Take the Midnight Train to Infinity

A consistently good cartoon with deep themes delivers another excellent season.

Infinity Train (Season Three)

Likes: This show consistently tackles issues of trauma and intrinsic damage with thoughtfulness and empathy while still having time for humor. Excellent voice actors and a captivating soundtrack is an added plus. I cried several times watching.

Dislikes: I like that the series is compact (10 episodes per season) but I can’t help feeling the endings seem rushed with the ideas and the execution not always matching up. Hazel also feels a bit “Summer-Glau-in-a-Joss-Weedon-project-macguffiny” (if that makes sense)

Bottom Line: Hopefully a lot of people watch it on HBO Max, because otherwise, Infinity Train might be derailed. And that would be tragedy worse than the previous (and oh so obvious) pun.

4 out of 5. ◆◆◆◆◇

(Choo-choo! Spoiler station for all the series ahead!)

There is a special blend of animated cartoon in this era that falls somewhere between being for kids or for adults. These are the shows that can tackle heavy and heady themes while still being packaged for a young audience. It is a tough line to walk and I commend any show capable of the feat.

From season one of Infinity Train, it was clear that this show was going to be the latest to enter that category. Creator Owen Dennis previously worked on Regular Show, itself a show willing to edge into adult themes.

That season gave us the broad structure of an Infinity Train story arc. Skipping nuance and giving the broadest of strokes, season one centered on the internal struggles of Tulip Olsen (Ashley Johnson, probably known best for Last of Us) which were externalized (and ultimately actualized) by the seemingly infinite train car challenges Tulip grappled with. Season two was much the same except its protagonist was a mirror chrome version of Tulip, a human boy and a shapeshifting magical deer instead.

(Like I said, I skipped a lot of nuance)

Season three gets away from Tulip or Tulip-derivative characters by showing us the story of leaders of the Apex, the season two wild child army antagonists. Grace (Kirby Howell-Baptiste, great side character in Barry and The Good Place) who is ruthless and manipulative toward her followers, and Simon (Kyle McCarley, “Hello professor!” for any Fire Emblem Three Houses fans…) who is strategically cunning but emotionally fragile.

As Grace and Simon are separated from their army raiding party and are forced to sojourn back through the train, they meet an enthusiastic and impressionable young girl passenger (and probable season four, if they get it, protagonist) Hazel (Isabella Abiera) and her stoic gorilla companion Tuba (Diane Delano).

Hazel is prime child raider material and from the jump, Grace and Simon plan to indoctrinate her into the Apex as they travel to their home car. As they travel through the train, Grace regains her empathy and sees a chance at redemption through the young girl.

The Apex are committed to increasing their passenger number as high as possible by destroying the train and its denizens, the “nulls.” In trying to manipulate Hazel, with an assist from reformed antagonist conductor and Apex messiah figure Amelia (Lena Headey), Grace herself ends up manipulated and turns her back on the Apex mission.

While Grace is saved by her challenges, Simon is heartbreakingly destroyed by them. His own trauma of abandonment ends up being too much. He brutally kills (?) Tuba by pushing her into the treads of the train and is going to do the same to Grace but instead himself is pretty definitively killed.

If that last paragraph revealed anything, it is that season three is more mature and depressing than one and two. Tulip and MT get their self-actualization, their happy endings. Simon, as a metaphor for descending and trapped by your trauma, is killed by it. It’s a heavy message to send, but a real one. Some people don’t recover from their emotional distress.

And even those that do, aren’t automatically happy. Although Grace is on a better path working toward self-improvement, unlike Tulip and MT, it’s pretty far from a happy ending. Hazel’s vehement refusal to continue along with Grace feels like a huge blow in the show. Grace has defeated Simon, returned home, and regained control of the Apex, but Hazel, her clearest chance and clear symbol of redemption, flat out rejected her. The climb toward self-recovery is a huge cliff with no footholds for Grace.

All this makes it seem like season three is all doom and gloom. Which, granted, looking at the wider picture, it is on some level. There is still plenty of levity and humor left in the show though. My personal favorite might come in the unexplained form of Frank the Bear, who takes care to redo his robe and asks visitors if they want pancakes while he’s shacking up with the Cat (Kate Mulgrew) in a cozy winter cabin.

On the spectrum of kid/adultish, high-concept, undervalued-by-mainstream animated shows, previous seasons might have trended toward Over the Garden Wall. This most recent one might be more of a last season of Samurai Jack, but it’s not yet a full Bojack Horseman. The good thing is that all those comparisons are great shows and Infinity Train is no exception.