The use of Melanie allows Renee St. Cyr’s script to truly work, because she’s such an important figure in the lives of Wilford, Alex, and pretty much the rest of the train. She’s been the bogeyman, the box, the obsession, the abandoning parent… for Alex, her complicated relationship with her mother is matched only by her relationship with Wilford. For Wilford, Melanie might be the only person he sees as his equal, or close enough to it to have a talk with her in such an open way. Both of them use her as a way of dealing with their past, with Alex eventually opening up to Ben (Iddo Goldberg) about what happened on Big Alice and Wilford watching her stand by impassively while he slowly dies thanks to Roche’s (Mike O’Malley) attempted poisoning.
Even for the characters not seeing Melanie’s ghost, or the ghost of Wilford’s attack dog, the past is something they all must confront in some way. Ruth (Alison Wright) and Pike’s (Steven Ogg) budding relationship might be hindered by Pike’s inability to face down his criminal past. Ruth’s determination to return to her duties on board the train might very well be seen as a retreat from the burden of leadership she took on leading the resistance. Layton (Daveed Diggs) and Zarah (Sheila Vand) have to confront the decisions made in the recent past by dealing with the fact that their child was used as a test subject by Wilford. Asha (Archie Panjabi) might be able to keep up her end of Layton’s lie, but she’s struggling to deal with her past pre-Snowpiercer. Roche, his wounds still fresh from waking up, lashes out in a way that will have repercussions for him going down the line, because he didn’t allow himself a chance to deal with his past constructively and acted rashly.
It’s always nice to have Jennifer Connelly on a show, doubly so in something like Snowpiercer where she’s been such an integral part of the series. Her scenes with Rowan Blanchard and Sean Bean are really well shot, and her interaction with Blanchard in particular shines as the two make good use of the parental abandonment trauma in St. Cyr’s script for good emotional effect. Blanchard especially makes a lot with her moments, as Alex is able to finally let go of some residual guilt and have a true emotional expression while alone on board the discarded train cars.
Leslie Hope wisely gives the moments plenty of room to breathe. Alex and Wilford get to have space to think about what they’ve done and will do, and other characters, like Javi, Asha, and Roche, don’t get any space because their traumas are more recent (quite literally in the case of Javi, who hallucinates the dog right beside him at several points, and Asha, who is crowded by people in the Night Car). Distance helps make the act of processing old traumas easier, assuming you just don’t stay on the run from them forever.
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