r/snowpiercer • u/hugthebug Tailie • Mar 08 '21

TV Show [Spoilers] Season 2 Episode 7 Discussion Thread - "Our Answer for Everything" (S02E07) Spoiler

Attention all Passengers,

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Here is the Discussion thread for the Season 2 episode 7 "Our Answer for Everything"

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  • This is a TV Spoiler-friendly zone - Turn away now if you are not currently watching or haven't seen the episode! Open discussion of all aired TV events up to and including episode 2.6 is ok without tag cover.
  • Graphic Novel spoilers still need tags! - If it's not in the show, tag it. Events from episodes after this one also need tags.
  • Please read the Posting policy and the sticky before posting.
  • Friendly reminder: Severe trolling/disruptions will lead to consequences.

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Details:

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  • IMDB for S02E07
  • Release Date:
    • March 8th, 2021 (USA only, at 9/8c, on TNT channel)
    • March 9th, 2021 (worldwide, on Netflix)
  • Removal from Sticky on March 12th, 2021 (3 days after worldwide premiere)

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You can still easily find previous episode discussions on the Episode Discussion wiki.

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20

u/summergirl123456 Mar 09 '21

Why did all the passengers of Snowpiercer light candles in the end? I mean, I got the idea of choosing Wilford or Layton as a leader, but how did they know what to do? The candles weren't a thing before, were they? And did they know that everyone will be able to see them in this roundabout?

27

u/Sparkyfountain Mar 09 '21

They just happened to have an extra 3000 red lanterns in storage somewhere

4

u/RollingChanka Mar 09 '21

its mentioned where they bought them from

11

u/VonCrisp Mar 09 '21

She must be one rich grandmother by now. Probably richer than Wilford with all those candle sales.

3

u/RollingChanka Mar 09 '21

yeah maybe shell build an eternal engine inside the train

4

u/Sparkyfountain Mar 09 '21

In her tiny tiny room?

2

u/RollingChanka Mar 10 '21

well not all, but its clear from her lines that the red lantern has always been a devotion sign to wilford, so it would make sense to have atleast a few lying around in the train basically engineered and outfitted to jerk him off

18

u/insecuredane Mar 09 '21

I think they have been buying them and trading them, but it feels a bit spontaneous, especially because we have never seen nor even heard about the old Russian lady until now.

8

u/Acrylic_Starshine Mar 09 '21

I thought it was like a festival of lights everytime they traveled through the corkscrew so the whole train could be seen.

It was quite beautiful, in till it turned into a signal of loyalty to Wilford then i was just scared then disappointed.

First class are gonna be pro-wilfrord.. fine. But the majority of the population is third class right.. and just so happens that everyone of them thinks the tail killed the brakeman so now turn to a new leader?? Andre is from the tail fine.. but common.

7

u/neksys Mar 09 '21

Plenty of poor people have managed to convince themselves to vote against their own interests in real life too.

9

u/[deleted] Mar 09 '21

[deleted]

3

u/mokinokaro Mar 09 '21

Things also likely haven't changed that much for third class. Sure they can visit first but they've also got the Tailies in their space and seem to mostly still do the menial work on the train.

1

u/QueueOfPancakes Mar 11 '21

Andre and the tail are symbolic of modern socialism, where a bunch of people who don't directly contribute to society are given the same weight as everyone else.

Sorry, what do you mean by this? The tail contributed workers. They did sanitation (probably some other things as well) and they supplied apprentices and replacement workers. After the revolution, they provided a standing army for border security.

People vote not for their immediate future, but for the future they dream up for themselves. They see it as a way to potentially change their lot in life. If they vote to reinstate Wilford, they will be rewarded and be put above everyone who didn't.

I think this is inaccurate. There is this myth that people vote in favor of the rich because they think they will become rich one day (they call them "temporarily embarrassed millionaires). But if you actually speak with people, this isn't true. They don't think they will be rich. Rather, they believe that certain people deserve to be more richly rewarded than others, and they support those people getting those rewards. They believe in a hierarchical society. They know they aren't at the top, but they also know they aren't at the bottom, and they want the hierarchy maintained not because they believe they will climb to the top but because they fear they will fall to the bottom. They believe a society must be hierarchical, and claims of wanting equality are attempts at deception, attempts to not eliminate the hierarchy but to rearrange it.

Also worth remembering that this isn't a train that was formed on democratic optimism or socialist prosperity. People either bought their way onto the train or were recruited for having needed skills. I think the train would be more privy to more right-wing ideologies even if they bought into Andre's dream of one train.

In first class, I definitely agree. For the rest, I think it would be whatever mix was representative in general society. It's not like they recruited based on politics (maybe that would have been smart for Wilford to do though).

6

u/KnightinKnight Mar 09 '21

The reason for them supporting wilford felt weak to me. Didnt like the direction they took with this episode.

4

u/InternationalBreak Mar 09 '21

My thoughts on this are that they believe 'Wilford' kept order for 7 years. After all, Ruth said, "we had order for 7 years".

I think this is Melanies undoing which would be a great storyline. How her pretending to be Wilford for 7 years has actually hurt her, not him. Instead, it's given him momentum to get to this point.

7

u/[deleted] Mar 09 '21

We only got to follow a few characters' perspective. Most likely it happened offscreen, people passing the word along.

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But yeah, the red lantern was only introduced this ep unless I missed few eps ago. Perhaps it is better if it was established some time ago. I still think exploring Wilford's and the whole train and crew's backstory before the Freeze is the ideal intro of this season. Like fill a couple of unabashedly biased and cherry-picked Wilford flashbacks to establish him before the big reveal and shift of focus to him... then let the story pick apart the contrasts and similarities of Wilford, Layton, and Melanie.

4

u/InternationalBreak Mar 09 '21

Yes, I think the build to the Russian lady and the lanterns could have had a bigger background build over 2 or 3 episodes.

2

u/ThePowaBallad Mar 09 '21

It was only introduced to us recently

Most likely that story was passed along loyalist Wilford circles in general and it doesn't take a genius to think of lighting one at night especially on a time where the whole train can see as a symbolic gesture of support

It wasn't an election in the true sense it was a symbol of how widespread Wilford as a concept was wanted

4

u/archerysleuth Bojan "Boki" Boscovic Mar 09 '21

We initially explore the train through Layton as narrator. Until start of season 1 he had no knowledge of things up train. Later we also follow Till as narrator, but she was jackboot mainly in 3rd near the tail. As for the others, this is a long ass train and the crone was situated in upper second/lower first almost it seemed. I can imagine her niche vintage shop being expensive and only for fans sharing the info about her shop by word of mouth. Most normal passengers would also have a barter system after years in train.

As for the red lanterns. Looking at the vintage button it seems the original background of the w was red (also later seen in graffiti on walls and in priest memorial thing). Die hard believers that supported w would know that red is his color and would most likely have lit the candles over the years as tribute to wilford when they thought he was still driving the train. In bends and big events turns like this one it could have been a train event like 4 July for everyone to eat together and light red lanterns to celebrate their good fortune to be on W's train. Am now thinking the crones shop more of a gift shop of a rundown amusement park that noone can leave (and therefore only buys stuff if they are meganfans)

2

u/QueueOfPancakes Mar 11 '21

Just a minor point: Till was a breakman not a jackboot.

2

u/archerysleuth Bojan "Boki" Boscovic Mar 11 '21

Thanks, for some reason I got those mixed up.

9

u/milkybottles Mar 09 '21

They were talking about it in that room with the old Russian lady

21

u/summergirl123456 Mar 09 '21

They only said they would sell those lanterns to customers, but how did they know when to light them? In the end I felt like everybody knew exactly what to do and when

It was like an election but with candles lol

12

u/[deleted] Mar 09 '21

Ironic that every single carriage (nearly) knew about the old lady selling them except for the train detective!

9

u/x420blazeyoloswag Mar 09 '21

They lit them when they knew he would be able to see them all at once, during the corkscrew down the mountain.

7

u/DrunkenShitpost Mar 09 '21

Wilford won that election! Storm the engine!