In my month off between classes, I joined Blockbuster Online and have been familiarizing myself with some of the outstanding long-form dramas from premium cable that I missed out on in recent years. I started a thread about how much I loved Deadwood, and since then, I’ve enjoyed the hell out of the first seasons of Dexter and Carnivale. Since Dexter is still on (and I haven’t seen any of Season 2 yet), I wanted to talk about Carnivale a little here, mostly because there didn’t seem to be any Cafe Society threads about the first season.
But wow, what a season! I’ve always found carnivals, circuses, freak shows, and the like extremely unsettling, and as a result, I thought they made great settings for horror or fantasy stories. I also love the lesser-known parts of American history, the social history they don’t teach you in school with all the talk of wars and politics. This trip back to the seedy, sad Dust Bowl of the 1930s has been a fascinating one, and apparently the producers got all the details right. The production value on the show is incredible, and I don’t mind the relatively slow pacing because each episode felt like a movie unto itself.
I like the supernatural elements and the overarching mysteries a lot, and only hope Season 2 wraps them up in a satisfactory manner, with as few loose ends as possible. I certainly yelled “Oh fuck!” a lot after the semi-cliffhanger ending of Season 1. It’s clear that Ben Hawkins and Brother Justin are the avatars of good and evil, but for the most part, it hasn’t been completely clear who is who – and I like that uncertainty. Both have done some heroic things, and some pretty horrible ones as well.
As for Management, is he/she/it supposed to be a God figure? Samson did talk about how Management doesn’t think much of people, but enjoys moving them around like chess pieces. Hopefully we’ll learn more about Management’s motives in Season 2, and find out what side he/she/it is truly on. And where do the Knights Templar figure into everything? I hope we see more of Samson’s rival, the guy with the Templar ring who outwitted Ben (not that it took much) in hiring the Lobster Girl. (He is played by John Doe of seminal punk band X, which is super-cool.)
As for the other characters, I like Jonesy, who for the most part seems like a stand-up guy. I really like Stumpy (a great performance by Toby Huss) and Rita Sue, and I was glad to see them put their differences aside and try to make their marriage work at the end of Season 1. Cynthia Ettinger is hot as hell, and I don’t mind who knows it. I certainly hope to see more of her in Season 2, preferably dancing the cooch, bouncing around naked, and/or dripping wet again! Professor Lodz was a vicious, conniving bastard, but I actually hope we haven’t seen the last of him. It will piss me off if we never find out his background and motivations, and get more into his twisted mind.
As an aside, I was first attracted to this show because the concept reminded me of songs by Tom Waits, my favorite singer/songwriter, and the “mature readers” comic book series Preacher. One of Waits’ personas is “The Eyeball Kid,” a sleazy, world-weary, dust-covered carnival barker who has ridden the rails, traveled to the darkest alleys in all the land, laid down with whores, and shared drinks with freaks and weirdos that he met across the highways and byways of an America long since forgotten. When I heard about Brother Justin’s storyline, I immediately thought of Preacher, a horror/crime/western saga about a Texas preacher who could speak with the commanding voice of God, who embarked on a bloody quest to find God and take him to task for his sins against mankind. I think anyone who enjoyed Preacher would definitely dig the hell out of Carnivale, and vice versa.