Combining mystery, political intrigue, and dark fantasy, which we analyzed almost four years ago, managed to wreak havoc on many viewers who, following the initial doubts, found in it a compelling series with bright future prospects.
We return to Burgo. We return to the Row. The fairy tale for adults Prime Video is returning to tell the tale of Carnival Row in its second season.
Orlando Bloom (The Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean) and Cara Delevingne (Only murders in the building) return to the neo-victorian streets of this tale that promised to be one of the great pre-pandemic bets but ended up closing in its second season due to the unexpected events.
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Carnival Row Trailer for Prime Video
The reality is different. The epidemic affected all industries in 2020, putting a second season postponed once more due to scheduling issues of its protagonists.
The split between the first and second installments might have slowed Prime Video's plans, and the departure of Marc Guggenheim, showrunner of the first season, and Travis Beacham, series co-creator aren't very optimistic.
A story that might have been a film that had both bright and dark colors inside and outside of its diegesis; that is, in essence, the reality of the Amazon Prime Video premiere who had an exceptional godfather: himself Guillermo del Toro. It's time to get back to the Row.
Fairies bleed as well.
Rycroft Philostrate (Orlando Bloom) and his recently discovered family connection with Chancellor Absalom (Jared Harris) continue to suss out the second season of carnival row. But what kept us interested was to see how her friendship with Vignette Stonemoss, the love of her life, would develop following her reunion.
With the rise of Jonah Breakspear (Arty Froushan), things in Burgo have become worse. Fairies, fauns, and all the amazing creatures in the city are confined to the Row.
The increase in violence is evident from the first batch of the new batch, which will feature eight 50 minute long episodes and that they will be released in batches of two until the series is finished.
The Pucks will be, under the shambolic term that humans use to refer to them, the spearhead of social criticism that they already had in their first season, but this is due to a much more sadder and visceral policy.
The main themes and impulses that fueled the film's development are returning, and they aren't the only ones. We asked for a little more of the magic and witchcraft that they so enthused us in the Darkasher in the first season, and our prayers have been answered.
Tourmaline will be the driving force behind a fresh subplot that plunges us into the depths of dark fantasy. Hopefully, it will fulfill all the expectations that the first chapters have planted and does not leave us with the promise of the first installment.
A vibrant streetscape
The production design is once again the winner. The main city, that Burgo that can be so reminiscent of neo-Victorian London, transforms the Carnival Row neighborhood into another main character in the series.
Because its streets are filled with emotions: the oppressed and the filth of poverty facing the heartless contempt of the oppressors, surrounded by light with a wardrobe that fills them with as many shadows as they have inside.
Carnival Row is once again a spectacle of aesthetics. Costumes, makeup, lighting, and photography create an atmosphere in which we may stay and exist.
They will give us the freedom to leave the underworld's streets and go to palaces and vast gardens that add more drops to their social criticism, increasing the contrast between strata. And this will not be the only enhancement.
Agreus and Imogen, the funky subplot that took center stage from the main couple in the first season, is returning to continue his path on the razor's edge in which all his characters dance.
The haughty, classist, cruel and ruthless young lady whose family has fallen from grace has plunged her into the depths of ignorance... until she meets Agreus, a faun who, to her surprise, is educated, rich, and powerful.
In times of social fascism, Romeo and Juliet, please. Their escape from Burgo will take them to other places that may be less pleasant than theirs, but that will eventually lead us — or so we hope — to the forgiveness of their sins.
We can only draw one conclusion from Carnival Row: it is an undervalued project. The fate of fate seems to snatch the development of a series with a particularly attractive fantasy universe.
Rarely have we had the chance to see so many folklore and fantasy characters united with criteria and cohesion; figures that will soon be forgotten among piles of new Prime Video projects.
The first season of the program isn't the series of the year. Nor does it pretend to be. You don't need it either. The narration does not have the same quality as the rest of the series, but the ascending line that they have established as the episodes go on.
Carnival Row has left our hearts broken. A bitter and terrible defeat of a project that was poised to finish consolidating itself in a third installment that appears impossible... unless the fairy gods bring us back to life again.
