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Quint has seen the first two episodes of CARNIVALE Season 2!!!
SPOILER ALERT !!
"... So it was that the fate of mankind came to rest on the trembling shoulders of the most reluctant of saviors."
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with my opinion of the first two episodes of CARNIVALE Season 2. The first episode is called Los Moscos and takes place just where the season finale left off.
The above quote is from Samson (Michael J. Anderson) and is the prologue to this episode, much like his speech before the first episode of the first season. They are clearly setting this series up to be a massive collision between Ben Hawkins (Nick Stahl) and Brother Justin (the awesome Clancy Brown).
So, the fire rages and if you've seen the trailer for Season Two, you know that Clea DuVall (Sophie) makes it out. Her unfortunate, silent and super-psychic mother does not... Although there is a scene later in the next episode that shows she might not be 100% gone.
So, Stahl succeeds in bringing Adrienne Barbeau (Ruthie) back to life, but only by murdering Lodz (Patrick Bauchau). "A life for a life." We've seen that part, but like I said above, the new season starts off without missing a beat. Newly murdered, Lodz lies dead on the floor of Management's trailer. At this point, Management and Ben Hawkins have a little talk where much is revealed, including Management's identity. That's right, we don't see behind the curtain, but we now know who Management is. I won't give it away, but I will say that you've seen Management's face before in Season 1.
It's also set up that Brother Justin and Ben Hawkins are both searching for Scudder, who seems to be integral to either side winning. Hawkins is searching for him through info he gets at the Templars ("Don't tell him you got it from me! He ain't human! He ain't human!") and Brother Justin gets set on the path by a satanist/occultist listener who heard him speaking on the radio and recognized him for what he was. Speaking of, Brother Justin is gathering a bit of a following due to his radio access. Much like Randall Flagg in THE STAND, he's drawing like minds to him as the pieces start moving in the battle between Dark and Light. It also ends with one of the coolest effects of the series... think POLTERGEIST.
Episode 2.2 is called Alamogordo, NM and has Ben Hawkins finding the man who painted the mural up at the Templar offices, you know... the one of tattooed man in the cornfield. The artist is a priest who is confined in some priest sanctuary/nuthouse, surrounded by his sketches of the man with the tattoos. He's also stuck repeating the same prayer while quickly crossing himself over and over and over again.
All the while, Brother Justin is busy setting up Temple Jericho, his main base of operations (spot picked because of a twisted tree we've seen before in visions). The reporter traveling with Brother Justin suspects Irene in the orphanage fire (that we know she did start) and begins asking questions. Might not work out too well for him, methinks, but he's doin' the asking.
Ruthie (Barbeau) is seeing people from her past, who turn out to be dead... I'm not sure where they're going with this, but her more than near death experience is probably catching up with her. Oh, and Libby and her mom put on another Cooch show, which is good news for us. Damn if that Carla Gallo isn't cute as a button.
Meanwhile, Brother Justin has a rather odd experience with a half-naked asian woman as his body is... altered. But I'll let you see that scene for yourself.
Without giving away every single beat of both episodes I better stop here. But Management's revelation of who the tattooed man is and what he means is a great ender to the second episode! I can't wait to see just how and when Brother Justin and Ben Hawkins meet and what'll happen when they do. Looks like we CARNIVALE fans are in for a helluva ride. Look to HBO this Sunday, January 9th, for your first new CARNIVALE of the year!!!
I got lots of cool stuff coming up, squirts! Keep your eye on the site!
-Quint
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Since little has been resolved yet, I still think the first season was an excuse to show a collection of random distrubing images.
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love this show@!@@@ waiting for my dvd's of the first season from amazon.....NOT
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why does everyone call management a "he" when it's obviously a woman's voice? (Linda Hunt's) I guess all will be explained this season. And yes, this is Clancy Brown's best part ever, even better than Kurgan and Lex Luthor!
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Short seasons + slow pace = almost nothing actually happened last year. It feels like half of each episode is just establishing shots and random visions.
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If you're mainly interested in story and finding out what happens, then Season One dragged more than it delivered. If you're more interested in character, though, I think there was quite a bit happening in these few episodes. I got the sense that this was like the first section of a novel, where you get to know the players before the plot kicks into high gear. Yeah, if you just want to know what the hell's going on, then you'll have been disappointed, but there's something to be said for letting a story build slowly so that you can savor the character development. I felt like the time spent with the characters gave the things that happened to them more dramatic weight. Especially Brother Justin -- the way his religious zeal gradually darkens and turns into something extremely ominous and scary...that's not something you can distill into a couple of episodes without turning him into a cardboard villain.
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I haven't seen Lost yet (I know- criminal)- but Nip/Tuck and Twin Peaks are two of my top five favorite shows- the other three are Carnivale, Deadwood and The Wire- If you love Twin Peaks and Nip/Tuck trust me you'll be blown away by Carnivale- Consider it HBO meets Lynch meets King meets Bradbury... Also you can get it for $75 from Amazon- not exactly cheap but it'll buy you twelve hours of the most cinematic mysterious gorgeous "television" you're likely to see- don't listen to people saying the show makes no sense either- even Michael Anderson (Twin Peaks' "Man From Another Place") who plays Carnivale's "Samson" calls it "Twin Peaks with logic"... and while that's not actually my assessment (I consider Carnivale 10x weirder than Twin Peaks first season) you can tell that everything's happening for a reason (The entire storyline is already set in stone and is planned to run for 3-5 seasons)... Also if you don't have HBO, Carnivale (and Deadwood out in Feb.) is a great way to start- it'll turn TV on its ass for you
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I put up with 13 episodes of zero forward plot movement last year because I was intruiged (and because I probably give HBO shows more leeway than I should.) I won't be so generous with my time this year.
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Jan 06, 2005 11:04:25 AM CST
Carnivale is the best show on teevee right now, period.
by cknightshift
Anyone could make a show about good versus evil... but to situate it during the Dust Bowl of the early 1930's? That takes brass ones! Doesn't hurt that they got such a strong cast too. Haven't seen "Lost" yet though but my mother-in-law says it's good so I'll have to see what the hubbub is about :-)
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Jan 06, 2005 11:45:39 AM CST
For you people who say that "Carnivale" is a static show, I say
by brashhulk
Please go away and re-watch your Blade DVDs for the umpteenth time. Don't like an intelligent and complex storyline, escalating tension, mysterious portents, and amazing characterization? Feel free to change the channel to another Friends re-run. It's amazing that people are either too simple or too dense to call this show "slow." Pardon me for being over the age of 35, but back in the olden days, we called this type of show "spellbinding" and "rich." Of course, to those people under 35 who have grown up in this disposable, quick-cut, all-flash-and-no-sizzle America, I guess a show like Carnivale would seem infuriating, since they'd have to spend time actually discussing the story rather than the special effects. You know, one of the requirements that merit spoon-feeding is to be a child or an invalid. Which one are you?
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And I've also heard people on this site complaining that LOST is a slow show too! GEEZ! Get a frickin' grip, people - let....the....story....unfold. You'll be better for it in the end! Carnivale is one of the most brilliant shows ever to be seen by the light of the cathode ray, so WATCH IT!
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THANK YOU SWEET, SWEET HBO GODS!
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You men treat TV shows like sex: Straight-forward, no surprises, get your jollies, and go to bed. And most of you look at Carnivale, scratch your head, and say "I don't get it. It don't make sense." Just like you react to a woman's needs in bed. And no, its not about romance, dunces, its about taking your time and doing it right. Just like they're doing with Carnivale. Its no wonder that almost every woman I know who watches the show not only loves it, but appreciates how they're doing it.
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I'm a man under 35 that owns the first two Blade DVDs. Carnivale is the only TV show I watch besides news and Deadwood. Wanna take another shot at defining the stereotype for non-Carnivale fans?
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why do things need to be all great or all awful. The writers of carnivale will likely ratchet up the pace this year because they can respond to the complaints from first season - a bunch of people begging the show to let them become fans. I like a lot about Carnivale but it also has some wasted potential. I can only put up with Hawkins running around sputtering "nunna yer gawdamn bizness" and "leemee be" while looking confused and haggard for so long. after the fourth conversation where Lodz pestered Hawkins and Hawkins responded as above, I started watching other things. Im watching it again now on DVD and enjoying it - but come on guys, it needs to giddyup. Not because Im too impatient. Because it is trying to stretch out an obvious storyline for too long.
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Do you watch and re-watch your Blade DVDs - not the entire movie, mind you, just the fight scenes - while high-fiving your buds, turning the techno-beat-rat-a-tat music up to 11, and espousing such sentiments as "Wicked!" "Phat!" and "Kick-ASS!" as a (mostly CGI) Wesley Snipes does his thing? No? Then you're probably not in the demographic I was describing. There are plenty of people who own the Blade DVDs and also enjoy Carnivale, as I am one myself (Well, I have the first movie - I didn't appreciate the second one.) The point was that the overwhelming majority of myopic zit-poppers out there fall into one or the other category. You, sir, are one of the rare exceptions that prove the rule.
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"Letting the story unfold" blah blah blah. The story in carnivale is one we've seen before. Good vs. Evil, surprising family relationships (dude: you think everyone was gonna be shocked by Hawkins, Sophie, Scudder? hmm..this seems familiar...could it be...Luke, Leia, Vader?!) We basically like enjoying the same basic story again and again. Hero vs. Villain, villain really hard to beat, hero vanquishes villain anyway, gets girl along the way. So the reason we are impatient is because we GET THAT ALREADY. The rest of the experience is enjoying (to use an analogy) how the nice designer has redecorated the living room. Once we've caught onto some ancillary part of the story - (Yeah, Ben, scared of powers. scarred by his mom, scudders son, sophie's half brother. Gotcha, Gotcha, Gotcha) - we want it to move on and give us some more SIZZLE with out STEAK. damn skippy - and nothing wrong with wanting that either.
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I watched the entire first season and if I never see another episode I'll be okay. Thank Brother Justin I could rent it instead of buying it. Favorite episode was Babylon. The problem with the show isn't the snail pace, the problem is that the writers are too damn stingy with the payoff and too lazy in what they actually give you. Who is a good guy and who is a bad guy? What is the point of this show? You won't find out these things by watching season one. Maybe by season 3 they might get around to letting you in on the "joke" but don't hold your breath. It's high on style, but low on substance. The most blatant insult to thinking people is overuse of The Carnivale Storm Off(tm). A character walks up to another character. A few incomplete, cryptic sentences are exchanged. Suddenly one character gets mad and storms off. It was cute the first time but damn, Carvivale does this 4 or 5 times EACH EPISODE! Nothing is resolved or revealed, but by god, the writers created more of their precious "tension" while putting out the least amount of effort. Maybe the other poster was right, this must be a show for women.. and effeminate males.
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To answer the I'm too simple or too young to fully grasp the brillince of Carnivale argument, I'm 38 (hence the clever nickname), have a masters degree from Northwestern and my favorite movie last year was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Credentials now established, I still found Carnivale to be a tarpit of plot development. I watched every episode, desperately hoping something would actually happen. Nothing did. I'll give it a shot this season (at least for a few episodes) because there are SOME interesting things going on with this show. Good storytelling is an art - one those of us old and wise enough are able to appreicate. -- Sean
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I'm a guy and I love the damn show, there's no room for that sexist shit. I can certainly understand the criticisms some lay at it but those things just do not effect my enjoyment of the show.
Even when the main plot of the show doesn't seem to be moving along at all (and for many it must be frustrating) I love all the little things about the show. There are plenty of little character points that are being built and introduced (plus the use of music in the show is the best I've heard in years...possibly the best since Twin Peaks and I don't use that lightly).
I feel that the show is leaving no stone unturned before finally going forth with the 'final showdown' as it were, which I think is a very bold move. I can think of many shows where you love characters but don't get to know them enough, and when it's over you say things like "I wish there was an episode where we got to see them do this e.t.c. or it was entirely dedicated to them e.t.c.". To me it just seems that the show is doing this anyway, and I love it.
As for your sex analogy SignyD, I guess that means I'm a red hot lover :P
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I just worry that it will go the way of Sopranos where the show goes nowhere. Piss off haters
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So fitting that the show depicts the final literal battle of Good vs. Evil, after which we traded wonder for reason (the cold reality of science won out over the wonder of 'magic'). For all those impatient, keep in mind that season one was just a prologue. The writers have said all along that they originally started with Brother Justin firmly established as the head of an evil ministry (or the evil head of a misguided ministry) but that it felt wrong... we needed to see how he got there, we needed to see him try to be good. Not knowing who's good or evil, watching them grow - that's called fucking character development. Ben isn't an straight-out good guy. He's not even a nice guy, in fact, he's something of an asshole - that's a ballsy move. We've had heroes, we've had anti-heroes, now finally television has a real fucking person (being an avatar non-withstanding). Seems to me like some of you have traded the wonder of an extended story arc for the quick-payoff of fast-food television. If there's not an action sequence and a huge payoff every episode, it MUST be boring... sigh. Sad thing is there'll probably never be another show like it (then again I thought that about Twin Peaks).
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What's really sweet is that on March 6th- When Carnivale season II is debuting its 9th episode- Deadwood season II episode I premieres right after- that means for four glorious Sunday nights in a row we'll have all new Carnivales and Deadwoods back to back and we'll be shaking some fucking dust with sweet Samson and feeding cocksuckers to the pigs with sweet Big Al Swearengen... Come this Sunday- HBO rules- come March 6th- HBO is my sweet lord
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Carnivale is not stingy with its developments, it just takes its time and doesn't spell everything out for you. By telling the story with a character's expressions and great music, it tells you what is going on (or in some cases hints at it) without explicitly saying it. By stressing the details the creators make the show feel real and increase the amount of viewer investment in the characters and their problems. That is what makes this show so great. Will I be suprised when Good ultimately wins. No. But I know I will be satisfied.
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You are fucking CORRECT SIR! It's sad that I didn't discover the series until it hit on DVD - just when I was starting to think LOST was a great show. Carnivale shows us what "great" really means. If I only had a little extra dough, I'd subscribe to HBO for this one show alone.
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I admit, I was really hard on this show when it first aired. But I stuck with it and the season finale was great. I watched it through again in the encore run and I was floored-It was much better the second time around. Maybe it was because I was used to the pacing or the fact that I could skip through the fat hooker subplot. But I am eagerly anticipating tonight's show.
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Count me as one of the people who doesn't get what the fuss is about with Carnivale. I watched the first 6-8 episodes of Season 1 last year trying to get into it, but I couldn't. I think what the problem was that it went too much into the minutae of the daily lives of the characters without giving me any reason to care about the characters in the first place. I admit that I'm a bit of an action junkie, but I was able to get into SFU from the first episode while with Carnivale I just kept waiting for something significant to happen. I think David Simon of "The Wire" (now there's the best show on television) said it best, the history of a character is exposed to make the present relevant. Too little backstory and the characters don't make sense. Too much, and it is like too much flesh on too few bones. I may give Carnivale a try this year, but something better happen!
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I agree with your sentiment about Carnivale being better the second time around. This is the type of show that needs to marinate in your mind for a while... and it totally sucks you in! The primiere was outstanding, imho.
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Sweet mother of God- Linda Hunt is a woman? Scary thought
BTW as far as calling management a he (now we know who he is) with Linda Hunt's voice, just remember she was nominated for an Oscar for playing a man (The Year of Living Dangerously)
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