Recap / Infinity Train S3E9 "The Origami Car"

The death of the Apex...
Credit: Storyboard supervisor Jessie Wongg

Written by Alex Horab
Storyboarded by Kellye Perdue & Ryann Shannon

As tensions reach their boiling point, Simon decides to confront Grace about her recent behavior.

---

Tropes:

• 1000 Origami Cranes: There are numerous origami cranes in the car.
• Abusive Parents: Grace's parents were on the emotionally abusive side of this. Grace whispers that she "just wanted to be noticed" in the memory where they learn of how she was shoplifting and immediately ignore her in favor of talking the security guard into forgetting about the incident.
• Ambiguous Situation: Since Grace's memories are seen through her perspective, the audience gets little to no context as to what happened before or after.
  • In one of Grace's flashbacks, Grace's younger self sees the group of girls who didn't invite her to ice cream with them laughing about her. Her younger self then tells one girl that she's right, another girl shouldn't smile unless her parents can afford to get her braces. This causes the group of girls to argue with each other; it's never directly stated whether the first girl truly said that about the second girl or whether Grace was telling a lie to get the girls who excluded her to fight (particularly because young Grace looked guilty at her actions).
  • In the second flashback, should we take the mall cop's word at value? She says that Grace coerced some of her friends to commit petty larceny, but before Grace can explain that the truth, she's shut off. Maybe Grace was pressured to steal after getting into a bad crowd? Maybe the friends she made all skedaddled so Grace could take the blame?
  • Were Grace's parents more upset that Grace got caught? That she was going as far as to steal a cheap bracelet? Or was this anger masking worry over how their Parental Neglect was leading their daughter down a darker path that would ruin her reputation if rumors spread that she was a thief?
• Animate Inanimate Object: The Origami Car is filled with living origami cranes of various sizes.
• Appearance Is in the Eye of the Beholder: This episode hints that the Train seems to take on a different form and appearance when picking up different passengers in the normal world. While Tulip and Amelia saw relatively normal-looking trains, even if Amelia's appeared on a roof, for Grace it appears as a series of glittering, gold-accented cars with a literal red carpet rolling out from the door.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Hazel asks Grace that if the Apex is so strong, why is Grace so scared of her? Grace can't think of an answer to that question.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: While Grace is careful not to step on the living origami birds, Simon goes out of his way to stomp on them just to be a dick.
• Bittersweet Ending: On Hazel's side. Hazel realizes that she can't stay with Grace anymore and decides to stick around with Amelia instead — who doesn't even see Hazel anything other than something to be observed — crushing Grace's heart, as the two will never see each other again. It's not exactly the happiest part of the episode, but it does offer hope that she'll be safe from Simon.
• Bland-Name Product: The police officer in Grace's memory states that Grace shoplifted the bracelet from Glassy's which is probably the Infinity Train's version of Macy's.
• Break the Cutie: Grace breaks down when Hazel leaves with Amelia for good. She gets even worse when she has to relive her memories and realizes just how many people she hurt even before she got on the train.
• Broken Record: Grace has to hear her promise to Hazel about not telling Simon the truth... and she's specifically stuck in that memory as shown in the end of the episode.
• Call-Back:
  • The Cat warned Simon when she gave him the projector that travelling into one's own memories is dangerous. Simon deliberately uses this to attack Grace when she refuses to act like he thinks she should.
  • Grace's flashbacks with Simon confirm a couple of the incidents she mentioned. Simon really was wearing sandals and socks when he met Grace, and the game of Chubby Bunny they talked about is shown.
• Character Development: Grace shows off how she has become more empathetic by actually calling the train inhabitants denizens and making sure not to crush the origami birds.
• Continuity Nod: We see Grace in the Pumpkin Car saved by the Conductor. Amelia was collecting control orbs and just called off the Steward when it confronted Grace. This scene also references "The Cat's Car", namely how Tulip corrected her Self-Serving Memory to what actually happened, with Grace doing the same.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Grace was neglected by her parents and wanted to be loved by them, and even went as far as to get caught shoplifting just to be noticed.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Hazel leaving Grace and Simon can be likened to a child being taken from her unsuitable parents by Social Services, with Amelia being some form of Social Worker.
• Downer Ending: On Grace's side. Hazel has lost all trust in Grace and leaves with Amelia (who doesn't even see her as her daughter like Grace did), Simon has trapped Grace in her own memories and Grace is constantly seeing that "We won't tell Simon" clip on repeat.
• Dramatic Irony: In the past, Grace boasted to a younger Simon that she totally knew how the Train worked. The viewers know that she was lying through her teeth.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: At her core, Grace only wanted to be accepted by other people and loved by her parents.
  Grace: (sadly staring at her younger self) I just...wanted to be noticed.
• Inciting Incident:
  • When Grace first met Simon, she stated her number was high because she knew how the train works. If she just admitted that she was wrong instead of putting up of a facade of being a know-it-all, so much pain and suffering in Book 2 and Book 3 would never have happened.
  • Had The Cat returned to Simon's aid, Simon would never have become the sociopath he became in the present.
• I Reject Your Reality:
  • Simon continues his descent into denial here, namely by accusing Grace of lying and trying to use what Amelia said to "trick" him after she corrects her Self-Serving Memory to what really happened when she first met Amelia, even though the original image is clearly shadowy and indistinct. Grace calls him out on trying to muddle her memories.
  • Grace's father also delves into this a bit in the flashback of her being caught for shoplifting, insisting to the police officer's face that she must be mistaken, and continues arguing with her even after Grace implicitly admits it by apologizing to him. Of course, given his social status, the obvious implication is that he's trying to use his status to get the officer to look the other way, as it wouldn't do to have his daughter embarrass him as such.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • Simon is heavily in the wrong for warping Grace's memories, but he's not wrong when he said that Grace lied to him.
  • Grace's excuse to why she was shoplifting is sympathetic, but her parents do have a right to be mad that she got caught anyhow. Especially if this leads to their reputation, and by extension hers, to be ruined.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Grace's memory with Simon shows that she had no idea what the numbers were supposed to mean and acted like she got her number that high intentionally rather than admit to being clueless. As she sees later on, this ends up having severe repercussions for her, Simon, the Apex and practically all the denizens' lives they ruined.
• Lack of Empathy: Simon cares nothing for Grace's obvious distress at losing Hazel, and attacks her with the memory projector because she doesn't seem to care that, as he sees it, everything is back the way it should be with Hazel gone.
• Parental Neglect: Grace's memories show that, in addition to being somewhat emotionally Abusive Parents, Grace's parents had little time for her, passing her off to the hired help (Grace remembers this as sets of clothing with no person inside them, changing with each name; literally empty suits, to put it another way) to take her to a movie because they were hosting a dinner with an ambassador and her mother didn't want to deal with her. She eventually got herself caught shoplifting simply because she wanted to be noticed, which failed as they quickly started arguing with the police officer that called them in.
• Poor Communication Kills: This episode can be summed up as "Grace's bad case of PCK screws her over and over".
  • On both sides for Grace and her parents. If Grace wanted her parents to notice her, she shouldn't have gone as far as to go shoplifting and instead tried to talk sense into them. And on her parents' side, if they just let her take the fall instead of denying it, that would've saved Grace from getting on the Train and presumably thousands of other denizens from being injured or thrown into the wheels.
  • Because Grace decides to lie and tell Simon "My number is higher cause I absolutely know how the Train works", she instills in his head a false idea of how to survive on the Train and spreads this onto the Apex instead of admitting she's as clueless as he is.
  • The consequences of Grace kicking Hazel by calling her a Null — to protect her, not because she hated Hazel — have quick reprecussions. Now Hazel honestly sees Grace as someone who never cared for her, and she leaves with the only person who won't immediately kill her.
• Reality Warper: The train shows off this ability in Grace's memories when it appears to her indoors.
• Riddle for the Ages: What happened at the mall that caused Grace to be accused for stealing a bracelet, as young Grace was cut off before she could tell the truth. We also don't know what happened to the parents after to that, or whether they were completely angry or it was Anger Born of Worry.
• Rule of Symbolism: Grace makes sure not to step on the origami inhabitants, while Simon deliberately steps on them with impunity, all the while he gloats about how Hazel's leaving means everything is back to normal. This symbolizes that Grace is treading lightly around the issue while Simon is being insensitive about it. It could also represent that Grace developing empathy, while Simon is negligent of how others (namely Grace) feel.
• Self-Serving Memory: Like Tulip, Grace's memory of meeting Amelia is at first distorted, making her seem like a larger-than-life figure. Then Grace corrects the memory, revealing she made more of it than what was there. Despite the original image clearly being shadowy and indistinct, Simon shows how much further he's descending into madness and denial by insisting that it was the real one and the unaltered memory was a lie.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: Hazel leaves with Amelia just as Simon completes his descent into villainy.
• Tears of Remorse: As Hazel leaves, Grace finally bursts into tears at how she messed up.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Simon was a little boy wearing socks and sandals who felt like he was abandoned by The Cat. His number was at 55, meaning he wasn't as bad off as Grace was. Unfortunately, he latched onto Grace's idea that getting a higher number is a good thing and everything went downhill from there.
• Visual Pun:
  • Grace's caretakers are all sets of clothing with no one inside; in other words, empty suits.
  • Grace met Simon in a car full of cardboard boxes. In other words, a boxcar.
• Wham Episode: Hazel leaves with Amelia and Simon traps Grace in her own memories.
• Whole Episode Flashback: A majority of this episode takes place through flashbacks to Grace's childhood.

---