I want to start out with two things: first, I really liked this show. And second, to be entirely honest with you, I really didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did. Sure, the trailers presented a mildly compelling murder-mystery-meets-forbidden-romance premise in an intriguing, mythical Victorian setting. And what early-2000’s fantasy nerd doesn’t geek out a little when Orlando Bloom’s name appears on a cast list? But despite all that, I started the first episode cautiously optimistic at best.
I ended up finishing all 8 episodes of the first season in 24 hours. Now, you seasoned, hard-core binge watchers out there might scoff, and say, “Janie, please. That’s nothing.” And okay, point taken. But Amazon’s savvy Labor Day Weekend release date practically screamed binge-watch this now.
What I’m trying to say here is that Carnival Row sank its metaphorical talons into me at “Are you gonna pick that up?” and didn’t let go until the final closing credits. So, as I mourn the fact that we likely won’t get a second season of Carnival Row for at least a year and scour the internet for scraps of the show’s haunting soundtrack, let’s get into what I liked about Amazon’s latest crime fantasy and what I think could have been better. This probably goes without saying, but if you haven’t watched the show yet, proceed at your own discretion. Spoilers ahead!
What I liked:
Exploration of Real-World Issues
This is a show that very obviously deals with some important and highly contentious ideas surrounding institutionalized racism, xenophobia, and the consequences of war. And most of the time, I would argue that Carnival Row does so creatively and gracefully (see the Negatives below).
I don’t want to get too political here, but the show portrayed several particularly relevant issues in today’s global climate. For one, I doubt that the parallels between the plight of the fae and the international fallout of the Syrian Refugee Crisis are anything of a coincidence. The hostility shown toward fae immigrants in the Burgue hardly seems like a stretch in the context of our real-world mistrust of the displaced and a worldwide swell of nationalism.
It is also worth mentioning the intriguing resemblance between indentured servitude in the early Americas and the bargains struck with many fae refugees, both of which require years of menial labor in exchange for safe passage. Most immigrant fae face a life of ghettoization on the Row, performing the least desirable of tasks in the shadows of society while facing persecution and violence. Sound at all familiar?
As the cornerstones of popular culture, literature and film have long provided a basis through which not only to explore social and political affairs and illuminate current sources of injustice, but also to provide a platform for public discourse. These media demand participation. It’s one thing to read a news article about an event, for instance, and something else entirely to connect emotionally with an individual with first-hand involvement. Empathy is part of what makes fiction so powerful. It is also what renders Carnival Row such a valuable relic of the contemporary moment.
Subtle Inclusivity
On a smaller scale, I also wanted to applaud Carnival Row for its overall inclusivity. Yes, yes, I know that both leads were white individuals involved in a heterosexual relationship, but hear me out, okay?
In general, I would classify the cast as a whole as a relatively diverse bunch. And while this might seem like an obvious play for a show centered around racial discrimination, the writers hardly shied away from tackling sexual diversity as well. Vignette and her fae friend Tourmaline were romantically involved prior to the events of the show, and the fifth episode reveals a relationship between the murdered headmaster and the coroner, who hid their affections in fear of apparently widespread homophobic sentiments.
Character Depth and Emotional Draw
Personally, I won’t stay up until obscene hours of the night to finish something unless the characters in that book, or television series, or film make me feel something. Carnival Row more than met that particular criterion. If the sheer vulnerability written across Philo’s face as he labels himself “a broken thing” in the third episode, or the resignation when the Constabulary takes him into custody in the seventh doesn’t make something in your chest clench painfully, then I’m sorry, but you have no feelings. Or maybe you’re just tougher than me. All I can say is that every time someone onscreen hurt Philo physically or emotionally as a result of his “half-blood” status, I wanted to reach through the screen and set the situation straight. Forcefully. That says something regarding Carnival Row’s ability to garner audience investment in its central characters and their struggles.
The fact that this phenomenon wasn’t necessarily limited to protagonists Philo and Vignette points to a successful multi-storyline setup with effective character development. While I won’t go into detail here regarding every supporting character in the show, I do want to touch upon a couple examples of strong character development that elicited a particularly notable emotional response from me.
First: Imogen Spurnrose, and something I’ll call the Jamie Lannister Effect. Jamie Lannister starts the Game of Thrones series off with a bang by shoving a child out a window. While Carnival Row‘s Imogen stops short of attempted manslaughter, she begins the season self-absorbed, painfully bigoted, and shallow in the worst ways. For good reason, I really didn’t like either character. At all.
Then, despite their various crimes against my own code of sensibilities, I started to empathize with both Jamie and Imogen as events unfolded. Or at the very least, to pity them. Jamie loses a hand, and halfway through Carnival Row’s first season, it becomes clear that Imogen exists mostly as a victim to her brother’s exceedingly poor business sense. Then finally, in an alarming 180-degree emotional shift, I found myself cheering for both characters. Imogen grows a spine, steps out of her brother’s shadow, and develops feelings for her shunned fae neighbor Agreus. And somewhere between episodes 4 and 8, and I stopped rolling my eyes every time her character came on screen. This is what we call a full character arc. So good on you, Carnival Row. You get English major brownie points from this girl.
For my second example: Sophie Longerbane, a frighteningly-manipulative young woman, proves the puppet master behind the events of the first season (and likely the next as well). This presents yet another sign of good character building: I might not have liked most of the actions Sophie took in the series, even toward more morally-grey characters like Jonah Breakspear, but at least I understood her motives. While I couldn’t definitively pinpoint her as a villain until the final episode in the season, (a neat twist), something intangible about the way the character behaved and carried herself had me on edge from the start. Which brings us to the next aspect of the show that I would like to applaud…
Overall Cast Performance
Good writing only takes a show so far. The connections formed between actor and audience are what set a pretty good show apart from a truly memorable one. I mentioned above that I am an Orlando Bloom fan, so I will let you decide for yourself where my implicit biases lie. But I felt that both he and Cara Delevingne did a particularly fantastic job portraying dynamic, three-dimensional characters through their interactions with each other and their world at large. And the fact that I cared so vehemently not only what happened to Philo and Vignette, but also to characters like Imogen, Agreus, Tourmaline, Darius, Absalom, and yes, even Jonah Breakspear, speaks volumes regarding the talent and charisma brought to the table by the entire cast. Another job well done.
Worldbuilding
In case the fact that I’m writing this in my free time hasn’t alerted you to the fact already, I am a complete and utter geek. And Carnival Row’s Victorian-esque steampunk fantasyland had all the nerdiest parts of me screeching, (internally), with glee. The universe in which the show was set married familiar turn-of-the-century British crime drama tropes with snippets of Celtic legend and just a dash of reality to create something refreshingly original, yet also intriguingly familiar. As far as the appeal of the Victorian murder mystery vibe side of things, let’s be honest; there’s a reason for the plethora of Sherlock adaptations out there. But the addition of the fae peoples and places like Tirnanoc in parallel is really what lends both dimension and credibility to the universe of Carnival Row. How so? Let me explain.
Carnival Row exists as a narrative of dualities: citizens and immigrants, the absurdly wealthy and the exceedingly poor, humans and fae. But the show’s lore is also grounded in details of the United Kingdom’s cultural history, namely the spread of Christianity across the isles following the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons. The interplay of traditional Celtic beliefs and pseudo-catholic elements in the show lend the Carnival Row universe yet another dimension. The land of Tirnanoc, for example, closely resembles the mythical Celtic Otherworld, Tír na nÓg, and the subsequent incursions into fae territory first by the Burgish and later by the Pact mirror the arrival of the Romans and later the Norman invaders to the British Isles. (Kudos to my Celtic literature professor, without whom this would have gone 100% over my head.)
The seemingly pagan religious practices of the fae also provide an interesting contrast to those of the church featured in the Burgue, which centers around a Jesus-like martyr figure hanging from a noose rather than a cross. Long story short, I really appreciated the research and cultural detail the writers were able to adapt and integrate into the show.
The one issue with the expansiveness of the world Carnival Row built for itself lies in the simple fact that it is impossible to explore it in its entirety within the span of 8 episodes. This reality, in turn, led to an excess of referenceless namedropping. However, I decided that this problem represented the price one must pay in exchange for a well-developed and interesting fictional universe, rather than an avoidable flaw. And because in most cases the locations mentioned in passing were explained away satisfactorily through character dialogue, I did not deem the issue significant enough to be included in the Negatives below.
And finally, although this may or may not fit beneath the “Worldbuilding” umbrella, I couldn’t write about this show without praising Carnival Row’s costuming and set design, the elements of the show which truly brought the Burgue and its society to life.
Sheer Complexity
I watched the first season with my dad, my favorite co-critic. Both before we finished the season and afterward, he kept saying, “this show is smart.” I have to agree.
While Carnival Row fails to achieve a state of complete unpredictability, the show kept us thinking and theorizing for all 8 hours. The fact that I inferred Philo’s mixed heritage and Piety’s role in the killings before their respective revelations was due primarily to the show’s dedication to detail, (i.e. Aisling Querelle’s voice in the soundtrack at key moments surrounding Philo’s parentage, what seemed like a throw-away line from Philo’s Black Raven informant about the person buying pieces of corpses with a “religious name”). Even with these hints, however, several other plot points managed to catch both of us completely off-guard: most notably, Sophie’s influence over most events of the first season.
Long story short, Carnival Row’s writers excelled at sowing the seeds of later revelations. I have no doubt that many of the apparent minutiae of the first season will prove significant later on.
The Negatives:
Anybody who knows anything about Carnival Row knows that the show represents the latest in a streaming service-wide arms race to produce what the media likes to call “the next Game of Thrones.” So, is Amazon’s latest bid going to explode onto the small screen as the world’s newest cult classic-gone-pop culture icon? I would say no.
That being said, I generally disagree with the widespread desire to draw any comparison whatsoever between the two series. Other than the fact that both shows incorporate a significant fantasy element and deal with a certain set of relevant socio-political themes, I would argue that Carnival Row and Game of Thrones have almost nothing in common. Nothing, ironically, except for the issues that I happen to have with both shows, which I am about to cover.
Pace Issues
Look, I get it. The necessary evil of introducing characters isn’t always the most riveting process. A little exhibition is inevitable, and the more complicated the world you want to introduce, the longer it’s going to take. That being said, I wasn’t entirely sold on Carnival Row until the third episode, where a deep, emotional dive into Philo and Vignette’s tragic romance of the past put into perspective the “present” events of season’s first two installments. The first and second episodes of Carnival Row felt a bit slow, despite the murders. In contrast, by the end of the season, events and realizations flew by at an almost overwhelming rate. A little more balance might have been nice.
Then again, can we take a moment and remember how mind-breakingly boring the first season of Game of Thrones was while the writers painstakingly introduced George R.R. Martin’s myriad characters and their motivations? Remember how much insanity they tried to cram into the last couple seasons? Maybe I’m just being picky.
Maybe Excessive Sexual Content?
I’m not a prude. I get it. Carnival Row is a dark show with mature themes, and it features a romance. Several romances. What did I expect?
Look, I had no problem with the sheer number of sex scenes. I thought their quantity and placement made sense. That being said, some of them stretched on for what felt like forever, cutting into time perhaps better spent developing one of the show’s many interwoven plotlines.
All I’m saying is, as physically attractive as this cast is, I would have appreciated a little less naked faerie porn time and a little more exploration into Vignette’s dealings with the Black Raven, or Tourmaline’s story, or even what was going on in Philo’s police partner’s head.
Occasional Heavy-Handedness with Thematic Messages
From a little google searching, this seems to be most people’s issue with the show as a whole. I’m going to temper the severity of this complaint right away by claiming that a lot of the negativity stems from the fact that people don’t like to be uncomfortable. Most people equate fantasy with escapism: a balm with which to momentarily soothe harshness of reality. Carnival Row provides no such relief.
Now, I’m not going to argue that the show conveyed its messages flawlessly. The first season came with plenty of overly preachy moments and instances in which the show’s fantasy racism bordered too closely on Animal Farm-caliber direct allegory. Take, for example, the majority of the parliament scenes. But the directness with which the show conveyed its messages does nothing to change their veracity. It’s just harder to ignore reality in the context of a fantasy-genera show when the world on screen repeatedly toes the line between fiction and our own lives.
So What’s the Verdict?
Sure, Carnival Row had its moments of awkward dialogue, leaping shifts in the relationships between its characters, (particularly romantic relationships), and thematic elements that perhaps hit home a bit too hard for general audiences. But overall, I think Carnival Row deserved better than the reception it received. I would definitely encourage any fence-sitters out there to give this one a go. At worst, it’ll be 8-hour segment of entertaining social commentary, and at best, an engrossing, thought-provoking thriller of a ride.
I would give Carnival Row a solid 8.5/10.