Carnival Row

Fairy tales and fairy creatures. Myths and legends have been around since ancient times, but the Celtic based fauns, fairies, and witches usually occupy a tale told in the times of 1400’s – 1800’s Europe. But why are they in that time particularly? Was it as the world shrank and had technological advancements that maybe it didn’t fit to have ghouls, wizards, even centaurs walk the streets of industrialized civilization? We may never know the answer, but Carnival Row shows (Much like Netflix’s Bright did) that even fairy creatures can exist in a modern world after all. Mid 1800’s industrial revolution Burgue (London) is not only expanding its boarders but is at war with conflicting nations (one that mimics 1918 Soviet Communism) and has taken in fairy creatures who are refugees (victims) of their warfare. They’re all placed in the slums of The Burgue where they are spat upon by the elite humans and left to rot. A mysterious monster lurks in the sewers as a war-veteran turned detective hunts for the beast that has left a trail of dead fairies. Welcome to Carnival Row.

There are two seasons to this show and they were released far apart due to Covid. Season one dropped on Amazon Prime August of 2019. Parts of 2nd season were not finished till 2022 and parts of second season were not dropped until 2023.

Season one: We are shown a world of fairies, fauns, and witches, even glimpse of a centaur, stuck living in the ghetto of a late 1800’s England like Empire. They’re not treated well and it’s parallel to racism. They lack freedom and medical care, even food and shelter. All these creatures are here though as they’re victims of The Burges conquest for “Democracy” as they claim lands and territories in competition with other countries. We meet Philo (Orlando Bloom) who is a detective trying to find out what monster has been killing of fairies from the sewers. It isn’t until the third episode that we see him in a flashback as a soldier who was trying to establish dominance on a fairy claimed land. This is where he meets and falls in love with Vignette (Cara Delevingne).

This was the part that really grabbed my attention as the show moves a little slow. As they come across the enemy, the bad soldiers inject themselves with a serum that turns them into werewolves! As the war intensifies the fairy claimed land is burned down. Philo leaves Vignette to believe he has died and returns to the Burge to become a detective. As for Vignette, she eventually finds herself in Carnival Row and rediscovers her lost love but hates him for lying about hi death, though it was intentionally done to save her. She goes off and joins “The Ravens” a sabotaging anarchist group that tries to resist the unfair treatment of fairy creatures. This draws lots of tension as she is fighting the organized government that Philo is sworn to work for.

What I like about first season is it is dark and mysterious. What is this creepy creature we get small glimpses of with the head of a goat but the mouth of a squids tentacles? It’s also a very cinematic show. It’s very slow, although smart and deep. The green screens, the sets and props, the Victorian age is beautifully captured and feels so dazzling with the mix of fairy tales woven within the busy carriage drawn streets lit by gaslight.

What I don’t like about the show is how slow it is. The reason it is slow is it has to build it that way because of how complex everything is. Not only do we follow Philo the detective and Vignette the sabotaging pixie, but we have to follow a young woman who is looking for a rich male partner to escape her families failing shipping company, she meets a faun, Agreus, and is very racist towards him. However, they eventually team up to turn the failing business around. Then there’s the Chancellor and his wife who’s son has been kidnapped and held for ransom and only the help of the family confidant witch can help them find him. There are about 2 maybe 3 other stories to follow as well, I just can’t track them to know or understand what is going on. So when those double, maybe triple, side plots were on screen I tended to look at my phone. Slow stories that did have stuff to do with the over all plot, but were just too boring. Not as cool as soldiers fighting off werewolves in the woods.

So near the end of the season the visions and attacks of the beast in the sewer gets more intense. (Spoiler alert) it was the chancellors wife the whole time that was controlling the beast for her own political economical gains. This ties into Philo as he is actually the Chancellors bastardized son as he, a human, had impregnated a pixie decades ago. He hid the child, Philo, and had his pixie wings removed as a baby. The politics of The Burge put him in line to become the future Chancellor, but there is still another half sister and brother in the way. To be totally honest, I THINK, this is the plot. It was really hard to follow, and I THINK the woman who is teaming up with the faun, they tie in because it was HER father who baby sat Philo and was in on the secrete. I think… I have no idea why this show is so freaking complicated. You have to pick up on EVERY little word said to know ANYTHING about what’s going on. So as for seasons one ending we get to see the epic battle of Philo vs the monster under the bridge. It’s intense… but ends in a very weak way as Vignette stabs the chancellors wife, who’s controlling the beast, and that ends it.

It was still an epic season, but was cheapened but such an easy kill. The season officially ends with the question of “Who will take over The Burgues politics?” after the Chancellor and his wife are killed off.

Season two: This season takes some interesting turns as it focus’s a little too much on the faun and rich blond girl. They fall in love. (It’s not cute… this girl is getting it in bed with a man who has hairy goat legs and hoofs for feet. I watched the shows edited on Vid Angel and had all that weird pixie and faun “romance” edited out. Thank goodness!) They’re on the run from her racist brother and he takes her away on his private ship, which ends up getting captured at sea but The Burges enemies who resemble 1918 Soviet communist. The faun knows they’re evil, but she loves it there.

As for Philo, he remains caught between the humans and the pixies in Carnival Row. The political scene is escalating as Philo’s half brother goes mad running the rule of the chancellor. Things are very heated as his father was murdered by a faun leading every human in The Burgue to become extremely violent and racist against the fairy creatures. In one of the side plots, he tries to “Free the fairies” (deport) by allowing them on ships to go back to their homeland. However, the Ravens and Vignette know there are soldiers secretly placed on them for The Burge to pull a Trojan Horse to fight to reclaim abandoned outposts. At this point, its almost impossible to know who is good or evil. I swear the chancellors advisor is the good guy but honestly I do not know. This show is SO COMPLICATED!

Eventually Vignette is arrested, and Philo’s half-brother is ready to execute Vignette and his half sister political opponent. The sister is beheaded and as Philo arrives to break out Vignette they are attacked by a new horrifying creature called a “Sparas” A very hideous creature that doesn’t have skin, has fleshy wings under the arms, is covered in bony spiny teeth, has a literal skull for a face and three or more mouths on its chest. It attacks before Vignette is beheaded and wraps its wings around it’s prey and eats men’s heads off with its mouthy chest. Stuff of nightmares right?

Welcome to Carnival Row. The creature eats all the police men and the half brother chancellor then flies away. In the next episode we’re shown another flashback of Philo being a soldier. This time his men are attacked by the sparas in the woods, but it leaves him alone as Philo himself is a pixie. Philo is then ordered to burn the forest to the ground as that is how the sparas are killed. He gives the order to fire cannons and we see the sparas fly up from the woods dying as they’re caught on fire. He hates himself for it, as he is killing a fellow fairy creature.

Back to the blond and the faun. They learn how evil Sovietism is and escape, but only at the hands of the Soviets resistance, The New Era? I think they call themselves. Again, this show has so many plots and side stories that I just can’t follow. They make it back to the Burgue and learn that the attacking sparas is actually a “soviet” spy who plans to murder all in parliament. Philo spoils the plot and chases down the sparas where they fight it off in Carnival Row.

It’s epic as his werewolf friend gets involved but in the end, he blows the brains out of its skull with his pistol. It is more satisfying than the first seasons final battle, but believe me, I’m leaving out a solid list of 10 characters to keep it simple enough to comprehend. But in the end. Vignette returns to her fairy land, I think, not sure, but the blond and the faun start and electric business together (this is the invention of the lightbulb) as for our hero Philo, he becomes Chancellor and starts throwing out all the corrupt racist politicians and starts to invite in fairy creature, he even turns Carnival Row into a healthy thriving economic community.

So what’s to like? The show is STUNNING! All the scenes are beautiful, full of fantasy and immersive. The acting is great, the plots, though deeper than an Alex Jones conspiracy theory, are solid and intelligent ranging from small relationships, to realistic complex world economic/political structures.

What’s to hate? The show is slow. I would love to see hours of Philo being a soldier who hunts werewolves, but I guess a few hours of parliament men passing notes and discussing business could work. There’s also way to much going on. All strings, may I say, all roads lead to Philo, but some of those strings could be cut. It takes us too deep into side characters and I think Philo and vignette themselves were enough to carry the show. We didn’t actually need the blond and the faun or to know every detail about the chancellors and parliament or what the witches and communists were up to. I would also like to note that I watched it edited, I took out excessive swearing and all nudity/sexual content that genuinely made each episode 10 minutes shorter. Seriously, who comes up with fairies flying around like grasshoppers wile having it? Strange and twisted garbage entertainment if you ask me. (not NEARLY as perverse as The Boys, however.)

I do wish it continued though and that I could return to that awesome immersive world of Carnival Row. I give the show a B- for excellent story and immersivness. If it wasn’t filled with trash and boring double side plots I’d raise it higher. But hey! Werewolves and pixies fighting demonic entities? Pretty epic in my terms! I give it 8/10.