Recap / Infinity Train S2E7 "The Mall Car"

null (adjective): amounting to nothing; having no value
Credit: Character designer Allison Kim

Written by Alex Horab
Storyboarded by Kellye Perdue & Sam Spina

Grace invites MT and Jesse to the headquarters of her gang, the "Apex".

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Tropes:

• An Aesop: Someone who does good things is not equivalent to a good person. Sure, Grace let Jesse and MT get out of the "Lucky Cat Car" and she is taking care of the children who got stuck in the Infinity Train, but she's also a coldhearted jerk who doesn't care about actually changing herself and is willing to send MT to the Reflection Police just because she's not a real person.
• Call-Back: Simon is the other passenger on the train with a high number from "The Engine" (his number was "...28356").
• Can't Take Anything with You: The exit portal doesn't allow anything from the train to come through. When Jesse passes through, MT is blocked by a forcefield. When he disappears completely, the backpack grappling hook he was wearing falls to the ground.
• Chekhov's Gun: The compact mirror Grace used at the end of the previous episode is used for the Mirror Police to hop out of.
• Cliffhanger: The episode ends with the Mirror Police approaching M.T. from behind...
• Cult: Grace and the rest of the Apex seem to worship Amelia as a god-like figure, and view One-One as a usurper.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Grace's cult-like behavior and gathering of small children seems eerily like wayward children being involved in a gang.
• Downer Ending: Jesse is unable to bring MT through his exit door despite trying to do so, and disappears after entering the door while she's left behind. MT can only collapse to the floor, crying, while the Mirror Police corner her from behind.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Grace believes that "big numbers = more power" and that "the Conductor" is a god while One-One is a fake. There's one problem here: The supposed Conductor she worships is also a passenger like her.
  • Similarly, the members of the Apex despise One-One since they see him a usurper, and worship Amelia as the "true" Conductor. However, those feelings are not mutual in either case, and are in fact reversed: One-One as Conductor genuinely cares about all the train's passengers and wants the best for them, while Amelia as Conductor didn't give a shit about anyone but herself and was even willing to hurt other passengers if they interfered with her goals.
• Escapism: Apex is a cult like group of passengers that essentially never want to return to the real world because on the train they can rationalize not caring about the denizens as them being constructs without real feelings, existing for their benefit.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: The Apex can't understand why Jesse's low number is a good thing and earnestly believe that they are doing the right thing by increasing their numbers and causing destruction. Simon even views Jesse taking his exit home as weakness, even though escaping is the whole point.
• Fantastic Racism: Grace seems convinced the denizens of the Infinity Train's cars are just constructs with no real feelings, and consider it to be the human passengers' "rightful train" belonging to them.
• Fantastic Slur: Those in Apex call denizens of the train "Nulls", meaning nothing, not even a zero, because they don't have numbers.
• The Final Temptation: This episode is this for Jesse — whose number is at 4 — as he is tempted by Grace's cult to stay with them. Instead, he gradually realizes that they're not good people, and when he finds that they've captured MT and Alan Dracula and are going to kill them, stands up for himself and his friends and is able to leave.
• For Your Own Good: This is how Grace rationalizes siccing the Mirror Police on MT, as she believes MT to be a bad influence on Jesse.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: When Jesse goes back to his old Extreme Doormat ways with Apex, you can see the number on Jesse's hand increase each time it appears.
• Grappling-Hook Pistol: The Apex have grappling hooks with magnetic tips that they use to traverse the cars without passing through them.
• Grew a Spine: After fluctuating as to whether or not he'll go back to his doormat ways, Jesse sticks up for himself when Grace plainly says that the Apex are going to kill MT and Alan Dracula. This is what reduces his number to zero.
  Jesse: I'm done with you [Grace, Simon and the Apex]! And everyone else like you.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Grace, Simon, and the rest of the Apex are convinced that One-One is the one who usurped the "real" Conductor.
• Hope Spot: When the main trio is running away from the Mirror Police that Grace sicced on them, they see that Jesse standing up to the Apex has brought his number down to zero, and are happy that his exit door appearing will allow them to escape. Then MT slams into an invisible barrier around the door, and Jesse disappears through his portal while MT and Alan Dracula are left behind.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Jesse towards the Apex, and Grace in particular, at first; he thinks they seem like good people even though they're blatantly not all that nice to his friends in his presence, and it takes witnessing them Kick the Dog towards one of the train's denizens for him to start to feel seriously uncomfortable. He finally stands up to them when he sees them restraining MT and Alan Dracula and Grace calmly says the Apex will kill them.
• Hypocrite: Apex excuses their sociopathic behavior as doing whatever's necessary to survive on the train but also revere having larger numbers, the one thing directly counter to ever leaving it because survival isn't the point.
• Ignored Epiphany: The kids think that big numbers are like obtaining higher points in a video game and Grace states that her number represents "her".
• I Was Quite a Fashion Victim: Grace mentions that she met Simon when he was a boy wearing black socks and sandals.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Grace is even more sickening than Amelia, but you can't argue with how the passengers need to survive since 1) it's proven that most of the cars can be very dangerous without supervision, 2) many of the passengers are children ill-prepared to understand how to navigate the train and wouldn't have the self-awareness to understand what got them on the train in the first place and 3) they were all surviving at a time Amelia was still the Conductor and you know how helpful she turned out to be, leaving them all in the dark as to how they were supposed to survive and figure out what the numbers even meant in the first place.
• Kick the Dog: Grace and the Apex destroy the glass cubes in the Cube Car, to the obvious distress of its resident, simply because the car had nothing worth salvaging. Grace then one-ups it by having MT taken away by the Mirror Police so she can be turned to dust.
• Kids Are Cruel: The kids under Grace's care act like jerks due to how they've been corrupted by influence of not wanting to change/grow up.
• Lack of Empathy: The way Grace says "We're gonna kill them [MT and Dracula]" has the same tone as her discussing the weather: total indifference.
• Meaningful Name: Apex means "the top" which represents how they believe that bigger numbers are a sign of pride.
• Moral Myopia: One of the kids kicks MT, hurting himself in the process. When Jesse gets back, Simon complains that MT broke Todd's foot.
• Near-Villain Victory: Grace nearly got Jesse under her control...but then she had to open her big mouth and say that MT and Alan Dracula were going to be killed. This makes Jesse realize who Grace is and he decides to never deal with toxic people like her or Simon ever again, dropping his number to 0.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Had Jesse not said anything about MT's position to Grace, Grace wouldn't have used her compact mirror for Mace and Sieve to enter through.
• Noodle Incident: Apparently someone named Lucy injured herself with the packs that the Apex members use to move around.
• No-Sell: A kid tries to kick MT, only to break his foot because she's made of metal.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: The resident of the glass car is a simplistic ghost that laughs whenever someone tries to touch him.
• Saying Too Much: Had Grace not open her big mouth and told Jesse that the Apex was going to kill Lake and Alan Dracula, Jesse would've been hers hook, line and sinker.
• Some Kind of Force Field: MT finds out the hard way that only Passengers can leave the train when she tries to follow Jesse out, only to be blocked by a shimmering barrier.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Turns out there were some problems with One-One taking back his place as the Conductor. He does his job and actually informs people about the nuances of the train, but that only benefits new arrivals. Passengers who arrived while the train was under Amelia's control are skeptical at the least considering that they received no such assistance, and the Apex in particular are unwilling to believe him because they have developed their own belief system about how the train functions and what they're hearing is diametrically opposed to it.
  • Amelia's drive to bring back her husband by any means necessary didn't just affect One-One. By hijacking the train from its true conductor, she left the other passengers in the dark as to the true nature of their situation, such that they refuse to believe One-One's claims because they see him as a usurper.
• Wham Episode: Jesse gets his number to zero and leaves the train, but a force field keeps him from taking M.T. with him.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Grace sees the residents of the train as "nulls" who don't really have feelings even if it looks like they do, and thus has no problem taking their stuff or even killing them. Simon even goes as far as to tell MT that she's "no person".
• Yank the Dog's Chain: Jesse zeroes out his number and unlocks his exit, and he at least tries to make good on his promise to MT to bring her with him by holding her hand as he runs through the door. Unfortunately, she is physically unable to pass through the door, and Jesse is literally forced to leave without her, disappearing while they desperately try to hold each others' hands.
• You're Insane!: Jesse screams, "What's wrong with you?!" when Grace and Simon admit that they're going to kill MT and Dracula.

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