Carnival Row - TV Series (Amazon Prime)

For ages, we have been pining for that huge gap in our lives left by the excellent Game of Thrones ( minus that terrible ending, of course!) and Amazon Prime has been trying hard, to get us hooked onto multiple different options. The grandest of them all, is of course The Wheel of Time currently running on Prime ( more on this later!) but we've seen a few more ambitious attempts. 

Carnival Row - Season I (2019) falls somewhere right in the middle. Luscious worldbuilding, fantastic visuals that looks like a Dickensian Fever Dream, earnest performances and an overstuffed ambitious storyline.  Does it qualify to fill in that void? Nope, not by a long measure. but by itself, without drawing comparisons, Carnival Row is not a bad series at all, headlined by Orlando Bloom and several others playing key roles in the first season. 

The story is a gas-lamp fantasy set in a world populated by both humans and the ‘fairyland residents, ‘fae”. As the story opens, the fairyland has been attacked by the many empires of men. The “good” army of Burgue has retreated from the land of Anoun, leaving the fates of the winged “fae” to the greedy, brutal armies of The Pact. We start bang in the middle of a retreat, where the fae are being chased and shot at by the armies. That’s our introduction to Vignette, a rebellious fae who is involved in this operation of helping the faes escape the clutches of the The Pact and make it out of the island of Tiranoc and onto ships heading for the mainlands of Burgue. She herself escapes narrowly and has to enter into servitude, indentured into the household of “Spurnrose”, the owner of the ship that got wrecked in a storm on its way to the mainland. Vignette, being the sole survivor with the photo of her ‘soldier-lover’ clutched tight. 

Yup - cut to Orland Bloom. Inspector Rycroft Philostrate, who is investigating the brutal murders of “faes” - similar to Jack the Ripper, set in the dark and murky corridors of this place called Carnival Row, a setting similar to eighteenth century Victorian England, with dark alleyways, horse-drawn hansoms and gas-lamps. It’s a marketplace with seedy taverns and whorehouses, the underbelly of the city of Burgue. Rycroft gets pulled in deeper into this mystery as he suspects this could be a case of racial hatred for the “winged” immigrants into the city and the right-wing nationalists might be making a statement. But pursuing a suspect leads Rycroft to believe that there is something more more at foot, with the prophecies of “a Dark God rising” coming to fore. 

The storyline juggles quite a few hefty topics and struggles to keep all balls afloat in the air. Up front and centre, is the social divide between the settled “republicans” within the city who resent their city being now taken over by the non-humans. This drama is well played out in the household of the erstwhile wealthy “Spurnroses” - when a neighbour, a Puck ( Brace yourself, these are another race of fae, with ram-like horns and hooves for legs but otherwise human features!) moves into the society. And being down on their luck due to some foolhardy investments by heir of the house, now the sister - Imogen Spurnrose decides to take matters into her hand. She makes a desperate “move” on this wealthy young puck, so to support their cause and help with the debts that riddle the household. How this plan turns on itself, is an interesting side-story to the main drama playing out in the muck-riddled drainages of the streets of Carnival Row. The other dimension to this class divide plays out in the “parliament” where Chancellor Absalom Breakspear (played by the ever dependable Jared Harris) is being hounded on all sides for being lenient towards the ‘crutches’ as the non-humans are collectively known. Demanding for his resignation and more. A more sinister drama plays out in his own household, where his own son, a wastrel of a young man, unfocused and still trying to discover his own ‘purpose’ - gets kidnapped in one of the whorehouses of the Carnival Row. Whose game is this and to what end, is another of the plot lines that gets entangled into the larger mystery of the serial killings out in the streets. 

Lavish production budgets, luscious locales, elaborate costumes and absolutely brilliant worldbuilding aside, ( the awe inspiring set pieces like that chase on the rooftops of the old Victorian buildings, of the Zeppelin attacks on an old mountain town and the myriad battles of the men with their fae-like brethren are some that stand out!) this series boasts of some earnest performances by the lead. Orlando is assured and plays out the central character of the inspector, who has been hiding a big secret about his past that would come to haunt him in the present day. Then there is super model Cara Delevigne having a lot of fun, playing the rebellious sparrow hawk Vignette, pining for her supposed ‘dead’ boyfriend from the mountain town of Anoun, whom she finds absolutely hale and hearty in the streets of Carnival Row. Indira Verma who plays the role of the wife of the chancellor, with her own sinister motives for power, is enough and up to the task, but hey - she is no Cersei Lannister yet. The producers of the show keep dropping new terms plenty, even up till the fourth episode of the season, so we as viewers are up on our toes expecting some kind of an explanation. But there is little help there, without the burden of doing exposition, while the plot lines are not bogged down, they are heavy enough on their own and are muddled up plenty, to be confusing. The best one, I felt was the Jane Austen story of Imogen and the young rich puck Agreus, played by David Gyasi trying to flaunt their ‘love’ in the face of a horrified higher society, disdain and contempt in the face of disapproval. 

Overall, season one is a good watch and am really hoping second season gives us something a lot more meatier and intriguing to chew on. The world is vast and waiting to be explored. Perhaps, we will focus more on the war on the frontiers, with the Pact. Anyways, I am in for the ride. One time watch recommended for sure!