Combining mystery, political thriller y dark fantasy that we analyzed almost four years ago in its first season managed to make the bowler hats of more than one viewer jump who, after the doubts of the first chapters, found in it a series with a charismatic personality and great promises for the future.
put on your clothes steampunk because we return to Burgo. We return to the Row. The fairy tale for adults Prime Video return to put the point and end to 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-style streets of this story that promised to be one of the great bets of the fantastic pre-pandemic and that has ended up closing in its second season due to the vicissitudes of fate.
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Prime Video’s Carnival Row Trailer
The reality, however, has been quite different. The pandemic hit all sectors in 2020, delaying the filming of a second season which, when it finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel, was delayed again due to scheduling problems of its protagonists.
The more than three years between installments may have precipitated Prime Video’s plans, and the departure of Marc Guggenheim, showrunner of the first season, and Travis Beacham, co-creator of the series, due to creative differences are not very rosy premises.
A story that could have been a movie that it has had bright and dark shades inside and outside 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 too
The second season of carnival row returns with Rycroft Philostrate (Orlando Bloom) and his recently discovered family relationship with Chancellor Absalom (Jared Harris). But if something had us in suspense, it was to see how her relationship with Vignette Stonemoss (Cara Delevingne), the love of her life, would evolve after her reunion.
In Burgo things have turned ugly. Classism and racism prevailing among humans has reached its peak with the rise to power of Jonah Breakspear (Arty Froushan), so the fairies, fauns and all the fantastic creatures of the city are confined to the Row.
The escalation of violence is palpable from the beginning of the new batch; a season that will feature eight 50 minute long episodes and that they will be released in batches of two with the arrival of each Friday until the series is completed.
The Pucks will be, under this derogatory nickname with which humans refer to them, the spearhead of social criticism that they already contained in their first season, but as a result of a much more sadistic and visceral policy.
As you can see, its main themes and impulses return to continue its development, and they are not the only ones. We asked the first season for a little more of the magic and witchcraft that they so attractively showed us embodied in the Darkasher and our prayers have been heard.
Tourmaline will be the catalyst of a new subplot that plunges us into the roots of dark fantasy Hopefully, it meets the expectations that the first chapters have planted and does not leave us with the hope of the scenes that were stolen from us in the first installment.
An inspiring streetscape
The production design is once again the icing on the cake. Its main city, that Burgo that can be so reminiscent of neo-Victorian London, turns the Carnival Row neighborhood into one more character in the series.
Because its streets ooze emotions. The hatred of 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. The costumes, makeup, settings and photography build an atmosphere in which we could stay and live.
What happened to Orlando Bloom: elf, pirate of the Caribbean… and soon a pilot in Gran Turismo
They will offer us the possibility of leaving the streets of the underworld to be able to visit palaces and large gardens that add more drops to the inkwell of their social criticism, increasing the contrast between strata. And it will not be the only addition.
The Carnival Row series will take us to new locations in its universe through Agreus and Imogen, that endearing subplot that, after taking center stage from the main couple in the first season, returns to continue on the razor’s edge in which All his characters dance.
Her story follows the same bases: the haughty, classist and cruel wealthy young woman whose family fallen from grace has plunged her into the deepest ignorance… until she meets Agreus, a faun who, to her surprise, is educated, rich and powerful. .
Romeo and Juliet in times of social fascism, wow. Their escape from Burgo will lead them to new destinations that may be even less hopeful than their origin, but which will inevitably lead us — or so we hope — to the redemption of their sins.
If we think of Carnival Row, we can only draw one conclusion: a undervalued project. The fate of fate seems to snatch the development of a series with a universe of particularly attractive fantasy creatures.
Rarely have we had the opportunity to see so many figures from folklore and fantasy united with criteria and cohesion; figures that will now be buried under piles of new Prime Video projects.
As we said in its first season, it is not the series of the year. Nor does it pretend to be. You don’t need it either. Its dialogues do not have the same finish as the bill of the rest of the series, but the ascending line that they have marked with the passage of the episodes makes it, once again, a mandatory viewing for lovers of the genre.
Carnival Row leaves our hearts divided. Bitter and cruel defeat of a project that had the pieces ready to finish consolidating itself in a third installment that does not seem possible… unless the fairies make us dream of a new miracle again.
