"Infinity Train" recently premiered its third series as an HBO Max exclusive after the first two aired as miniseries for Cartoon Network. Building on concepts and themes introduced by the first two series, the third doubles down on darker, more complicated material. This time around, the protagonists are Grace (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) and Simon (Kyle McCarley), two older teenagers who lead a pack of kids called the Apex. They've taken over one of the train cars to use as a base, and spend their time trying to get their personal growth tracking numbers higher instead of lower. Grace and Simon get separated from their friends one day, and meet a little girl named Hazel (Isabella Abiera) and her gorilla protector Tuba (Diane Delano).
This season is very ambitious, tackling racism, tribalism, misinformation, toxic relationships, and parenting issues through the show's fantasy filters. Unlike the show's previous protagonists, Grace and Simon have been following a set of rules for life aboard the train that are completely backwards. We eventually find out that this is due to a series of misunderstandings. But even more troubling, somewhere along the line they decided that the train's "denizens," the creatures created by the train to populate its cars, aren't real, sentient beings. Based on this, Simon and Grace feel no guilt about abusing and destroying them to get their numbers higher. In the first episode, we watch the Apex kids raid a car full of denizens, causing mayhem and destruction. There's a lot of violence and some pretty awful deaths in this installment of the "Infinity Train" series. But what really caught my attention was the use of ambiguous endings, sympathetic villains, and an honest-to-god tragic arc alongside the expected redemption story.
I like that the show pushes at boundaries and content restrictions in some meaningful ways. I like that it subverts expectations and doesn't pull its punches. However, I'm not remotely surprised that the series was moved from Cartoon Network to HBO Max. There is a main character who is a young child this year - Hazel - but it's really Grace and Simon who have the journeys of self-discovery, and they get very dark. No matter how many talking cats drop in or how whimsical the show's train car worlds appear, there's no disguising the show's more mature aims. I've seen plenty of cartoons where the main characters struggle to disentangle themselves from a harmful ideology. I've rarely seen any where the main characters are responsible for creating and perpetuating that ideology, and then have to face the consequences for the harm that they've done. And I've never seen a sympathetic, redeemable character pointedly not get redeemed.
And of course, there's nothing wrong with that. However, it does highlight that there's still an unfortunate tendency to pigeonhole American animated shows as being for certain audiences. There's plenty of adult animation these days, but it tends to be violent comedies or raunchy sitcoms for young adults. Otherwise, you have adventure and action series aimed at the 6-12 set, edutainment for preschoolers, and everything else is an outlier. You could easily draw comparisons between "Infinity Train" and other recent series like "Steven Universe," which also tackle personal growth through fantasy allegory, but there's really nothing on this side of the Pacific Ocean that's nearly as challenging for younger viewers.
I would have loved to have seen "Infinity Train" when I was around that age when I was getting too old for traditional cartoons and started eyeing anime. It has such an appealing universe and set of conceits, while talking about emotional health in such approachable terms. I think the second season is my favorite for the characters, but the third doesn't slip in quality at all. I look forward to seeing where the show goes from here.
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