BY JOHN CARTER JR
What if you could go somewhere different right now, and escape the life you are currently living to travel to far-off lands and have grand adventures, where every door you take would lead to a new world or journey? Would you take that chance? Would you leave what you have here behind for the chance at something new? Who would notice if you were gone? Will you be missed? All these questions might not even be in your periphery as the first door opens. With only enough time for a single hesitation, you decide to stay or take that ride. A ride on a train to nowhere.
In 2019 Cartoon Network launched Owen Dennis’ debut Cartoon Series, Infinity Train. The series is a fusion of both continuous and anthology-style storytelling. The main premise of each season consists of a passenger who enters the titular infinity train to address their issues through trials. Each passenger is assigned a number that appears on their hand. It is the goal of the passengers of the train to reduce their number to zero to get back home.
Infinity Train, throughout its various seasons, teaches viewers not only to value the lives we’ve been given but also the idea that if we don’t like what we have, it is up to us to change it. It is about making a concerted effort to change and become better people, not for others but for yourself. Let’s look at the four seasons and see what made them so special.
BOOK 1: Tulip, One One, and Atticus
Book one featured Tulip, a young girl navigating her life as her parents decide to get a divorce, and her companions. The inaugural season of the show was important in establishing the mysteries and the formula the show would follow. It also established a standard of deeply personal storytelling through its characters, designing characters that could be written as if they were members of an RPG Party. One-One and Atticus are integral characters in Tulip’s journey, with the former being key to the train’s story specifically.
This season excels at being a launching point for a long-form story. Moreover, through Tulip’s journey, the audience is taught lessons on growing up and the acceptance of one’s own circumstances. However, the show doesn’t teach to simply lay down to take the consequences of those circumstances but rather gives the strength to fight back and take life into your own hands.
BOOK 2: Jesse, Lake, and Alan Dracula
The perfect sequel is the precise word to describe this book. The season features returning characters M.T. (Lake), The Cat, Randall, and One-One while also introducing new characters Jesse and Alan Dracula. This season continues with some of the loose threads established in the first season as well as gives the audience more lore about the train and its inhabitants.
The season through its main cast, gives the audience lessons on family, identity, and self-discovery. It is about making friends you don’t want to let go of and about how with friends, we want to be ourselves the most but can still be fearful of vulnerability. Jesse and Lake, two different unsuspecting people, become friends. This teaches the audience that the people we need in order to grow in our lives are those we may have never expected.
BOOK 3: Grace, Simon, Hazel, and Tuba
The third book is a harsh, darker turn than the rest of the books. It tells the story of a group of characters who were set up as antagonists in the previous book. This book teaches us about loss, lost identity, and losing your way. The story focuses on group-think mentality and how we attempt to break out of the mindset inside an echo chamber of lies when a crack of truth breaks through. It is an important installment in the series for the sake of continuous story and lore. Moreover, this season sets up the prospect of future stories and what comes next in the timeline.
BOOK 4: Min-Gi, Ryan, and Kez
While the third book focused on what comes next, this takes a trip back in time to presumably the 1980s. This book is a love story between its two protagonists. This book gives us some more details about the train’s past, along with cameos from other train inhabitants and passengers before we saw them in the previous books. This book teaches us how we move forward with those we love after being hurt or disappointed by them or their actions. It tells us about love and how forgiveness is integral for maintaining it. It also tells us that love is a choice, it is hard, and if it is true, it is worth fighting for. The main cast this season is by far my favorite. The story here is the perfect amount of whimsy and drama.
Cartoon Network’s Infinity Train is one of the best original IPs the network has picked up in years. Its first four seasons only set up a much grander story and it is more than a shame that in the recent Warner Brothers shake up the series was a victim of cuts. The show teaches excellent life lessons that both kids and adults alike can benefit from. It is emotionally powerful, sweet, and moving. This kind of narrative show, like its Cartoon Network predecessors, is exactly the kind of content young adults could benefit from. From LGBT representation to important life lessons, this show gives its audience much of what is missing from modern cartoons. Sadly, with the show cut, this train is truly going nowhere.
I give Infinity Train a 10/10 for its characters, storylines, and beautiful worlds it gives us to escape to for just a little while.
#RenewInfinityTrain
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