Review: Infinity Train – Book 2 “The Mall Car/The Wasteland”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Grace, the woman from last episode, introduces Jesse and MT to her group known as “The Apex”, a group of passengers who have gathered together to raid cars and overthrow One-One, who they see as the “false conductor”. They also see their hand numbers has signs of strengths, explaining why Grace’s number is the biggest, thereby making her the leader. They soon separate Jesse from MT and Alan Dracula, telling him that MT is a “null”, essentially meaning she doesn’t exist and should be left behind. But when Grace brings out the flecks to take MT away, Jesse chooses his friendship with MT over Grace’s offer, finally completing his journey and bring his number down to 0. This opens his doorway back home which he tries using to get them both out of there, but MT is unable to go with him and he disappears.

Now without her friend, MT runs from the flecks, but get shackled to Mace (the one voiced by Ben Mendelson) who gets sliced in half by the train and sends them all off the train. MT tries travelling away from the train but finds herself unable to move past a certain point. Mace uses this to make her believe that she only existed because of the car, that she was never meant to live on her own and might not even be real like Grace said. They eventually make it back to the car, but she kills Mace when he tries one more time to take her down. MT and Alan then wait on top of a car, waiting for the next to roll on through.

OUR TAKE

Well, I guess I called it on Jesse making his exit in the seventh episode, though it was certainly in a different context than Tulip’s was. While hers was a triumphant and conclusive way of completing her personal journey, Jesse’s exit came about in a similar way. As we’ve seen, his arc centered on being true to his own personal morals and values instead of what others around were pressuring on him, especially when it wasn’t good for him. By finally making the choice to protect MT, his arc finished and the train allowed him to leave. But only too late does he or MT learn that only he can go through, something MT ironically might have known if she had stuck with Tulip until the end of HER journey.

Both of Thursday’s episodes show a different side to both the passengers and the citizens of the cars, as Grace’s Apex tribe seems like what would be a logical conclusion for those who have been on the train long enough to come to. Much like Amelia from the last season, we know that some humans can end up going backwards in their development and have their numbers overtake their bodies, but we’ve never seen others take this as sign of superiority, or seeing the beings in other cars as “not real”. Likewise, the way the train functions doesn’t necessarily disagree, as Mace points out that it’s possible the beings created in these cars may only come into being to serve the passengers’ respective journeys. With that in mind, MT stands as an anomaly, having broken away from her intended function to make a life for herself, which we now know has its limitations.

With two episodes left and one night to go, we now get to see something we didn’t get to last time: what happens AFTER the main story’s passenger leaves the story. Tonight, we find out if MT can truly be someone who lives beyond being simply being a mirror of her prime. Seems like the right time to bring back One-One to shine a light on this dilemma, and considering the titles of the last two episodes are “The Tape Car” and “The Number Car”, I hazard a guess that we’ll also be seeing Tulip in flashbacks, as well as perhaps an explanation and origin for the passenger numbers and their true functions. I can’t wait to see how this ends, though hopefully not for good.