https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_eiKWvQxZ8
Streaming on HBO Max
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_eiKWvQxZ8
Streaming on HBO Max
My God, two episodes in and Infinity Train has already delivered a healthy dose of lore, the damn best car of the entire show so far and a Western parody. And the new closing theme is basically a Vangelis composition.
I'm gonna miss the hell out of this show.
The new Infinity Train season was... probably the most different in tone and themes. It's by far the lightest, the most comedic and least emotionally draining of the four books, however, it doesn't sacrifice it's wit, it's thematic depth and economic storytelling (the very first episode is great at that). This time the book focuses on Ryan and Min-Gi, two best friends and aspiring musicians whose diverting paths of life have left them in a bit of a crossroads and with time, have developed a bit of a codependency which makes the journey all the more fascinating: by the time they've arrived in the train, they are interlinked: they both have the same number and sans a few special cases, as one goes up or down, so does the other, which creates a different kind tension from, say, the previous protagonists Grace and Simon, and causes perhaps the biggest seesaw, at least number wise, in the show, creating new challenges for our protagonists and even a few instances where it's implied how healing, not only isn't a one-way street, but also can be a process with multiple answers, each with different sorts of consequences.
Off course, that doesn't mean the show has lost it's identity, since it still features a lot of imagination on each passing car (highlights includes a car which can go from one time period to another on a whim and a car which includes a creature which gave me shades of Pan's Labyrinth's Pale Man), a roster full of new denizens, which include the duo's main companion Kez, a motor-mouth flying hotel bell which causes all sorts of conflicts with it's kookiness (and some of the biggest laughs), [] and finally, keeps deepening into the show's lore, building up [] as the next book's main protagonist... which adds a very bittersweet extra layer since, according to Owen Dennis, the show's creator, the suits on CN and HBO Max, claiming this show wouldn't be appealing to young children (which is bullshit, because in my experience, children can be as smart and open to darker shows as anyone, and because the show by all accounts, had the numbers, even being the fourth most streamed show of the platform, and the most streamed cartoon) cancelled the project (and book 5 was going to be a movie!!). And I couldn't help, but let all of this affect my experience with this season, since while Ryan, Ming-Gi and Kez's arcs may have been wrapped up by the end of the season as satisfyingly as Tulip or MT's, there's still this lingering lack of closure stemming from seeing a great show cut-up while still having a lot to give. It's the very same feeling I got after Futurama's first cancellation.
However, despite all this, I still feel lucky for having been able to experience this show. It delivered four of the most groundbreaking, exciting and fearless animated seasons I've seen in the last few years, went to emotional places that even live-action shows rarely reach and, who knows, maybe in a hopefully not so distant future we can have those other four seasons Owen intended. After all, the show does have a very dedicated fanbase, universal acclaim and it isn't that far-fetched for it to grow in audience and appreciation in a fashion similar to a Firefly or a Blade Runner (at least, among animation), specially with HBO Max eventually expanding beyond the US. So meanwhile, let's hope they #RenewInfinityTrain.
The Twin Tapes is such a banger.