:^T

[a_flyleaf]

Oh, Infinity Train. Not to sound like a Disney villain, but I really wanted to love you.

Despite losing the motive to keep up my post-watch thoughtdumps after a couple nights, I actually did enjoy the past few episodes, especially yesterday’s. I was hyped to replay clips again and again, admiring the attention to detail and picking it all apart, ever so curious about the deal with One-One and the Secretary and the train in general. I liked (still like?) Tulip! I wanted to see her find her way home, even if it didn’t answer all my questions about the train and its purpose. It seemed like it was building up to be a big literal metaphor for personal growth and I’m down with that.

And then… (first and final spoiler warning) it turned into robot fights and some British guy?

Oh dear.

So, to be fair. Owen Dennis and his crew seem like swell people. I’m not too sure what production was like, but it might’ve been a tad rushed, but this is clearly a passion project for lots of people and I respect that. Good job, pat yourselves on the back, it’s come a long way from that standalone pilot, maybe someday we’ll get merch or games or whatever OKAY ANYWAY.

I get what the show was trying to do. It’s hard not to, really; every other episode, we have the moral of the story shoved in our faces. I’m not going to rewatch clips for accuracy at the time of writing, because it’s just going to make me sad and bitter (well, more sad and bitter than I already am), so pardon any inaccuracies.

My point is that we had a whole monologue from Tulip here about not wanting to leave the train because her friends were still onboard, not wanting to see “the Conductor”/Amelia as a person with her own insecurities, needing to embrace/accept change despite everything (even though, as a friend pointed out, changing Atticus back kiiinda runs counter to that moral), and something something she’s learned to embrace her emotions. Great message! Wish we could’ve, uh, deduced it ourselves.

[Not pictured: “I always do the right thing,” says the cat, who’s been nothing but suspicious and self-admittedly self-serving since day one.]

I mentioned in my last thoughtdump that I found the “but that doesn’t make what you did okay” line forced. I found the whole episode kinda forced. Maybe I’ll feel differently on a rewatch.

And like, I don’t disagree with the message. I think it’s a swell idea. The whole “protagonist learns a lesson about friendship after betraying a pal and feeling bad about it” plotline isn’t new, but I’m not gonna bash a story just for treading familiar ground. I just wish we’d seen more of that supposed good friendship, worth breaking a deal for, to set up that payoff.

Funny enough, by the time the gravity car episode rolled around, I could buy it! Because instead of having it shoved in my face that Tulip and One-One were great close friends, I got to witness their everyday (well, “everyday” as this train gets) interactions in the interim. Sure, I could’ve done without the blatant “I know exactly how you feel, because I too, have been in that position, and I feel you” talk, but ah well. It worked. The voice change was great. I was entranced. And all it took was a little more time.

Infinity Train is a miniseries, and despite offhandedly mentioning Tulip’s spent months onboard, it mostly felt fast as hell. Which is fine. It’s fine! I can deal with a little bit of narrative fast-forwarding, hell even lots of it, if I’m hooked by where it’s going. I was mostly looking at IT as an extremely personal story, less in the “here’s the writer(s) spilling their trauma on live television” way, more as in “the train cars seem to reflect Tulip’s mental stage, as if they’re made specifically to challenge her, and her personal growth is both encouraged and reflected by the train.”

“I come up with some ideas on what sort of interesting things could happen in the episode, then how those things would affect the character. First try to figure out the internal journey that the character has to go on, then figure out what external pressures can get them there. It all sort of happens at once, but I never start writing scenes without knowing the structure of the story and where it’s going first.”

That’s what they were going for! I think it worked, mostly! I really dig the number countdown as a reflection of Life Lessons Learned and all that jazz! Sure, maybe I don’t understand how the train works, but I get how it functions as a metaphor, and that’s enough.

Except… it’s not reflecting Tulip, at the end? It’s about the “Conductor,” who’s not only a late debut antagonist (and, to be fair, I really loved the lowkey “who is the Conductor and are they even good news” build), but also some British lady? Who didn’t even build the train in the first place????

[Also not shown: Amelia, covered in numbers, which is honestly such a fantastic visual I wish it’d been used for more than maybe two minutes.]

I’m going to repeat myself from Discord here, actually: Gravity Falls. Sue me, I still haven’t watched it start to finish proper. But I’m not terribly spoiler-averse, and I know at some point in the last season, the plot takes a dramatic swerve towards the past and present shenanigans into Stan and Ford and a demonic triangle. This, on the surface, has fuckall to do with a couple kids and their quirky summer mishaps (and frankly I’m curious to see how relevant Dipper and Mabel get to be in the whole Bill-defeating thing), BUT. Was it out of left field? Somehow I doubt it.

I know, just from dashboard/spoiler osmosis, that if I (re)watch Gravity Falls with the knowledge Stan has a lost twin brother, that makes the wax copy gag in an early episode more of a sucker punch than it seems to be to unspoiled eyes. I know the series is rich with not only cryptic hints for sleuths all over the internet, but also probably foreshadowing at face value, with Bill having appeared in earlier episodes.

I think, if I rewatch Infinity Train start to finish, I’m not going to see a single clue about Amelia. (I will GLADLY eat my hat if I’m wrong, but I’m not jumping at the replay button.) Sure, I might make a wild guess One-One, as an orb, has his own little Significant Orb Hole in which to fit, and his search for a mom will take him to the front of the train, and… you know, fine, I’ll admit. That was pretty cool. I’m not opposed to the twist of One-One being the Conductor. I have significant worldbuilding questions but this is long and meandering enough as-is. That was a cool, genuinely unexpected thing that happened in this finale, and I’ll take it.

But it is buried. It felt to me, at least, like an almost offhand reveal; Amelia had her dramatic “NO” as he hopped in and it shut down the Stewardess and shot the car back and… wait, why is this happening? I was left confused. I wanted to know what the hell was going on, and not in a good intrigued “there are hints I can pick up on” way.

I guess, to the show’s further credit, we didn’t get more infodumping about how the train worked or anything. I guess that’ll wait for the spinoffs or second season or whatever that I am totally not soured on at least at the time of writing what. I GUESS I can live with the biggest question of all, “what is the purpose of the train and Why Tulip” being left unanswered, except oh no wait I can’t and that’s why I have 3 pages and counting of ranting about a show I really wanted to like more than I did.

It’s a metaphor, you see. If you think this post is sporadic and lacks focus, circling its own tail and then bringing up new topics out of left field, it’s because it was planned that way all along. Yes. I am not spitballing this entire post, as I do every post, and had this planned from the start. Setting a high bar here, aren’t we?

[disgruntled video critic voice] WE CAN’T TALK ABOUT FOCUSING ON THE EMOTIONAL CORE OF THE SHOW WHEN THE LAST EPISODE SEGWAYS INTO A COMPLETELY UNRELATED CHARACTER’S PAIN, DEAR WRITERS. TELLING IS CHEAP. TRY AGAIN.

Anyway, I’ve dragged this out long enough. If I rant about telling one more time, even in an ironic self-referencing fashion, my brain will implode from the cynical levels of meta, and I will be legally obligated to throw my next project to the roachwolves. I saw what the show was going for. I couldn’t not see what the show was going for, because it was conveyed with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. It sure checked off some boxes.

At the end of the day I think they just needed to kill some darlings and rework the end. That’s… about it, really. Or petition the network for a [movie] or more screentime. I don’t know. I’ve been at this for hours now and I’m not going to stew in bitterness anymore.

Hit me up with some fanfic recs about how Tulip was gone for months in real life because that sure got brushed over. Or, like, “the last two episodes didn’t happen and the plot is resolved in a more satisfying manner” AUs. But for now, uh, I’m off this train. :,^T

_{Final stray thought: In some ways I feel like my standards have gotten lower as of recent; sometimes I let myself enjoy the garbage and that is #valid. On the other hand, I’m still way more motivated to pick things apart than gush about the positives, so something something negativity bias I wish I didn’t walk away with the impression “maybe I should’ve lowered my standards” and yet.}