friends? Jinju doesn’t really understand Till’s concerns, and resorts to every lesbian’s preferred method for comforting a partner: paraphrasing Orphan Black quotes.

Before Jinju has time to crack out her Helena impression, the phone rings. Melanie Cavill doesn’t fuck around with a “good morning” or try to gently lead in with “I have some bad news”: she straight-up just tells Jinju that Nikki Genêt is dead.

Creepy Klimpt is crying on the floor, and unfortunately Melanie is the only person around to comfort him. She does exactly what I would do in this situation: tells him one (1) nice thing, then asks him to stop crying. They need to smuggle the body to the lab so that they can get some secret data about the drawers. But it’s too late: Layton, Roche and Till are already on the scene. Layton is piiiiiiissed that Melanie didn’t immediately use the description he gave her last night to capture the killer. Till finally does some good detectiving: she remembers that the border is closed! Because she just had to pass through it from Second. Y'know… from her girlfriend’s place? She nervously waits for someone to denounce her as a class traitor, but absolutely nobody in the room gives a fuck.

Meanwhile, Erik is nursing a beer in the Third class mess hall. Apparently none of the staff are suspicious of the blood that is undoubtedly all over his suit. His first class booze tokens cause a bit of a stir, though.

In the Nightcar (because where else would a military Commander and a Lead Brakeman meet?), Grey and Roche talk about “their men” in a way that’s making Till look straight to the camera like she’s in an episode of The Office.

Grey, Roche and Ruth don’t want Layton finding out even more details about the train, which is very sensible of them! Unfortunately, Melanie is planning to take Layton on yet another sightseeing tour of Snowpiercer’s weak points today. Grey also doesn’t want Layton visiting First, but Melanie tells him: tough shit! Mr. Wilford planned the route specially!

Melanie quietly promises Layton that she’ll take him up to First when the others are busy. Before they can discuss it further, Miss Audrey descends the staircase. She’s dressed in her best funeral attire, and after giving Melanie a death glare (as well as distracting Till from work for a few gay seconds), she takes Layton on a little trip to the hall of mirrors while the funfair’s clowns plan their next act.

Talking of clowns: Osweiller is back on the job! Till is not happy to see her drug-dealing little brother, but their dad boss says they have to play nicely together. She storms off to her room, and I don’t blame her.

Audrey and Layton circle each other in the hall of mirrors, and I don’t know anything about making TV but that must have been a fucking nightmare to film? How did they manage to avoid getting any camera operators in shot? Impressive! He wants to know all the secrets she learns at work, but no can do: he’s forgotten about therapist/hypnotist/singer/bartender/sex worker/compère - client confidentiality. But what’s not confidential is the fact that Melanie has never been to therapy. I’m gonna go ahead and say that you probably don’t need to be a detective to work that one out?

Layton suggests that Nikki’s death - because apparently no one gives a fuck about the other two people who were murdered that night - could be the spark they need to start their revolution. Audrey tentatively agrees - but warns Layton to be careful. Then Melanie comes to pick Layton up, and we’re treated to this:

I could watch hours of footage of Miss Audrey hating Melanie Cavill.

Down in the tail, Lights is excited: she’s never seen a blue chip before! Murray is apparently feeling more optimistic today, and suggests that it could open heaps of doors. They come up with a plan to dress up, chip out of sanitation crew, and find Astrid: an ex-tailie who apprenticed out six years ago. Big John volunteers to try it on his next shift, then descends into a coughing fit. Lights looks worried, and Josie steps in to massage John’s fragile male ego so hard that he doesn’t even realise that she’s telling him it was a stupid idea.

Since that time Josie completely got away with killing two Jackboots in the rebellion, she has apparently become convinced that she has the power of invisibility! No one will notice if she starts sneaking around uptrain! Before anyone can suggest that maybe someone who’s actually on sanitation crew should take the chip, Lights beckons Josie over and bandages it to her wrist.

When the Jackboots call for the sanitation crew, Josie marches forward with such purpose that anyone with any common sense should very obviously not let her cover her friend’s shift. But the Jackboots let her through, because they’re in a hurry: it’s nearly time for the show’s traditional full naked ass shot! Today, the honour falls to the Last Australian in the sanitation shower. That’s four for four! Why?!

As if his trip to the hall of mirrors wasn’t enough fun for one day, Melanie takes Layton to visit an art gallery! He complains to Melanie that Firsties fucked the planet, so they shouldn’t get to own art. Melanie tells him that she grew up poor, and he doesn’t seem convinced until she tells him that his anger is justified, and he should use it. That’s the kind of pep talk we could all do with! Validation! Permission to go apeshit! But then she ruins it: she tells him to lean into all the tailie stereotypes to fuck with the Firsties, and I’m left wondering how many times Melanie Cavill dated someone just to piss off her parents in a very offensive way.

Much to the amusement and horror of the Firsties, Layton rises to Melanie’s challenge.

When Ruth doesn’t immediately answer Layton’s question about where the bodyguards are, Layton makes some kind of cryptic threat against her. The interaction doesn’t make a lot of sense, but we find out that Ruth has taken fourteen arms in the tail, which is a nice/horrible bit of detail. Then LJ, like Zarah and Creepy Klimpt before her, decides to offer up incriminating information without being questioned. LJ’s ex-lawyer mother is distinctly unimpressed - not only with her daughter, but also because she’s in the presence of a peasant! She goes full Karen and literally demands to speak to the manager.

Melanie calls the engine, and Bennett answers. After a quick flirt, Melanie goes to pass the phone over to Lilah. I’m not sure whether they were planning for Bennett to do his best Wilford impression or to crack out the soundboard, but either option would have been much more fun to watch than what actually happens: Lilah Folger - yes, that Lilah Folger - backs down. What?! That seems so out of character! Now I want to speak to the manager!

Downtrain, the sanitation crew are on their lunchbreak. We get our proper introduction to Sweary!Josie, who was apparently expecting sanitation duty to be… not gross?

The only clothes that the sanitation crew have collected are pyjamas. The plain white t-shirt and run-of-the mill bottoms are a very unsubtle contrast to all the beautiful, silky dressing gowns the Firsties are wearing this episode. I am, once again, baffled that Big John thought he’d be the best person to sneak out? There is absolutely no way that he’d be able to squeeze into that child-sized t-shirt!

Up in First, Layton tosses Erik’s room. We get a bit of backstory about the Folgers’ private dick harvester: he’s an ex-marine, and they hired him when the freeze hit. Layton finds a J-hook on a shelf, and LJ informs everyone that the tool is used for beekeeping, torture, and penisectomies. The bees died three years ago, and the old hives are in storage.

Ruth offers to do some PR for the Folgers, so the three of them head to the other room and… leave their teenage daughter with the detective? I know that they don’t necessarily suspect her of anything (somehow), but surely that’s just objectively a bad idea? They know what she’s like, right?

Downtrain, Josie has inexplicably managed to find Astrid within about five minutes! She should definitely buy a lottery ticket the next chance she gets. Josie tells Astrid there’s no time for questions, then promptly stares out at the sunrise for five minutes before… asking Astrid a question. Astrid is too sweet to point out the hypocrisy, and skips straight to telling Josie why Layton was brought uptrain. Josie then casually asks Astrid to risk her life to help the tail. Astrid doesn’t take much convincing, so they fist bump and share some lumpy porridge. It genuinely does not look better than the bug bars, but Josie seems to enjoy it.

LJ doesn’t think Erik had a very good childhood. Neither Layton nor Melanie mention anything about pots or kettles, but it’s clearly a struggle. In the other room, Lilah Sr. can “just hear the track talk” about their situation. LJ tries to distract Layton from his line of questioning with remote controlled curtains, but Melanie steps in to keep them on track. LJ does an incredible job of overacting the part of the confused, innocent girl who has never chopped off a dick in her life, but she’s not fooling Melanie and Layton.

The next few scenes come thick and fast: Melanie, in a rare show of care for the welfare of passengers, confronts LJ’s parents about the fact that their adult bodyguard groomed their teenage daughter. Josie makes it back to sanitation without a second to spare. Till and Osweiller squabble about gun terminology on their way to the beehive storage container.

Then, the Brakemen see Erik in the container. But it turns out he knows parkour! Erik easily escapes the Brakemen, and desperately tries to run home to his cat. That’s right - it’s finally time to meet my favourite character! Up in the Folgers’ car, LJ makes introductions between Layton and Snowpeter.

Layton’s day just keeps getting better! Granted, the three murder victims were a rough start. But since then he’s gone to the fair with Audrey, the art gallery with Melanie, had a free breakfast in a fancy restaurant and now he gets to pet a cat! What’s next?!

Oh. LJ’s going to sing and dance to a creepy song, accuse Layton of cannibalism, and admit to wanting to “eat a dude” to make people scared of her. That’s what’s next. It’s a useful breakthrough for the case, I suppose, but definitely a step down on the fun scale from petting a cat.

Next, we cut to Jinju. She’s picking up a gift for Till. Cute! But Erik crashes in and takes her hostage before we find out what the gift is (beyond ‘clothes’). If anyone has been able to figure it out, please let me know!

Layton and LJ are still dancing around the fact that they both know she’s the real dick chopper - and, yes, the dancing is still literal for LJ. It is truly astounding that she doesn’t have a parent or lawyer present - especially given the fact that Lilah Sr. is both! But alas, the only third party in the room is Snowpeter, and he’s unable to stop her from literally doing this:

Dickus choppiamus!

In the market, Erik is trapped. There are Brakemen and Jackboots looking for him all over. When they find him, he tries to make his escape by shooting into the air while using Jinju as a human shield. Till - who is surrounded by armoured Jackboots, but wearing no armour herself - runs straight towards the serial killer with the loaded weapon. Her dad boss is going to have some serious words with her later. She must really like that second class cabin.

Till leads the group of Brakemen and Jackboots in a start-and-stop chase that’s comically impeded by doors every few seconds. Till manages to jam her shoulder into one set of doors just before they close, and her dad and brother colleagues have to stop her getting crushed. When Erik and Jinju head for the subtrain, Till wastes no time lifting the hatch and starting to climb down after them, before quickly jumping back out again to dodge a bullet. It’s reassuring to discover that she has at least one tiny shred of survival instinct left!

Although Grey is with the group, for some reason it’s Roche who phones in orders to the Jackboots in the subtrain. Jinju tries her best at hostage negotiation, but Erik isn’t interested. It’s mere seconds before they’re surrounded. The Jackboots start to advance, but Till throws herself in front of them in case their movement spooks Erik into shooting her girlfriend. Osweiller copies his big sister without question and also gets in the way of a Jackboot, which is weirdly kind of sweet for him!

Erik decides not to shoot his hostage: instead, he fires at a box on the wall. I’m not sure what the box is: there’s a label on it, but it’s dirtier than the s1e1-inspired Mel/Ruth fanfiction. The box explodes, and Erik is immediately injured by some shrapnel. Jinju curls up against the wall, while six (6!) Jackboots lay into Erik with axes. Roche makes another phone call, reporting Erik’s death to Melanie. And again, Melanie Cavill doesn’t fuck around with any preamble: she hangs up and immediately informs the Folgers, “He’s dead.”

LJ fake cries against her mother’s shoulder, while Melanie and Layton have a full conversation using just tiny movements of their eyes and heads. It’s impressive! Then, Layton informs the room that LJ instructed Erik to kill the first two victims. Lilah Karens out again, and LJ tries to take on Layton and a Jackboot with her dick remover.

In the next scene, Melanie and Layton are in the hospitality announcement booth. Melanie informs the passengers that the murderer is dead, and another suspect is in custody. Layton sets up the title for the next episode, by reminding Melanie that justice needs to be delivered. Melanie ignores his comment, and offers to buy him a drink in a tone that clearly indicates that she means a drink of poison.

Layton’s big day out ends with a trip to the aquarium car. He must be exhausted! He waits for Melanie to drink first, which is definitely a smart move - just not enough. She tries to play more games, and he tells her he just wants to go back to the tail. Then, she finally reveals what we’ve all known since the strawberries speech: he’s seen too much, and can’t be allowed back. Finally, she reveals the other thing they both know: Layton has figured out that Melanie Wilford. A moment later, the roofies kick in.

The penultimate scene is in the tail, presumably a few days in the future. Charlie Bucket Murray finds a golden ticket silver capsule in a chocolate bug bar! Looks like that scrap of wire won’t be the only passenger getting a trip to a chocolate factory! Murray runs all the way home to show the message to Grandpa Josie, who leaps out of bed and dances around the room! But then, they actually read the message. Layton’s missing.

We immediately find out why: in the drawer room, Creepy Klimpt is busy sticking props to Layton’s face. Melanie watches over him, and tells him to keep Layton off-book - to make it harder for Josie to find him next episode.

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