***The following contains spoilers for the fourth season premiere***

Paul Zbyszewski (Lost, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, Helstrom) joined Snowpiercer as showrunner in 2022 and has guided the fourth and final season through a convoluted and dramatic path to our TV screens. It’s been two years since Snowpiercer and Big Alice parted ways, and in that time Zbyszewski produced the season, suffered TNT’s cancellation of the show, weathered the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, and finally saw Snowpiercer picked up by AMC. Melanie Cavill couldn’t do better!

When SciFi Vision spoke with Zbyszewski, the first thing we asked is how he feels about fans finally seeing the final season.

“Incredibly grateful and satisfied. Just very grateful to AMC,” he said, “for coming along and rescuing not just season four, but the entire series. There are three terrific seasons before season four ever starts and everyone should go back and watch that, because Graham [Manson] and Aubrey [Nealon] did some great work. I'm just very grateful that things turned out the way they did.”

For Andre Layton (Daveed Diggs)’s group in New Eden, everything has changed. After seven years on the trains, disembarking is almost like landing a spaceship on a new planet. 

“It was very much almost like re-piloting,” said Zbyszewski. “There are certain obligations that come with the story that came before, and you have to respect and understand all of that...and in building new Eden, different kinds of stories come up.”

As the season opens, New Eden feels like a frontier colony, which Zbyszewski said was intentional.

“We definitely felt like it was going to feel like a pioneer western town, so there were going to be Western themes and Western vibes in the way it was shot, in the way it was written.”

“It was incredibly challenging from both a writing level,” he added, “but more so a production level. Production really rallied around this idea, led by Matthew [O’Connor] and Holly [Redford], our fearless line producers, and Christoph [Schrewe], our amazing producing director, who had a vision and embraced the scope and scale of New Eden after being limited to shooting basically these long, narrow boxes [on the train] and relying on the scope and scale to come from visual effects. Now that he had this tapestry to work with, he really embraced it and gave the show a different look and feel.”

Season four begins nine months after Snowpiercer and Big Alice parted ways, and the residents of New Eden are facing uncertain times and unknown adversaries that bring Andre’s leadership into question yet again. Zbyszewski is excited about the character arc.

“[Andre’s] was a story,” he explained, “where we wanted to take this character who, for the entire series, was a man of the people and leading the charge, and very much led like Moses to the Promised Land, led these people to New Eden, and was known for doing some controversial things, including lying to the passengers about New Eden.

“…He had a new role this season as a father. [Since] season three, Layton has had a year to help raise this child and learned that feeling of unconditional love that you have when you become a parent, and it can drive you to do all kinds of things. We wanted to put his role as father up against his role as leader, and it's a real moral conflict, emotional conflict, and it put him at odds with some of his best friends.

“To me, the heart of good storytelling is conflict. If you don't have conflict and you don't have drama, then you don't have a story. We wanted to give him something new to play, and I thought Daveed knocked it out of the park. I thought he took Layton to new levels, and we saw shades of him that we hadn't seen before.”

Season four also brings characters together in new and exciting ways. After seven years on the train, you’d think the passengers and crew all know each other very well, but in the season premiere, some of our favorite characters are just getting to know each other in surprising ways.

“That was one of the fun parts of the season,” Zbyszewski told SciFi Vision, “putting different people together.”

At the end of season three, “characters made choices to go on one train versus another. Till (Mickey Sumner) famously made that choice at the last second,” when she chose to stay with Audrey (Lena Hall), “and so just by sheer geographical constraints, she was going to form friendships with the people who made that same choice to go on with Snowpiercer.”

“It's such a large and diverse cast,” he added, “and there were characters who had never really had one-on-one scenes together in three seasons, and it was fun throwing those people together…At one point, Daveed and Rowan [Blanchard] had a scene together as Layton and Alex, and he was like, ‘I think this is the first time or the longest we've ever had one in a scene.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, it is, and it's cool, right?’

“This is different, having different pairings. What would it be like to have these people as friends and rely on each other? They're living in this society together, so they're going to gravitate together, to work together, make this thing work.”

Snowpiercer season four airs Sundays at 9 pm on AMC and is available via streaming on AMC+.


SCIFI VISION:  So, first off, you joined Snowpiercer for the fourth season. You've led Snowpiercer through a convoluted and dramatic path on television. How does it feel now after all this time people finally being able to see it?

PAUL ZBYSZEWSKI:   Incredibly grateful and satisfied. Just very grateful to AMC for coming along and rescuing not just season four, but the entire series. There are three terrific seasons before season four ever starts, and everyone should go back and watch that, because Graham and Aubrey did some great work. I'm just very grateful that things turned out the way they did.

I am too. This was a favorite of mine long before I was invited to cover this. I watched the whole season, all ten episodes, in two sittings. It's too much. The tension is amazing.

Thank you. I hope that's a good thing. Is that a good thing?

It is a good thing. I actually feel like this is a great show to watch week by week and have time in between to sort of think about and digest. Watching like, five straight hours. I thought I was going to have a heart attack.

Yeah. Wow. That's a lot. Kudos to you. Thank you for doing that.

The tension is amazing. I don't want to spoil anything, but how did you guys come into approaching it, like, this is a whole different season. We're off the train. This is like when you're in a spaceship, and then you land on the earth, right?

Yeah. It was very much almost like re-piloting. Graham and Aubrey took the citizens of Big Alice, and parked them in this place, in this New Eden, where you could go outside, and we just felt like we had to honor that. There are certain obligations that come with the story that came before, and you have to respect and understand all of that. So, it was like, we have to build new Eden, and in building new Eden, different kinds of stories come up. We definitely felt like it was going to feel like a pioneer western town. So, there were going to be Western themes and Western vibes in the way it was shot, in the way it was written, the conflicts in town, and everybody really embraced that. It was incredibly challenging from both a writing level, but more so a production level. Production really rallied around this idea, led by Matthew and Holly, our fearless line producers, and Christoph, our amazing producing director, who just had a vision and embraced the scope and scale of New Eden after being limited to shooting basically these long, narrow boxes and relying on the scope and scale to come from visual effects. Now that he had this tapestry to work with, he really embraced it and gave the show a different look and feel that, honestly, it felt like re-piloting a series.

I noticed that you have a writing credit, I think, on the on the first and last episodes, and I wonder, to what level did you get involved in sort of opening and closing that story, writing it, or the team takes the lead on that maybe?

I mean, the thing about the way the schedule is, we had five months before production started, so I was in the writer's room breaking every episode with the writers. We collectively broke every episode together, and when it was a particular writer's turn at bat, they then took the story that was on the board that we all broke together and went and wrote the outline. We went through it together, and then whoever was assigned that episode in writing the outline, they would write the script. Then, after that, they would go to set, and they would go and prep their episodes, and be on set for their episodes, to produce their episodes, and then we would have the writers in post chiming in on their cuts. Because I believe in writers as producers. It's one of the things we fought for during the strike, and I think it's an invaluable skill, because if you really don't understand how to make the thing, you really shouldn't be writing the thing, in my opinion. So, I was very proud of the fact that all our writers were boots on the ground at every stage, from the blank whiteboard to the finished cut.

I want to talk about New Eden for a second. New Eden is not Eden really. There are some issues there. Of course it's going to be hard, and I felt like, in the first half of the season, there are so many people that I just want to strangle them. And even, previously characters we really get behind just really act out in those first episodes. When the baby is kidnapped, Andre acts as a distraught father, but he's a little extra, I think. Can you speak a little about the conflict that we're going to see among him and the people?

Yes, this was a story where we wanted to take this character who, for the entire series, was sort of man of the people and leading the charge, and very much led like Moses to the Promised Land, led these people to New Eden, and was known for doing some controversial things, including lying to the passengers about New Eden and how this vision came to him, and all of that. He had a new role this season as a father. While the baby was born in season three, now Leighton has had a year to really raise this child and help raise this child and and learned that feeling of unconditional love that you have when you become a parent, and it can drive you to do all kinds of things. We wanted to put his role as father up against his role as leader of these people, and it's a real moral conflict, emotional conflict, and it put him at odds with some of his best friends. To me, the heart of good storytelling is conflict. If you don't have conflict, and you don't have drama, then you don't have a story, and we wanted to give him something new to play, and I thought Daveed knocked it out of the park. I thought he took Leighton to new levels, and we saw shades of him that we hadn't seen before. I hope you feel the same way. I thought he did a terrific job this season.

He was great. I also was struck by some of the new pairings among passengers. Not romantic, but we have people who you would think after seven years on the train, they would all know each other very well, and yet you managed to have people who are just getting to know each other in this season.

Some of that, again, was sort of dictated by what happened at the end of season three. Characters made choices to go on one train versus another. Till famously made that choice at the very last second, like, “No, I'm gonna go with Audrey. I'm gonna give this love a try,” and so just by sheer geographical constraints, she was going to form friendships with the people who made that same choice to go on with Snowpiercer. So, we did have these different interesting pairings, and honestly, that's part of the excitement and the fun. It's such a large and diverse cast, and there were characters here who had never really had one on one scenes together in three seasons, and it was fun throwing those people together and going, “I wonder what this would be like?” I mean, at one point, Daveed and Rowan had a scene together as Leighton and Alex, and he was like, “I think this is the first time, or the longest we've ever had one on one in a scene.” And I was like, “Yeah, it is, and it's cool, right?” Like, this is different, having different pairings. What would it be like to have these people as friends and rely on each other? They’re living in this society together, so they're going to gravitate together to work together to make this thing work. So, that was, honestly, one of the fun parts of the season, putting different people together.

Yeah, it was really great to watch. It really made it fresh, I think. I hope to get to talk to again sometime about how you have made national hero Clark Greg into one of the most hated villains I've seen in a long time.

Good. That means we as writers did our job well. That was the intent, though nothing could be further from the truth. In terms of real life, Clark is one of the loveliest human beings you'll ever meet, a joy to work with, and I was just so thrilled that he agreed to come aboard and play this role. He was just a delight.