Hello and Welcome Aboard my two Cents! My name is Sam, and today we’re talking about the cartoon Infinity Train! Available on HBO Go. Now as you know this blog is focused on Doubles and Doppelgangers, and so lets hop right in. The titular Infinity Train! Is a mysterious train where people who’re going through a difficult moment in their lives get a chance to face their issues. Each car in the train has a different theme with all sorts of things you need to do and creatures to interact with so you can reach the next car. In the first season our protagonist is Tulip, a nerdy introverted girl dealing with some issues over her parents divorce. But that’s just the background, what I wanna talk about is episode seven, where Tulip meets her reflection. At first we think this reflection is an antagonist, since she tricks Tulip into trading places with her, but then we learn that she just wants to make her own decisions and have her own life instead of just mirroring Tulip. Tulip helps her escape, and then we moveon, end of the episode. In the season finale Tulip leaves the train, and that’s about it.
Except hold on a second! There’s another season! So what the heck happens then? Is there gonna be a new protagonist? Is Tulip going back to the train?! No! It’s Mirror Tulip baby! MT! That’s right this onion has layers! MT is living on the run in the train, since there’s a Reflection Police assigned to take down runaways, and she’s finally making her own choices, starting by her look! Her punk style reflects(get it?) her moving away from Tulip and rebelling against the expectations for a reflection. However she also seems to not have matured into being more emotionally open like Tulip had to while on the train, going for a very long time alone. This finally changes when MT reaches the Family Tree Car, where she meets Deer, who’s a shapeshifting yet ultimately friendly deer. MT stays with Deer for a while, having the kinda relationship you’d have with an outdoors cat, until she realizes Deer has another friend Jesse. Since Jesse is a human passenger, MT decides to help him leave the train so she can have Deer to herself.
The train works it’s personal growth magic however, and MT bonds with Jesse as they figure things out. This leads to MT instead wanting to leave with Jesse, but it’s just not possible since she’s not an actual passenger on the train. She isn’t seen as human by the train, even if she does grow and learn like one. This shows the inverse of the creepiness we’d see when looking at your average identical-to-the-hero antagonist, because instead of it being like us knowing something is wrong with a familiar face of one individual, it’s seeing something is wrong with everything but. MT has to fight to be considered her own person, and wins. She gets to leave the train and stop being Mirror Tulip. We end this season with Jesse finding the now named Lake in the real world with him.
This was going to be a video, but too much school work and the power outage leaves us with just this edited script, hope it’s fun anyways!
Sam's Two English Cents 