Snowpiercer – Season 4 Episode 4 “North Star” Recap & Review

North Star

Episode 4 of Snowpiercer season 4 starts with Layton briefing the troops. He’s going to jump back to the sub-train after they go dark and strike Snowpiercer hard. They need to organize an extraction, not a revolution. This, of course, flies in the face of Layton’s original ideas in seasons past of liberating people and helping them.

Ruth warns that they are a well-armed group of guards so they need to be careful or this could turn into a bloodbath. Layton deduces that they need to jump from one train to another, which is a risky play.

With the train on the horizon, Big Alice goes dark. It’s now or never. With the Admiral calling out Layton, he picks up the comms and walks right into the Admiral’s trap. Layton points out he’s a kidnapper but the Admiral shrugs it off, claiming he doesn’t know anything about this and it’s “bad intel”. Uh huh, sure it is. 

Unfortunately, the element of surprise is gone and they need to come up with a plan B. They’ve been expecting them and asking Layton to join trains seems to indicate a trap. Eventually they agree to dock, but the Admiral has a sinister plan. He intends to use the “Gemini variant” in the welcome wagon for when Layton and co show up. Nima warns that it’s too toxic and questions the Admiral’s actions.

When he’s belittled and humiliated in front of all the soldiers, Nima finds out from Till and Ben how to cut the toxicity in the car. Unfortunately, he’s stopped in doing so. What they’re unaware of though is that Josie and Layton have sensed a trap and decided to cart across from the outside, outsmarting the Admiral.

They make it onboard the Snowpiercer but Admiral immediately realizes what’s going on and has all the men on red alert. One man they’re not expecting to betray them though is Nima. He manages to convince one of the soldiers to let him “clear his air” (ie. poison him) as we learn they used to be test subjects for the toxic chemicals we’ve been seeing. They’re wearing helmets and these suits (and not to mention the black smoke pumping into them).

We also learn that the kids are being kept in a separate train near First Class, away from the adults. The idea here is that it stops them all from revolting if the kids’ lives are hanging in the balance at all times. Everything is thrown into disarray when the people see Layton and want to fight.

As pandemonium breaks out, at the front of the train, Ben is brought out by the Admiral. He wants to connect to Big Alice’s docking mechanism remotely. When Ben refuses to help, Admiral slams on the acceleration – forcing Big Alice to do the same thing.

Layton is taken aside by one of the men who gives him an alternate route through the train to avoid the guards. Funnily enough, Layton runs into Nima who agrees to take him to Liana. As for Josie, she saves Till from the box and after confirming Audrey is still alive, they try to reach the youth car themselves. Unfortunately, Josie is caught. 

In their absence, a big storm hits New Eden. Everyone convenes in the town hall, under Javier’s order, but there are loud explosions in the distance. With their power grid on the verge of collapse, the people are not happy. They need to ration power, and Roche manages to step up and save the day before things turn into a full-blown riot.

Osweiller shows Roche a severed hand he’s found out in the wilderness. Javi doesn’t know how to handle this, but they agree to keep it quiet. It appears the hand has a chip inside, which indicates that they’re from one of those on Snowpiercer. And out in the wilderness, Roche goes missing, leaving Oz all alone.

Elsewhere, Josie is brought to the Admiral, while Big Alice turns the same direction as Snowpiercer. The trade here is that the Admiral will give back Liana in exchange for Big Alice. Will they take it?

The Episode Review

The midway point of this season sees a clash between two sides as the Admiral and Layton start to play their game of cat and mouse. It’s quite the intriguing turn of events, seeing them both try to one-up the other and it all culminates around their ability to lead.

Layton does his leading through actions, and being a good person, rallying the people to his cause. Meanwhile, we have the Admiral who rules through fear and stamping out anyone questioning his authority.

The wild card this episode though is Mel. We haven’t seen her at all and it’ll be interesting to see how her ideology is holding up after spending all this time with the Admiral and in the lab.

The ending certainly leaves things wide open though and next weeks’ episode looks to be just as dramatic.