Very true; that’s certainly occurred to me, but all I’m saying is that we haven’t seen or heard about a specific, one-to-one correlation between Ben bringing something back from the dead and some kind of disastrous event. Ben’s mother was adamant he not touch her (to heal her) when she was dying, as was the woman brought into the tent during the revival scam. Both women, IIRC, knew Hank Scudder, and were probably aware of whatever powers he possessed and what the ramifications of his touch might be.
But the other woman told him as much. In order for his powers to work, he had to take life from something else.
Something has begun tugging at my mind: why have we been led to think Samson is just there for the oddity factor? Those of us familiar with the Twin Peaks experiment may have remembered Michael Anderson’s role as just some peculiar feature among other peculiar features. But his role in Carnivale (so far) has been that of the central figure around whom all the others orbit. He’s a solid core in a manner of speaking.
Yet we’ve seen he’s capable of murder. And he’s always moving in mysterious ways, and always on the fringes of the story line.
The card he tossed into the grave seems to have been highlighted, where others’ gifts weren’t. Perhaps his needed the close-up for identity’s sake, but the card itself had an odd effect on me.
I’m suspecting Samson’s connection to the other “forces” characters may start oozing to the surface as episodes pass.
Who is the actor playing the radio guy? I looked all over the HBO site and IMDB and they only list the main characters. He looked really familiar.
I’m so glad for these threads. You folks always notice things that passed me by, or that I thought were irrelevant. It’s definitely adding to my appreciation for the show. Thanks.
I’ve not seen Samson as an oddity. What about him is odd, other than him speaking to Management?
I found a site that captures all the credits and although he’s not identified by character name, he’s either Robert Knepper or Glenn Shadix.
OK, Glenn Shadix was the fat city councilman so Robert Knepper must be the radio guy Tommy Dolan.
*Originally posted by Cliffy *
Cliffy,
Nice point - in the first few episodes it appeared that the viewers were being set up as Ben being “good” and Justin being “evil”. Now, after that last couple of episodes it isn’t as clear as that.
My take - the power that Ben and Justing both possess can be used for “good” or “evil” - so it’s not like that the power itself is either good or evil.
Otto, thanks. Would you mind posting the url for that site?
I found one fan site that promised all kinds of inside info, but they basically had the same stuff as HBO, just set up differently.
In Carnivale he’s not that odd. He was quite odd in Twin Peaks and I, for one, felt the reason he was in this cast was to carry along that mystique from before. Of course, that relies on my having seen Twin Peaks, I admit. Those not familiar with the old show wouldn’t be carrying that baggage.
Maybe it’s just me…
pepperlandgirl, we may just have to agree to disagree. Rita Sue seems to be a very self-centered person. Felix is all broken up about Dora Mae’s death; he sees his little girl everywhere, and he wants to get away from the carnival so he can move on with his life, maybe save the only daughter he has? Rita Sue was not kind to Dora Mae after the blow off incident in Babylon, which right off the bat makes me think less of her. I find her to be shallow and venal and not actually very nice to anyone. JMO.
The Chariot reversed does not mean that Libby would have met failure in Hollywood. In fact, what I think it means was that Libby wasn’t going anywhere; Apollonia said as much to Sofie when she returned to the trailer after Felix chickened out. Sofie said something like, “Don’t say you knew it. Libby’s not going to dance the cootch forever!” The Chariot reversed indicated that unlike the charioteer, who is going to ride out into victory, Libby’s chariot is stuck, literally. A reversed card means that the action of the card is blocked, just as Libby has been blocked… in this case, by her ever lovin’ mother, Rita Sue.
I agree that we’re probably being given red herrings in trying to establish who is the avatar of light and who’se the avatar of dark (in both generations).
Scudder killed, but it could have been in self-defense.
Also, take this as a possible plot twist: the avatars father their opposing avatars of the next generation!
Peace.
I do see your point–it’s just that almost everyone in this show has a certain oddity about them.
I watched most of Twin Peaks; in fact when I saw Michael J. Anderson (Samson) on Carnivale, the first thing I remarked on was that I remembered him from Twin Peaks.
We both have good taste in TV shows. 
As far as Rita Sue is concerned, she’s not actively blocking Stumpy or Libby (gotta love the symbolism of those names by the way) from leaving. She objects to it but it’s not like she’s hiding the keys or anything. Stumpy is too weak to leave her and Libby needs someone from her family with her if she’s going to make the break with the carnival. Libby and Sophie could have left together were it not for Libby’s veto (“Daddy doesn’t like anybody else driving his car.”). There’s a difference between Rita Sue’s knowing her husband better than he knows himself and Rita Sue’s taking proactive steps to prevent their leaving.
I’m no expert on WWI, but where the hell did American and Russian troops encounter each other? They both fought the Germans, but on different fronts.
Possibly I dozed off during that episode. Fortunately, HBO will probably rerun the whole series.
I think they’re rerunning the first episodes this Sunday, Nov/2. Check your local listings.
You’re right…by the time American troops got the Europe the Russian Revolution was basically in full swing and the Russians were out of the game. And the Eastern Front wasn’t trench warfare either…the Germans rolled over the Russians pretty easily. I suppose the Russian officer (Justin’s & Iris’s father, I guess) could have been assigned to the Western Front as an observer/advisor and got stuck there despite the fact that his country was out of the war at the time that Scudder would have been there.
So…yeah, the World War I flashbacks are all still very confusing.
“Have you seen my bear?”
It’s a dream sequence and not necessarily meant to be taken literally.
I assume Justin is old enough to have fought in WWI and, as we now know, was born in Russia. He’d have fought for the USA obviously, but the Russian soldier in the dreams might be Justin, represented as a Russian soldier due to his background.
It’s a dream sequence and not necessarily meant to be taken literally.
I assume Justin is old enough to have fought in WWI and, as we now know, was born in Russia. He’d have fought for the USA obviously, but the Russian soldier in the dreams might be Justin, represented as a Russian soldier due to his background.
Of course, it’s equally possible that the Russian soldier represents Justin’s father, though he would have died long before WWI and is unlikely to have ever encountered Scudder.
Assuming that it’s the ultimate destiny of the two avatars to come into direct conflict (a reasonable assumption) it’s possible that Scudder and Justin first encountered one another during WWI and it was them who were originally destined to come into conflict, but destiny was put off by Scudder’s death, apparently at the hands of Lodz who was probably trying to control him as he’s now trying to control Ben and ultimately killed him when he continually refused to give in.