SNOWPIERCER Episode 7 Breakdown & Ending Explained

The latest entry, The Universe is Indifferent has a lot to talk about and throughout this we’re gonna be going over out thoughts, theories and the things that you might have missed.

There will be heavy spoilers here so if you haven’t had a chance to check out episode 7 yet then I highly recommend that you turn off now.

With that out the way, thank you for clicking this, now let’s get into our breakdown of Snowpiercer Episode seven.

Snowpiercer Episode 7 Breakdown

Ok so as always with Snowpiercer we get a sort of cold opening that shows things from the perspective of a certain passenger. This time it’s LJ who divulges her personal thoughts on the human condition. She states that every human in the world believes that they are the centre of the universe but that the universe is actually completely indifferent to us which ties into the title.

There’s not really that much to take from it other than her parents are now looked down upon by the others in first because she was never brought to justice. We also see that Zara has a scan of her baby whilst Layton bunks up with Josie. He’s really got two birds with one bone…r and I’ll discuss how this might ruin his revolution later in the video.

Layton is clearly a big danger and we cut to the front carriage where Melanie and the other engineers discuss how bad it could be if the secret comes out. As predicted, Mel uses Miles as a weapon and announces over the intercom that he has been selected to replace the member of staff that was killed last week. Layton of course hears this and though it seems like Melanie has now got him as an ace up her sleeve, I actually think it’ll backfire as she’s given someone from the tail full access to the train.

Ruth Knows Something’s Up

Now what’s interesting about this is that Ruth sneaks into the hospitality room and sees her announcing this, apparently speaking the words of Wilford. However, she doesn’t have any notes or even connection to him at all and you can tell by the expression on her face that she’s questioning what’s going on.

Over the last couple of weeks she’s slowly started to question Melanie or rather Wilford more and more and the penny is clearly starting to drop. Commander Grey begins sort of…charming her later in the episode and the two arrange a date with each other. The two form an alliance along with the Folgers because clearly they want Melanie out. We have said that Grey did clearly start to suspect something was up with Melanie and it’s nice that we can sort gather he’s been working behind the scenes plotting and scheming.

In the prisoner car Melanie inspects the drawers and learns that several bags of suspension drugs were stolen. This was likely John who we know was a dealer and was in the car by himself due to Bess knocking him out.

Aware of where the main source of the narcotic comes from she calls up the Janitor and questions him. Now I didn’t even know this but this is the same guy that played Dr Yinssen in Iron Man. I’ve legit seen that movie about 50 times and didn’t even realise it was the same person…and I’m meant to be doing the breakdowns…yikes…

Melanie’s Plan Explained

Now it’s clear that the way Melanie operates is that she likes to hold things over peoples head and she lets them get away with things because she will always have something over their head. The janitor clearly thought he was lowkey but Melanie just needed him in the black market as her eyes and ears so if ever she needed information she could threaten him in order to get what she wants.

We also see that he doesn’t have any callouses on his hands and I think this confirms our theory that he wasn’t actually a janitor on the outside and was likely a gangster. They don’t say that for definite but clearly the guy wasn’t a janitor and he infiltrated the black market pretty easily, running it in a way that has kept him in power.

He makes a deal with Melanie to hand over Layton should he come into contact with him and Layton is smuggled to the night car to meet Audrey. I think the show is kinda showing it’s budget at this point as they only really ever have 7 cars and they jump back and forth between them. I think they should’ve held off on perhaps showing all the cars early on as we haven’t really had any surprises since the first couple of episodes and it’s kinda robbed us of seeing just how weird and wonderful the train can truly get.

The Orange

In the classroom car Miles is given an orange as Bennet goes to collect him for his new duty.

Clearly they don’t get much fruit on Snowpiercer so this is a great joy to the lad.

Symbolically, orange as a colour represents the energy of red and the happiness of yellow. As a fruit it also represents the sun something that the tail never had access to so this passing of this fruit metaphorically shows that Miles will be moving away from it into an area that will provide it in plentiful amounts.

The class also read the book A Giraffe Called Geranium. This is a story about a Giraffe that travels from the easter coast of Africa to Canada. It stops off at many places along the way and clearly this work has been chosen because it represents snowpiercers journey around the planet.

Miles ends up being sick and in the night car, Layton begins his insurrection. Audrey initially doesn’t want to help but after she realises how their strike was pretty much sidelined by the crisis she gathers the troops.

Miles is taken to the clinic where Josie poses as a nurse for the doctor and this allows her to talk to Miles. Turns out that the orange was drugged and this was in order to give him a message. She tells Miles to prepare for the revolution and I love how you can see the teacher flirting with Bennet. I dunno if you caught it but as Bennet goes after Josie you can hear her saying ‘tell me about your engine, tell me about the engine.’

It might not be the best chat up line but I tell you who does have em, Commander Grey who wines and dines Ruth in the Aquarium car I wanna say…restaurant car. We learn that everyone on snowpiercer boarded two by two except for Ruth. This is clearly Noah’s Arc metaphor and the train itself is often referred to as the great arc, showing that it was built to save humanity.

Now this has never been said but it does make me wonder if Wilford is seen as such a deity and prophet because he has made himself look like a modern-day Noah.

Ruth’s Past Explained

We also learn that Ruth had a B&B in Kendal before the world collapsed. Kendal is an area in the Lake District in England and I’ve actually stayed in a B&B there before so this line was a cool little touch by the creative team. B&B is a bed and breakfast incase you don’t know and it shows how she got a job in the hospitality section. One day Wilford came into her bed and breakfast and because Ruth looked after him he gave her a job there and then.

We also learn that Commander Grey’s wife died two years ago and though he is interested in her he also wants to discuss overthrowing Melanie.

Elsewhere Melanie waits in Josie’s room and she comes to her with a deal. She knows that she’s pregnant and threatens her unborn baby in exchange for Layton’s life.

Zara betrays Josie and Melanie takes her captive which we will talk about in a bit but yeah it’s a big scene.

Layton makes with the key characters in third and they talk about how they want to create an equal system on the train rather than a select few living in luxury whilst others starve. He mentions a way to open all the doors on the train which is clearly Miles so this shows that things are heading that way.

The Interrogation

He reveals to them that Melanie is in fact masquerading as Wilford and in the tail, Melanie interrogates Josie who does something I really wasn’t expecting. She full-on doesn’t give an F, divulging that she knows the truth about Melanie so knows she won’t be let go. I really felt so bad for Josie who goes out like a champ.

Now one thing that Melanie says is that she also wants Snowpiercer to be a certain way however it simply hasn’t been built to function like that. There is no possible way it can continue if things are equal and I think that this is something that is often brought up when discussing capitalism. Like the train we are often said to be too far into it to turn back and thus Melanie has been forced to keep things the way that they are in order to allow everyone to survive.

Melanie begins to torture her to get the truth on where Layton is and Layton goes to the Janitor to discuss an alliance as he owns all the black market. He refuses to hand Layton over but also turns against their unity, preferring to keep things the way they are where he’s in a posistion of power rather than sharing it.

Melanie unable to handle what she’s doing to Josie goes to be sick and then Bess goes into the hospitality car where Josie passes on a message that Zara betrayed them but that Miles is still part of the team.

Josie’s Death

Ruth goes to warn Melanie but in her anger, she shuts her down and thus it’s likely going to be that she’s overthrown by the group that are forming a coup. To make matters worse, Josie almost kills her and it’s revealed that Bess gave her the freeze gun which she used to destroy her hand so she could get out of the handcuffs. Josie almost killed her and after how Bad Melanie has been this episode I really wanted her to. The pipe for the gun is pulled off the wall and this begins to freeze the cabin. Melanie manages to escape but Josie is killed during it and Grey gets angered by Melanie carrying out a interrogation without him and she brings Miles up to the front who we of course know is planning to open the doors for the tail.

The episode ends with Layton screaming over the death of Josie whilst the song Bad Religion by Frank Ocean is sung by Audrey.

The song is about a man that has an unrequited love for someone. He obsesses over them but they don’t love him back and thus this is a bad religion. Clearly this is a comment on those that worship Wilford and the train but it obviously doesn’t care for them as there’s so much injustice and inequality.

I think this song being sung to sort of say goodbye to Josie also has been put in place to say goodbye to the way that things on the train currently are. The secret is now out and Melanie has made too many enemies so the only way that things can go for her now are bad. We learn that Layton waits for LJ in the hypnosis car and he actually has a job for her. Clearly Layton wants to use he ability to access the train but also because she will spread the truth about Melanie.

I actually thought that she already knew it due to torturing Wilford informants but obviously not. Now she will likely go to her parents and tell them. They already want to overthrow Melanie for telling them no several times and this will be a bit of information that can weaponise pretty much the entire train against her.

One of her allies Ruth now hates her guts and yeah things aren’t looking too good for her.

We have just three episodes left and thus I don’t think she’s gonna be in a position of power much longer.

This was another brilliant episode and shoutouts, Josie, for going out like a champ.