Review: Infinity Train – Book 2 “The Map Car/The Toad Car”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Now on the quest of reducing Jesse’s number, he and MT end up in a car that looks like a giant incomplete map. With the help of a floating face named Marcel, they start piecing the map together, but soon realize that he doesn’t want them to finish, only keep them there forever. It’s only when Jesse decides to make his own exit on the map with an old receipt that they’re able to escape. Finishing the map makes the world real, including making the water reflective, which brings the Reflection Police searching for MT. They chase the two into another car, this time being blank with a single toad who must be kicked to continue. One of the flecks, Sieve, tries convincing Jesse to turn over MT, but the two gain trust for each other and learn more about Jesse’s past, including how peer pressure led him to be passed over for a swimming competition spot and hurt his younger brother Nate. By the end, Nate’s ability to make his own choices brings his number down from 32 to 14.

OUR TAKE
We’re making steady progress already as Nate’s number has gone down to under half of where it started, and just like with Tulip, it seems opening up about one’s problems is the key bringing it down. Though while Tulip’s problems stemmed mostly from her not dealing with her parents’ divorce very well, Jesse’s seem to come from how he is more susceptible to peer pressure, even when it comes at the cost of hurting people he cares about or his own self respect. Of the two instances we learn about him that point to this, one involves him being forced into doing the Butterfly Stroke for his swim team, then still being left behind even when he wanted to go. The other is shown through a video of him forcing his brother Nate to go through a “man test” in order to please his bully test, which led to Nate being injured and betrayed.

With this, we seem to be forming a theme with Jesse about needing to do things because he wants to instead of being influenced by others. In a pretty on the nose example of this, he ends the Map Car adventure by creating his own way out, AKA making his own path instead of simply going in circles like Marcel probably would have wanted. The next episode shows this in a two-fold way: one being not selling out MT to the flecks, as well as initially not kicking the toad when pressured to, THEN doing it even when it might cost him something but being the right thing to do. Essentially, he needs to be able do the right thing when he can, not when others tell him to. Along with some not to subtle implications towards the toxic masculinity in his life, this paints a pretty clear picture of where his arc will likely be going for the rest of the book.

And MT isn’t left out of the character development either, even if these episodes (which feel like one big episode instead of two, like yesterday) are more Jesse focused. She and Jesse at least manage to bond more over their respective situations, along with the fact that they are both learning how to be their own people when they’ve been so used to being the product of someone else’s choices. One a product of someone’s reflection and the other a product of societal expectations. Guess we’ll see how far that takes them as we enter the halfway point of this event.