Escaping the train is hard. For some more than others.
Credit: Storyboard artist Kellye Perdue
Credit: Storyboard artist Kellye Perdue
Written by Lindsay Katai
Storyboarded by Annisa Adjani, Ryan Pequin, Madline Queripel, & Sarah Soh
Storyboarded by Annisa Adjani, Ryan Pequin, Madline Queripel, & Sarah Soh
Mirror Tulip finds herself in the wasteland outside the train.
Tropes:
- And Then What?: Mace points out that, while MT made it out of the Chrome Car, even if she succeeded in getting to Earth, there would be no place for her.
- Berserk Button: Mace brushes off most of what MT says with taunts, but the one thing that gets him to react with anger is when she calls him a coward.
- Blood from Every Orifice: When Mace is being ground down to nothing, that silver liquid that is blood in all but name leaks from his eyes, nose, mouth, and a little even comes out of his ears.
- Break Them by Talking: Mace mocks MT's attempts to act like a Passenger and escape the Infinity Train, saying she has no place in the human world and that she's just traded becoming a literal reflection for being a metaphorical one.
- Chained Heat: MT and Mace spend most of the episode handcuffed to each other. In a gruesome twist, the handcuffs aren't unlocked or broken in this episode, Mace is just thoroughly removed from them.
- Dead Hat Shot: The last we see of Mace as he's ground to death by Mirror Tulip is his hat blowing away in the wind.
- Determinator: Rather than accept that she's just another part of the Train, MT resolves to catch a pod, ride it back to its source, and force the Train to give her a number so she can escape.
- Dirty Coward: MT accuses Mace of being one, saying that when his Prime died he joined the Mirror Police just to make sure his memories weren't erased, but he claims that isn't the case.
- Family-Unfriendly Death: When Mace tries to kill MT, she ruthlessly smashes him into a turning train wheel to tear him to shreds. What really clinches it is the fact that MT is basically a teenager, and the cop screaming in agony as Alien Blood flows out of his cut torso and face and splashes onto her. This even provides one of the video examples.
- Genius Loci: There are more hints that the train itself has some kind of sentience, with Mace claiming that it is the source of the phenomena that keeps him, Alan Dracula, and MT from getting too far away from it.
- Gory Discretion Shot: The camera switches to MT's face once she starts grinding Mace into the train wheel, as his chrome "blood" splashes on her face.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: Mace is sheared in half near the beginning of the episode by one of the cars being moved. He survives for a while after that, as he has to basically bleed out his entire body.
- Invisible Wall: A variation; MT, Alan Dracula and Mace can only go so far into the Wasteland from the train before they feel themselves getting dragged back harder the further they go. MT exploits it to slingshot herself back to the train when she can't outrun the Ghoms.
- Ironic Nursery Rhyme: As MT is trying to break her cuffs with a rock, Mace sings a cruel variation of the Christmas carol "I Saw Three Ships" about her being separated from Jesse.
- Karmic Death: Mace was trying to shave MT down to nothing for being a sliver, but instead ends up suffering that fate himself by her hand.
- Killed Off for Real: Mace, by MT.
- Killing in Self-Defense: When Mace (who is already dying) tries to pull MT off the train while she's climbing it, she uses a train wheel to tear him off her.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Mace's attempts to break M.T. only serve to make her that much more determined to get off the train, and give her an idea about how to do it.
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner:Mace: I'm as good as dead. And if my last act is to bring you with me, sliver, I can't imagine a better way to go!
MT: Well, I can! - Taking You with Me: A dying Mace tries to drag MT into the wheels of the Train in order to grind her once and for all, but MT turns the tables on him.
- These Hands Have Killed: After getting back to the train's roof after killing Mace, MT looks at her hands for a moment before bringing them to her face and crying.
- Villain Has a Point: Mace is just being a petty sadist with his Hannibal Lecture to MT but almost every point he brings up is perfectly accurate.
