Carnival Row Review: Kindred Spirits of the Row

The prospect of the return home drove the Black Raven to (seemingly) attack their own and team up with an unlikely ally.

Carnival Row Season 2 Episode 7 saw a deal, brokered by Philo with Millworthy, to send the Fae back to Tirnanoc since the Pact started retreating.

But, nothing turned out the way Vignette and Philo planned, and more bloodshed occurred in the process.

Vignette and Philo seem to be done for good romantically and only work together as a means to an end of repression.

The war also made significant advancements throughout the two hours, with the Pact taking more losses than expected (don’t underestimate the New Dawn).

Tourmaline’s vision also had a chance of not coming true, with the prospect of returning to Tirnanoc becoming her saving grace. If she’s not in the place where she dies in her vision, she won’t die, right?

When the plans to board the ships to Tirnanoc fell through, Tourmaline ended up returning to where she was: on the Row, awaiting her death.

The only difference is she got to see an attack of the Sparas in person instead of in a vision. Witnessing the killings worsened her mental state because now she knew how violent the murders were to the victims.

She returned the book Mima had given her with different magic, which she’ll need to return if she tried to defend herself.

Mima, once again, felt like an utterly underutilized character. She has a brilliant costume, speaking voice, and role, but then constantly (the second time this season) gets one or two lines.

Mima’s relationship with Tourmaline could have been fleshed out more; it would have significantly improved even if they had added one more scene featuring her and Tourmaline.

Darius and Tourmaline’s friendship continued to grow, and they are quickly becoming our favorite pair of friends in the show (we’re talking about friends specifically, not romantic interests/friends like Tourmaline and Vignette).

He cared for Tourmaline, as she was the first to show him kindness and compassion (other than Philo).

Their emotional growth as friends has been fantastic to watch this season, and we hope neither dies!

We know this is (most likely) a long shot, but we don’t want ANYONE of the main characters to die. But we learned early on this season that nobody is safe.

The writers managed to keep Vignette and Philo’s relationship (platonic and otherwise) a primary focus of the show, even with the two on the rocks.

Their chemistry has been injected with adrenaline this season, but we worry one, or both, of them, may end up dead by the end of the show.

With all this speculation, we still hope for the best and that everyone on the Row can be free and live in peace.

Thankfully, the show took a few steps toward the epic finale.

Carnival Row Season 2 Episode 8 is where the show shined bright with these two intense episodes.

The episode featured the return of Agreus and Imogen to the Burgue but also revealed that the timelines weren’t entirely linear.

The merging of the timelines/storylines made for some brilliant, albeit stressful, twists for our main characters. We are excited to see what bringing everyone to one location for the final two segments of Carnival Row could mean.

Imogen and Agrues reluctantly recruited Ezra to join their escape mission, but when the Pact attacked Ragusa (the land of The New Dawn), Ezra changed his mind.

He wanted to turn himself and the others into the Pact, as the Pact and the Burgue have an alliance, but this was yet another scheme to try and separate the two lovers, as the Pact would quickly kill Agreus.

Agrues and Ezra fought, and Imogen decided to get herself involved and helped Agrues silence Ezra. She then ended up silencing Ezra for good, as she snuffed him out by suffocating him.

While this shocked everyone, even herself, she did foreshadow that she wanted to kill him on Carnival Row Season 2 Episode 6. We also can’t say we’re too sad about his death. He was an asshole.

After the New Dawn re-captured the lovebirds, they forced the two to return to the Burgue as New Dawn emissaries.

Their return to the Burgue was forced upon them, as the New Dawn wanted to try and broker a peace treaty with the Burgue (and sending a Burgish woman helps their cause).

But the end of the episode revealed part of the New Dawn’s, and Leonora’s, actual plan: recruit the Black Raven to revolt.

Leonora arrived with them in secret and made her way to find the Black Raven quickly. As the Black Raven explained why they attacked the ship to Vignette, they hinted at new friends.

In waltzed Leonora as terrifying as ever, wanting to recruit the entirety of the Black Raven, but specifically, she wanted to recruit Vignette.

Leonora’s sudden appearance makes sense: the Black Raven wants to revolt against the Burgue, and she had been fighting the Pact, who were the Burgue’s allies for some time.

Philo also learned similar information and told Millworthy that the New Dawn would not be looking for peace but for a complete revolution against their government.

Whatever the real reason, we know that Leonora and her army constitute a significant threat.

The series’ final two episodes have a lot of ground to cover, but an ending is in sight.

Philo finally took the brutal murders seriously, as he lost his good friend and former coworker, Berwick, to the joint attack with the Black Raven.

With The New Dawn now directly involved in Burguish politics, we can’t wait to see how Leonora wants to bring Vignette in on her plans.

We are also (still) apprehensive about Tourmaline, as everyone leaving the Row was her best bet to beat her fate. We love Tourmaline and don’t want to see her vision come true!

With all of these questions wafting through the air, we can’t help but wonder: who will have a happy ending, and who will die in the search for one?

So Fanatics, what did you think of the penultimate two-episode release?

Are you excited to see what happens in the final two episodes? What do you think will happen? Will everyone survive?

Let us know how epic you think it’ll be in the comments below! Carnival Row airs on Fridays on Amazon Prime Video.

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Michael Stack is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.

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