Carnival Row overview (spoilerish)
It's decent Industrial Fantasy, has a rich mythos but needs more world-building, and gets better as it goes along. Good cast. Makes me realize again how easy guys like Orlando Bloom and Keanu Reeves have it; all they need to do is be really attractive, learn some minor stunts, and stand around looking severe while growling out a few terse lines and boom, they got themselves a decades-long career with younger and younger leading ladies.
There are a few formulaic problems such as:
- Old timey hardcore racism at brutal and disheartening levels; violence, the constant use of (fictional) slurs and dehumanizing language, and what appears to be systematic genocide in the very first scene.
- A lot of "fucks". Like a "look how cool we are, we say fuck a lot" amount of fucks.
- Gratuitous amounts of naked fairy sex with wing flapping. A lot more female nudity than male (though there is some at least).
- Angry action girl female lead who's seen and done it all yet still seems naive and not super clever. Still horny for her lying jerk bf after mourning his faked death for 7 years.
- Sad lesbian ex-girlfriend who keeps being supportive of her true love/true love's bf even though she gets like nothing out of it
- All the heavy-lifting acting wise is done by the secondary/tertiary cast
- Crazy exotic witch lady trope in abundance
- Brothers and sisters with super icky boundary issues
- Rich entitled racist fuckhead predictably tries to force himself on his fairy indentured servant. Like, yawn.
- Angry black man (actually a faun) falls in love with annoying racist spoiled blonde bitch who only becomes likable when she falls for him despite her shit personality. They both lose everything of course and have to flee, but hey, it's better than staying at home with her creep of a brother.
- JARED HARRIS STILL CANNOT CATCH A FUCKING BREAK
Other than that, it's quite good. I've seen better gritty period crime dramas but the fantasy element and the great casting keeps this one intriguing and I'll be glad to see another season.
