"The Beach Car" is the 2^nd episode of Season 1 of Infinity Train and the 2^nd episode overall. It aired on August 5, 2019.

Synopsis[]

Tulip strikes a deal with a cat in an attempt to get home, but is the price worth it?

Plot[]

Tulip is seen solving a crossword puzzle in the Crossword Car, with One-One helping. However, his "helping" was more of a hindrance as he scribbled every white square with unrelated sayings, much to Tulip's dismay. She then instructs One-One to stay put and not write anymore, to which One-One complies.

Soon after, she crosses into the Tiny Wizards Car, tiptoeing around the weird creatures around her, while trying to keep One-One quiet. However, One-One misinterprets quiet for loudness, thus resulting in the creatures angrily chasing the two towards the next car.

Inside the Pinball Car, Tulip rolls inside a hamster ball trying to find the exit, only for One-One's sad persona to bump the ball the other way into the multi-ball hole, claiming that this is where he belongs (which might be a reference to The Engine). As Tulip wonders about what he said, she was interrupted by 3 metal balls heading right towards her, knocking her around.

After getting out of the Pinball Car, One-One's personas commend and scold Tulip for her score placement in the machine and that they almost found their "mum" this time. Tulip reminds them that her situation onboard the train isn't a game and she has to work her way towards the engine to find a way out, saying her philosophy is "work first, play later". She does a comparison with the times that she helped her father out by testing out some go-karts before he resells them. Happy-One and Sad-One are unconvinced. Tulip then confesses that there was a bit of playtime involved in the form of hose fights and pizza, but claims that it still fell into "work". Suddenly, her hand started glowing and 1 number was subtracted, making it 114. She starts to panic, fearing the worst, and One-One confirms that once the the number reaches zero, she will die. This makes her snap in desperation and anger, fearing that she will die on the train because there's "no stupid rule book", despite Happy-One's attempts to comfort her, to which Tulip responds with "not having time for this crap", as she picks the 2 pieces up and charges towards the next car.

Once inside, she looks around to see that she was in a new world that consisted of a beach, an ocean, and some buildings in the distance. She overhears a voice over the hill. She runs towards it and crouches to avoid detection. She sees a Cat smooth-talking a blob of water named Randall into buying an ordinary pipe, under the guise of a "donut-holer", which she then demonstrates by punching holes into sheets of paper and a hat, trying to trick him into buying it. Randall easily falls for it and begins to imagine the fortunes he would have, with the cat agreeing as to add to the dream, which Randall figures out to be a pyramid scheme, but the cat distracts him with the saying "pyramid team". To seal the deal, the cat claims that the pipe was certified by her "close acquaintance", the Conductor, to which Tulip reacts in surprise and starts charging down to the two beings and begins to talk out of control. The cat manages to calm her down as she hears about Tulip's situation and the unfortunate fate that befalls her should her number reach zero. The cat doesn't believe it and asks where she had heard that, and Tulip pulls One-One from her pack, which immediately intrigues the cat as he was doing a "mum check". The cat then tests out One-One's intelligence, to which Tulip was mad at him for deceiving her to think that she's dying, and throws him into Randall out of frustration. The cat agrees to help her, in exchange for Tulip giving One-One to her and Tulip fixing her Cat Craft.

While fixing the craft, Tulip gets pestered with questions by One-One, such as her height, her hair, her name, to which Tulip annoyingly responds by her not knowing anything. The cat overhears her conversation and is confused as to why she was named after a flower, to which again, Tulip responds to not knowing and she didn't name herself. One-One gives a daisy as a present to her, to which she responds annoyingly. She figures out the root of the problem, as the craft is missing a gear, and wonders where to find one, to which Randall suggests he knows.

The gang go underwater to a town full of water blobs selling various items, and stop at a gear shop. They barter with the salesperson to give them the gear, in exchange for the daisy on Tulip's head. Tulip frustratingly agrees, much to Sad-One's dismay and depression. Once the gear is in place, Tulip bids farewell to One-One, who thinks they will cross roads again some point in the future, to which Tulip responds they won't, as she'll be gone, and he'll be with the cat. The cat then takes One-One with her on her craft, and takes off to the engine to talk to the Conductor. As she leaves, One-One bids farewell to Tulip depressingly, making her question herself.

Back at the Beach Car, Tulip sits by the shore, thinking about what she had done, when Randall stops by and tries to use her as a marketing subject, to which Tulip angrily responds to go away. Randall, undeterred, makes a clone of himself and pitches his marketing strategy to him. He starts talking to his other self about teamwork and the importance of a team, to be there for each other. Tulip says that it's more than that. Randall, however, responds to one of his clones saying that even though he's not good at some stuff, he's got guts and shows he cares about their "team". Tulip then exclaims that she didn't "not care" about One-One's fate with the cat and genuinely thought she was going to help him, when she realized that she did all of her previous actions through desperation and fear, not knowing that she gave away one of her own "teammates".

Realizing what she had to do, she bargains with Randall to take her to the cat, and she'll take the pipe, to which he responds gleefully. They go back to the gear shop to exchange a pack of gum for the daisy. They give chase to the cat, Tulip trying to cut off the deal, but the cat refuses, and tries to flee, but Randall and his clones seep into the craft, damaging it and sending it and the cat crashing into the wall. Tulip recovers One-One, but the cat warns her about eternal entrapment inside the train and worse, before being interrupted by mini-Randalls pestering her for a sale. Tulip apologizes to One-One, saying that she was reckless and considers One-One to be a teammate and a friend. One-One forgives her, and says he knew that she just needed some sense to get back to her own self.

Features[]

Characters[]

• Tulip
• One-One
• Cat (debut)
• Randall (debut)
• Gnome-Wizards (debut)

Locations[]

• Wasteland
• Infinity Train
  • Crossword Car
  • Tiny Wizards Car
  • Pinball Car
  • Beach Car

Trivia[]

• It is revealed that Tulip got her name after she was supposedly stillborn, only to "bounce back like a perennial flower." The name of Book One - The Perennial Child - comes from this line.
• The ocean is all Randall. If you look closely in one shot, you can see a face.
• Tulip's number subtly changes throughout the episode, particularly when she tells the story of her birth.^[1]
• End tag: Tulip's hand, against a backdrop of the Wasteland, with her number rapidly changing.

Continuity[]

• One of the Randalls refers to an attack by a "metal squid."
• This episode features the first instance of the "No thumbs" running gag. In this episode, the Cat uses it to explain why she cannot fix her own shuttlecraft.^[1]

Behind the scenes[]

• The idea to have Tulip inside a giant mech for the Crossword Car came from Owen Dennis: Alex Horab had simply written that Tulip was solving crosswords.^[1]
• The line "long beard" was an adlib by Ashley Johnson during the recording sessions.^[2]
• Alex Horab added the Pinball Car into the script because he thought it would be fun: he did not realize it would be difficult to animate until after the fact.^[1]
• Andy Olsen does not just sell used go-carts, something fans were confused about after this episode aired: he is a "picker", someone who buys, fixes, and resells items he finds at garage sales.^[1]
• The fact that Randall gets pulled into a pyramid scheme is part of the reason he is written the way he is: Alex Horab felt the only way they could make someone falling into a pyramid scheme funny was if the person was completely impervious to both physical and emotional pain.^[1]
• The Cat refers to Randall as "effluent", a word that Owen Dennis had to look up: it is a subtle dig at Randall, as the word is in fact a noun referring to sewage water.^[1]
• The Cat's brief laugh after saying "no thumbs" was an actual laugh by her voice actor Kate Mulgrew: Mulgrew reportedly had a very good time performing the role.^[1]
• Sam Spina only had two stipulations for designing The Cat's Shuttlecraft: it was ornately designed and too small for Tulip to ride.^[1]
• Alex Horab based Randall's "corporate talk" in this episode on his own, ill-recalled memories from working in banking.^[1]
• Tulip's changing number during her story about her birth was so subtle that the editor Bobby Gibis believed it was a mistake. Dennis and Madeline Queripel were impressed Gibis even noticed it.^[1]
• The sequence in the Randall marketplace was reportedly one of the most complicated shots the crew ever did, due to the multiple warping effects through different Randalls, sometimes one on top of another.^[1][3]
• "We shalln't" is an expression often used by Sarah Soh, the storyboard supervisor for Books 1 and 2.^[1]
• Originally Tulip's inner conflict over giving One-One away manifested as her talking to herself through hand puppets of Glad One and Sad One. It was changed for the final draft, partly as an excuse to add more Randall dialogue and explain pyramid schemes.^[1]
• Alex Horab refers to the donut holer's introduction in this episode as "Chekhov's Donut Holer". "Chekhov's gun" is a dramatic principle where a weapon that is introduced to the audience must be used in some manner by the end of the story.^[1]
• There is a cut line of Randall saying he is evaporating from the heat in the Wasteland. This was done to give stakes to the chase and also preempt questions on why Tulip doesn't just use Randall to ride to the front of the train, but the writers found it took up too much time and was just nitpicky.^[1]
• Mike Roth, a friend and collaborator of Dennis and Queripel (from their days on Regular Show) who also worked on the pilot, was very concerned about Randall's fate after crashing the shuttlecraft. Several mini-Randalls were added to the background to reassure Roth.^[1]

Errors[]

• In one scene, while the Cat is smooth-talking Randall, her blue undershirt becomes red and her necktie (minus its knot) is missing.
• When Tulip places One-One back into her backpack after overhearing the Cat mentioning the Conductor to Randall, her backpack disappears for two frames.
• When Tulip introduces herself to the Cat, her barrette briefly changes to the color green in the middle of the scene.
• During the scene when Tulip asks the Cat if she has a shuttlecraft, one of the former's backpack straps is green.
• While Tulip is working on the Cat's shuttlecraft before One-One arrives to ask her a question, the cover of the manual book she's reading is blank.
• Before the Cat fires off the magnetic stand from her shuttlecraft, her right ear flap is missing in one frame.
• Tulip's number is missing on her hand after she puts on her hood while waiting for the Cat to come back at the Beach Car.
• Despite Tulip's hair band is normally black, it briefly turns green for one frame while Randall is carrying her outside the train.

Videos[]

Transcript[]

View this episode's transcript here.

Gallery[]

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References[]