Warning: SPOILERS for Snowpiercer Season 1, Episode 8 - "These Are His Revolutions"
Melanie Cavill (Jennifer Connelly) confessed that she took Snowpiercer from Mr. Wilford and condemned the billionaire to death when the Great Ark Train departed Chicago seven years ago - a clever twist that surpasses the Wilford reveal in the 2013 Snowpiercer movie. In Bong Joon-Ho's film, Curtis Everett (Chris Evans) met Mr. Wilford (Ed Harris) in the Engine Eternal and discovered that the insane billionaire planned to murder 74% of the train's population. Wilford was an insane black hat villain, which was ideal for the movie, but the Snowpiercer TV series has cultivated a more nuanced and interesting character in Melanie Cavill, who is both savior and despot, depending on one's point of view.
Ostensibly the Voice of the Train and the Head of Hospitality who was handpicked by Mr. Wilford, like many of Snowpiercer's specialty workers, Melanie has been posing as Wilford since the 1,001-car-long train initially left Chicago. Despite the fact that many of Snowpiercer's passengers met or even knew Mr. Wilford personally, Cavill created a mythology around the eccentric billionaire, telling everyone he had sealed himself away in the Engine Eternal to keep Snowpiercer running 24/7. The Wilford mythology was embraced, and Melanie advantageously used it to maintain the rigid and cruel class-based order Mr. Wilford designed for the train's fragile society. And it worked overall, although Cavill occasionally had to sanction and even perform unspeakable acts, including murder, to maintain Wilford's "perfect order," especially against the 400 stowaways in the Tail section, who were treated despicably. However, Snowpiercer's societal structure was dependent on everyone aboard believing that Mr. Wilford was an absentee Messiah figure who was always watching out for the train and every soul aboard.
As the Train Detective, Andre Layton (Daveed Diggs) deduced that Melanie was posing as Wilford and that the billionaire was not on the train - a secret he used to rally Third Class to join the Tail's revolution. But Layton also wanted to ruin First Class' stranglehold of power, so he told the train's biggest secret to L.J. Folger (Annalise Basso), who then entered Engineering and saw the truth for herself. As Layton expected, L.J. immediately informed her devious parents. With the secret now blown wide open, Melanie Cavill was exposed and arrested for treason. Commander Nolan Grey (Timothy V. Murphy) declared martial law aboard Snowpiercer, although he immediately had to lead the Jackboots to quell the revolution downtrain. Regardless, Melanie Cavill has completely lost her power over Snowpiercer, and she is now sentenced to be executed.
But the biggest questions - Why Melanie stole Snowpiercer? and What really happened to Mr. Wilford? - were answered in Snowpiercer episode 8, "These Are His Revolutions." Indeed, Melanie had an even bigger bombshell to drop that shatters the myth of Mr. Wilford entirely: "I built this train!" Cavill confesses to Ruth Wardell (Alison Wright), who was once her close ally. "Wilford was a fraud... Wilford sold tickets... He didn't believe it was possible to save mankind, and he wasn't even going to try... All he wanted to was to live as well as he could for as long as he could surrounded by accolades, booze, and whores in the Nightcar. We wouldn't have made one revolution. So I took Snowpiercer, and I left him trackside to die." Ruth was a true believer in Mr. Wilford, so she refused to believe Melanie's story, although it rings true.
Snowpiercer's twist elevates the series above the film's version of Mr. Wilford and turns the man behind the curtain into a necessary idea that obfuscates the truth that he was a greedy man who was no savior. Instead, Melanie Cavill emerges as a far more fascinating character, and Snowpiercer opens up interesting questions about the value of the Big Lie, how she used it to do the right thing in order to save what was left of the human species and whether the ends ultimately justify the means. Whether or not Melanie will die for her sins is the big question for Snowpiercer's final two episodes to answer, but unlike Mr. Wilford, it's hard to see how the Great Ark Train could possibly survive without Melanie Cavill pulling the strings.
Snowpiercer airs Sundays @ 10pm 0n TNT.