Review: Infinity Train – Book 2 “The Family Tree Car”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Since meeting Tulip and escaping the Chrome Car, Mirror Tulip (now going by “MT”) has taken off on her own adventure within the train, seeing as many cars as she can while she runs from the Reflection Police. At one such car filled to the sky with a giant tree, she encounters and befriends a deer with magical abilities who helps protect her from the cops, but this peace is short lived with the arrival of a human boy named Jesse who has a number on his hand just like Tulip.

He names the deer “Alan Dracula”, much to MT’s annoyance, and the two make their way down the Family Tree within the car, full of ancestors and descendants who hate each other despite their latest descendants marrying and tying their trees together. Jess tries getting everyone to see a common ground, while MT just wants to fight and yell. Jesse’s method just ends up making both families mad at him, while MT’s just gets them bound up in the tree, as conflict just makes the tree swallow them. So they put their heads together and get to the bottom, finding Alan Dracula and becoming friends in the process. MT decides to help Jesse get his number down and get him home.

OUR TAKE

After barely a third of a year off, Infinity Train returns with a second…season? Series? Either way, with the success of the first “Book”, now known as “The Perennial Child”, we now have the start of “The Cracked Reflection”, which stars Mirror Tulip in Tulip’s place. A sequel to the last book was always going to be a tricky endeavor, as it needed to show the series’ potential for longevity with changing protagonists while also retaining enough familiarity with fans of the first installment that it would still feel like the same show. That’s a job I have seen succeed plenty of times, what with the introductions of the Second Doctor in Doctor Who when the First’s actor had to retire, the release of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 2 when the author started figuring out his creative voice in Part 1, and Legend of Korra balancing familiar elements from Avatar with trying to be its own show. I’ve also seen it fall on its face plenty of times, though luckily it looks like Infinity Train knows what to do.

And if you want an assurance for the audience that this is the same show they enjoyed from last year, what better way than bringing back the mirror version of the protagonist from last season! As much as her episode in that book was easily the one I was most confused about (still have no idea how Tulip functions well without a reflection), I do see the functional reasons for bringing it back here. Plus, while MT is basically Tulip down to having the same face and voice actor, she’s able to easily establish herself as her own person within seconds of the premiere. She’s sensitive to people telling her what to do, which makes sense considering how she was used to being tied to doing whatever Tulip did until she was freed. Likewise, Jesse fulfills the “human with issues to work out to get his number down” role that Tulip once filled with the optimistic attitude of Glad-One, while Alan Dracula acts in the weird animal role but with no discernable personality, unlike Atticus. It seems like this new cast has hints of old one while also breaking away when they need to, meaning a different but hopefully fresh dynamic.

I don’t know what exactly to expect from the upcoming four nights of this event, but if the last book was any indication, it should be about as fun as that at the very least. I do hope we get some check-ins with One-One, Atticus, and of course Tulip, though hopefully in a way that doesn’t overshadow the new group. And if this does well too, who knows, maybe this will be the start of an exceptional ongoing anthology series that we can enjoy for a long time in many ways. Other than that, I eagerly await where Infinity Train’s next stop leads us.