Across from Desperate Housewives, dammit! Thank the good lord above for HBO-West so I can see it three hours later.
VCR set to record… As I have an online event to attend.
Damn my addictions for getting in the way of my addictions!
I got the first season boxed set and watched start to end last week – it was even better than I remembered. I just finished watching all the commentary today. I can’t wait – only 30 minutes to go!
Great episode tonight. If the series can maintain this momentum, the second season will be excellent.
All I can say at first is WOW! what an exciting episode! The 2nd season opener moved very quickly and revealed -a lot- of information while still leaving much to be explained. If you watched season 1 and have been waiting for it to start up again, you will not be disappointed. I do have one question - WHERE is my Gecko?!?! 
I love lizard guy (as played by John Fleck) and hope that he’ll be back, though he wasn’t listed in the opening credits.
Nick Stahl appears to have the exact same character in both Terminator 3 and Carnivale, whiny guy who must save humanity but doesn’t want the job.
When the credits came up I was thinking it was a very short first episode. I checked the clock and it was normal length, the time just went fast. So, since we know who management is in the dreams now, who/what is represented by the bear?
Does anyone else think (speculation, not spoiler)
that Management (AKA, the Russian Guy) is Justin’s father? We have an abandoned Russian orphan (two, actually), and Management told Ben that he=Ben like Scudder=Justin. And Scudder’s Ben’s father, right? So is this some sort of Hatfield and McCoys kind of Armaggedon?
I think that is highly likely all things considered.
I’m just wondering where tatooed man and the bear fit in. Not that I want it spoiled mind you. I want to enjoy the ride.
in typically wonderful Carnivale style, I had questions answered but ended up asking more by the time the credits were rolling.
Why is Management looking for Scudder? Is Sophie good or evil? Is Lodz going to come back to life??
Great first episode. I definitely see a difference in the pacing.
Yes, pacing is much improved so far. And kudos to whoever edited the ‘previously on Carnivale’ montage at the beginning: it really helped clarify the plot. A lot did go on in the first season after all.
This episode raised my expectations quite a bit. The scope of the series looks to be much wider ranging than I initially expected.
I’m not hooked yet. I watched the first season and was really impressed with the way it looked, the production, but as soon as an episode was finished, I forgot about it.
I’d like to connect with at least one of the characters enough to care about them. Some background would help. Who are these people? Why are they with the carnival? What did they do before? Do they like each other? We see them banding together against outsiders, but other than that, they’re pretty separate from each other.
It seems like everything that happens is contrived to serve the plot. I want some character development.
My GF and I got the first season DVD set around Christmas. Watching episodes back to back definitely helped with following the plot.
There is something odd going on for sure with the whole Brother Justin, Ben, Scudder, Management thing. Follow me for a second here if you will. Spoilers to what has been shown and speculation follow:
By all appearances, Ben is the new force of good in the story. That’s not to say that he can’t make mistakes and do bad things. Ben is Scudder’s son.
Scudder is probably not a nice guy. In fact, we know he killed hundreds of miners. We don’t really know why he did it. He did save Ruthie’s life at some point. He also seems to have helped Ben a few times when he has appeared to him.
Brother Justin seems to be the force of evil. It doesn’t seem that he wanted to be evil. Not everything he does is evil. However, as he learns his powers, he seems to be headed down that road. He is Ben’s opposite. It appears that he is trying to become “The Usher”, whatever that is.
Management aka The Russian was Scudder’s opposite. What we see of Management makes us think that he’s not a nice guy either.
Sophie seems to be a wild card. The tatooed man is another, but I don’t think he’s in any way on the side of the good guys.
So, who was the evil force between Management and Scudder? Brother Justin wants to find Scudder to kill him. Does that imply that Scudder was good or mearly that BJ needs to off his predecessor to gain full power? Management also wants Ben to find Scudder. Why? Management wants Ben to believe it’s to save millions of lives, but that could easily be deception. Does Management maybe have the same goal as BJ?
I guess what I’m getting at here is that we really don’t know who is good and bad between Management and Scudder. I’m hoping it’s a fun ride finding out!
Oh yeah, is BJ trying to get his sister caught for burning the children? It seems that he doesn’t trust her. More likely though, I think he’s trying to get Dolan to find the truth and then use that to fully snag Dolan. Dolan most likely won’t turn Iris in to the authorities and will in turn be drawn in.
CARNIVALE?
It can’t be Martis Gras yet ?! 
What are you people talking about?
Spoilers welcome.
Okay, this is what got me: Brother Justin is on the radio and the inmate is being “spoken to.” The guard calls him Stroud. The prison looks like Alcatraz. So do we have
(dramatic pause)
The Birdman of Alcatraz, Robert Stroud???
Of course, it helps that I watched the Burt Lancaster movie Sunday night…
I repeat–WTF?
Would you believe Varlyn “Bird Dog” Stroud?
Dude, at least use a spoiler tag! Here I was having fun all this week figuring out how Robert Stroud could send a flock of canaries to peck Scudder to death…
Sorry, it’s right off of HBO’s official Carnivale website though. I guess I figured something that they put there isn’t going to be a big spoiler. I looked at it as, “hey, that’s what they were calling him”, since I really didn’t pick up Brother Justin’s enunciation as it was mixed with his sermon.