Hello all! Welcome back to my weekly reviews of Infinity Train. Last week we finished up Book 3 with ‘The Origami Car’ and ‘The New Apex’. This week we get started on the fourth season – officially known as Book 4: Duet.
We are going to do things a little bit differently for Book 4. This is a season where I feel like I don’t have as much to say compared to previous seasons, and so I have decided to cover the entire season in three reviews rather than five. As a result, we will be discussing the first three episodes this week, the middle four episodes next week, and the final three episodes the week after. Since doing three full episode reviews at once would result in a very long post, I have decided to try reviewing the episodes as a unit rather than entirely individually. We will see how this goes!
‘The Twin Tapes’, Season 4, Episode 1 (Premiere Date: April 15, 2021)
‘The Iceberg Car’, Season 4, Episode 2 (Premiere Date: April 15, 2021)
‘The Old West Car’, Season 4, Episode 3 (Premiere Date: April 15, 2021)
Synopsis – The season opens by following the early years of best friends Min-Gi and Ryan. As they grow up their love of music turns into an interest in forming a band together. Unfortunately in high school this ends up becoming a breaking point for the duo, as Min-Gi takes the realist stance and focuses more on his schoolwork and trying to please his parents while Ryan continues to aim for the pie-in-the-sky goal of being a famous musician. After graduation Ryan heads off on a cross-country tour that doesn’t go like he had hoped while Min-Gi works at a local fast-food joint to pay for college. Both increasingly frustrated with their lives, they end up reconnecting at the diner where Min-Gi works. Ryan pushes for Min-Gi to come do a gig with him in New York, and when Min-Gi turns him down Ryan steals Min-Gi’s work keys and runs off with them. Desperate to not get fired, Min-Gi chases after him onto a commuter train. As Ryan opens a door to pass through to another car, the duo instead find themselves confronted with the entrance to another train. Ryan throws the keys inside and follows in after them, forcing Min-Gi to grudgingly follow suit.
Min-Gi and Ryan wake up on what appears to be a giant iceberg and are immediately confronted by a talking, floating bell. The bell introduces herself as Kez and half-heartedly (and not very well) attempts to explain the Train to the new Passengers. She is interrupted by a trio of fish people who are hellbent on getting vengeance against her. Running for their lives, Min-Gi and Ryan encounter a dial-like device that can apparently change the geological era of the car (and the form of the Denizens with it). After some hijinx and arguing, they manage to change the car into a futuristic city, apparently its default mode, and find the newly accessible door. Before passing through they are accosted by the three Denizens, now in the form of aliens, who are angry because Kez had messed with the dial and kept changing their forms. They vow to continue to hunt down Kez and anyone with her. Min-Gi and Ryan escape to the next car with Kez.
As soon as they set foot in the car, one themed after the Old West and populated by anthropomorphic bugs, the trio are accosted by a sheriff who also has a beef with Kez. Kez provides a momentary distraction, allowing them to evade capture and rush to a saloon run by none other than Samantha. Samantha hides them when the sheriff arrives, but immediately turns them in when the sheriff mentions that there is a sizable bounty on their heads. Kez easily escapes the jail cell, seemingly abandoning Min-Gi and Ryan in the process. The two Passengers are brought before Judge Morpho, the transformed butterfly state of the caterpillar sheriff, who sentences them to death for Kez’s original crime of spilling coffee on the town charter. When the duo are hauled in front of a giant bug zapper, Kez provides enough of a diversion to allow Min-Gi and Ryan to escape (and causing Morpho to be zapped in the process). It turns out that Kez and Samantha had the whole thing planned out in such a way that Samantha would get the bounty money and Min-Gi and Ryan would go free. Realizing that maybe Kez isn’t as self-absorbed as they first thought, they head off toward the exit. Meanwhile, an injured Judge Morpho vows revenge – just as the aliens from the Iceberg Car show up and demand to know the location of Kez.
My Thoughts – Before we get started, there is something I want to get out of the way: Book 4 is, in my opinion and the opinion of many (but not all) fans, the weakest season of the series. Why am I bringing this up now rather than closer to the end? A lot of the issues with this season boil down to its placement and difficulties outside of the writers’ control, and I feel that acknowledging the cause makes it easier to enjoy this season on its own terms. In general this season diverges from its predecessors in a number of ways – it is significantly lighter in tone, with more emphasis on humor and less on examining the workings of the Train. Its plot is also largely disconnected from the seasons that came before, with a few important exceptions we will discuss when we get to them. All of this would be perfectly fine in a ‘breather season’, a palette cleanser between two darker, more challenging seasons – which was, in fact, the original intention for Book 4. The cancellation of the series before Book 5 could get off the ground changed everything, however. Rather than being a temporary break in the action, it is now left as the final impression we have of the show, and for that purpose it is an unsatisfactory one. Even so, there are plenty of things to like about this season as we will see in the coming episodes.
Turning back to the episodes at hand, this trio serve largely – and unsurprisingly – as set-up for the rest of the season. In that respect they work very well. ‘The Twin Tapes’ might actually be my favorite season premiere of the whole series, in fact. It gets quite experimental, not only in the way it shows us Min-Gi and Ryan at various points in their lives (something usually reserved only for late-season episodes for the previous protagonists), but also in the use of split screen. That was really an inspired choice both from a writing and an animation perspective, driving home their separation and eventual reunion in a memorable way.
Speaking of Ryan and Min-Gi, I quite like them as our main protagonists for the season. Having two Passengers with synced numbers is something entirely new and helps to keep the season feeling fresh. These episodes also do a great job of establishing their similarities and differences to each other, allowing us to see why they were such good friends but also why they became estranged. Individually I don’t find them too interesting yet, but their dynamic together makes up for that. It also makes their falling out over the first three episodes all the more tragic.
Kez is another story. It pains me to say it, given that she is voiced by Minty Lewis (who previously voiced one of my favorite cartoon characters, Eileen from Regular Show), but I’ve always found Kez to be a frustrating character. Her vague and unhelpful way of explaining things is fun the first few times, but it becomes grating after a while. Even worse is her seeming complete disinterest in whatever is going on around her. ‘The Old West Car’ does appear to show that it is partly an act, but we see it in full force in ‘The Iceberg Car’. It would be one thing if this only resulted in problems for her, except that she repeatedly ends up putting Min-Gi and Ryan’s lives in jeopardy due to the way she acts. I understand that, from a writing perspective, this is partly intended to give her room for growth. Even so, I’ve found so far that she drags down the episodes whenever the focus is on her.
As a final note, the presence of a young Amelia at the end of ‘The Twin Tapes’ indicates that this season is actually a prequel, taking place in roughly the 1980s versus the present day of the previous three seasons. This revelation doesn’t really amount to much yet, beyond being able to see some elements of what the Train was like pre-Amelia – the uniforms, the magnet boots, One-One being a single entity, etc. It is a nice touch, though, another one that helps to make the season stand out a bit. I will also say that I generally enjoyed the cars contained in these episodes, but I am a bit disappointed that both the Iceberg Car and the Old West Car would under normal circumstances amount to ‘just walk to the exit’. (The second episode seems to indicate that the city, the one state where the exit is readily accessible, was the default state of the car until Kez messed with the era-changing device.)
My Totally Arbitrary Car Ranking – The Old West Car (B+), The Iceberg Car (B-)
My Totally Arbitrary Episode Ranking – The Twin Tapes (A-), The Old West Car (B+), The Iceberg Car (B)
Cast Additions –
The Twin Tapes:
Being that this is the first episode of the season, a lot of new characters are introduced. Min-Gi is voiced by Johnny Young (Apex Legends, Ayla: Daughter of War) while Ryan is voiced by Sekai Murashige (Heroes, Billions). Comedian and actor Steve Park (In Living Color, Fargo, The French Dispatch) plays Min-Gi’s father and animator and voice actress Niki Yang (best known as BMO and Lady Rainicorn on Adventure Time as well as Candy on Gravity Falls) plays Min-Gi’s mother. Tohoru Masamune (Inception, various TV guest roles) voices Ryan’s father, while Ryan’s siblings are voiced by child actors Naia Yoshida, Izaac Wang, and Nick Kishiyama. Horace, the frequent Dumpty’s customer, is voiced by prolific voice actor Keith Ferguson. Similarly, Ryan’s ex-girlfriends are voiced by prolific voice actress Kari Wahlgren. And, of course, Lena Headey and Jeremy Crutchley return as Amelia and One respectively.
The Iceberg Car:
Kez is voiced by storyboard artist, writer, and voice actress Minty Lewis (Regular Show). Two of the ‘parka denizens’ are voiced by Kari Wahlgren, while the third is voiced by Keith Ferguson. The caterpillar sheriff (the eventual Judge Morpho) is played by esteemed character actress Margo Martindale (Justified, The Americans, Bojack Horseman).
The Old West Car:
The mantis and grasshopper deputies and the beetle baliff are all voiced by Book 2’s very own Jesse, Robbie Daymond. Kate Mulgrew returns for her fourth go-around as Samantha the Cat.
Trivia/Stray Observations –
The Twin Tapes:
- “And after we’re famous in Canada, which will only take a few months, probably…”
- “That is, if the world isn’t destroyed by the Worm first!”
- “Wow, thanks for the van. I’m still breaking up with you.”
- “Fellow over there didn’t finish his ‘browns, so I’m taking them.”
- “Two-in-one, what is this, some kind of destiny rubbish?”
- That was some pretty good Ziggy Stardust makeup kid-Ryan had on.
- I like the use of the static in the scene transitions during ‘The Twin Tapes’.
- In case it wasn’t clear, Min-Gi and Ryan are Canadian.
- Chicken Choice Judy is a weird band name, although there certainly have been weirder.
- Apparently Owen Dennis was ‘terrified’ by the idea of spending much of the episode in split screen and had to consult with the animation studio before deciding to go that direction.
- Nevsky and the Prospekts, the band name proposed by Min-Gi, is inspired by the short story Nevsky Prospekt by Nikolai Gogol.
- Ryan’s various performance outfits were all inspired by classic musicians and bands like Duran Duran, Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, and Rush.
- One of Ryan’s girlfriends breaks up with him at ‘Gas and Dogs’, a gas station chain previously mentioned by Jesse in ‘The Map Car’.
- Some fans have suggested shifting Book 4 to earlier in the series – watching it between Books 1 and 2, for example, or between Books 2 and 3. I haven’t tried this myself, but I can see the appeal.
- The song that plays during the opening montage is so good. Here is a cover:
The Iceberg Car
- “Oh, whoa, it is, like, way too early for all this yelling.”
- “Come at me again and I’ll throw my…throw my…giant…metal boot at you?”
- “I was trying to see if your breath would, like, fog up my face or whatever.”
- “The last thing I remember is getting on a train and then getting on…a second train?”
- “So you know how in life you make, like, choices?” “I guess…?” “But there were other choices you could have made too that would have been, like, different?” “Uh…sure?” “So it’s basically that.” “What?”
- “Guys, guys, guys. This isn’t Powell Lake, Canada, America. Why does your house have such a long name?”
- “I don’t know, what am I, a pocket scientist?”
- Good idea to have the episode start in blackness, with only sound to determine what is going on. A nice touch.
- Now I want to see the Warm Iceberg Car.
- Constantly having your DNA scrambled must be painful. No wonder the aliens were mad.
- Min-Gi and Ryan’s numbers are missing right up until the moment where they first notice them.
The Old West Car
- “There’s a whole mess of people who can’t wait to get their prolegs on the likes of you.”
- “Man’s best friend.” “What?”
- “Why did you flirt with the cat?” “I don’t know, man, she was kind of hot.”
- “Eww…Is the hat part of her skin?”
- Kez distracting the sheriff and her deputies by throwing sparkles in their eyes was a pretty fun sight gag.
- Of course Samantha would be running a saloon (and would turn them in for a bounty). It was a fairly short cameo, but it was nice seeing her one last time. This officially makes her the only character to show up in all four seasons, at least as far as I know.
- I remember seeing a lot of people claiming that they thought the fly crawling on Ryan’s forehead was actually on their TV screen. I can see why.
- The fakeout with the guard’s molted skin was a good one.
- The actors recorded their lines for this episode while Book 2 was in post-production. To get around Cartoon Network’s intransigence regarding Jesse’s heritage, it was at this point that Owen Dennis had Daymond record Jesse’s line about attending pow-wow with his family and then slipped it into ‘The Lucky Cat Car’.
- The grasshopper deputy’s design is identical to the grasshopper on the label of a tin can Hazel picks up in ‘Le Chat Chalet Car’.
That’s it for this week! We’ve got the ball rolling on Book 4, and next week we are off to ‘The Pig Baby Car’, ‘The Astro Queue Car’, ‘The Party Car’, and ‘The Art Gallery Car’.
Please share any thoughts about these episodes below. Make sure to spoiler tag any references to future events in the series in case anybody is stumbling across the show for the first time, and follow all of the Avocado’s rules and guidelines.
Thanks for reading!