In its first season, combining mystery, political intrigue, and dark fantasy, we analyzed managed to win the bowler hats of more than one viewer, who, following the initial doubts, found in it a compelling series with great prospects.
We return to Burgo. We return to the Row. The fairy tale for adults Prime Video has returned to tell the story 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 story that had hoped to be one of the great bets of the fantastic pre-pandemic but ended up closing in its second season due to the vicissitudes of fate.
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Carnival Row Trailer on Prime Video
The reality, however, is completely different. In 2020, the epidemic affected all industries, putting a second season on hold because to scheduling issues of its protagonists.
The differences in the previous three installments may have influenced Prime Video's intentions, and the departure of Marc Guggenheim, showrunner for the first season, and Travis Beacham, series' co-creator, are not very happy.
A story that might have been a film that had bright and dark shades inside and outside of its diegesis; that is, ultimately, the reality of the Amazon Prime Video premiere who had an exceptional godfather: himself Guillermo del Toro. Time to get back to the Row.
Fairies bleed as well.
Rycroft Philostrate (Orlando Bloom) and his newly discovered family relationship with Chancellor Absalom (Jared Harris) continue to entertain us with their second season of carnival row. However, it was to see how her attachment to Vignette Stonemoss, the love of her life, would evolve following her reunion.
With the arrival of Jonah Breakspear (Arty Froushan) into power, things in Burgo have turned ugly. Fairies, fauns, and all of the city's amazing creatures are all contained in the Row.
From the start of the new batch, the rise in violence is palpable; a season that will feature eight 50 minute long episodes, which will be released in batches of two until the series is completed.
The Pucks will be, despite the shambolic term humans use to refer to them, the spearhead of social criticism that they already contained in their inaugural season, but this is the result of a far more sadder and visceral policy.
The main themes and impulses that stayed in the game continue to develop, and they are not the only ones. We asked for a little more of the magic and witchcraft that they so beautifully displayed in the Darkasher during the first season, and our prayers have been heard.
Tourmaline will be the driving force for a new subplot that plunges us into the depths of dark fantasy. Hopefully, it fulfills the expectations that the first chapters have planted and does not leave us with the illusions that we lost in the first installment.
A striking streetscape
The series' main city, that Burgo that can be so reminiscent of neo-Victorian London, transforms the Carnival Row neighborhood into another character.
Because its streets are full of emotions: the oppression of the oppressed and the filth of poverty faced by heartsless 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. The costumes, makeup, settings, and photography create a space in which we could stay and exist.
They will allow us to enter the underworld's alleys and see fine palaces and gardens that add more layers to their social criticism, increasing the contrast between strata. And it will not be the only addition.
Agreus and Imogen, the affectionate subplot that took center stage from the main couple in the first season, is returning to its razor's edge in which all of his characters dance.
The haughty, classist, cruel young woman whose family has been thrown 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 a time of social fascism, Romeo and Juliet, please. Their escape from Burgo will lead them to new destinations that may be different from theirs, but which will undoubtedly lead us — or so we hope — to their eternal redemption.
We can only draw one conclusion from Carnival Row: an undervalued project. The fate of fate seems to thwart the creation of a series with a particularly appealing fantasy world.
Rarely have we had the chance to encounter so many figures from folklore and fantasy fused with criteria and cohesion; figures that will soon be hidden under piles of new Prime Video projects.
It isn't the series of the year, as we stated in its first season. Nor does it pretend to be. You don't need it either. It's not the same conclusion as the rest of the series, but the same ascending line that they have established with the passing of the episodes makes it, once more, a must see for lovers of the genre.
Carnival Row has left our hearts broken. A bitter and cruel defeat of a project that was set to finish consolidating itself in a third installment that appears impossible... unless the fairies make us dream of a new miracle again.
