Amazon Prime and Legendary Entertainment have ordered a full second season of Carnival Row, their new neo-noir fantasy thriller, just days before the first season premieres on August 30. Actions speak louder than words, so the folks at Amazon folks must be getting positive vibes about the show’s potential.
It doesn’t hurt that they’ve packed it with star power from the likes of Orlando Bloom (who also serves as an executive producer), Cara Delevingne, Jared Harris and Game of Thrones veteran Indira Varma (Ellaria Sand).
We’re pretty jazzed about Carnival Row here at WiC. If you’re not yet familiar with the steampunk-themed story, we’ll get you started with a quick primer right here and now. First, here’s the official trailer:
Heavy on the retro-Victorian exotic, Carnival Row is a star-crossed romance played out amid a world at war and an old-fashioned gumshoe murder mystery.
Following a war between the world of the humans and the fantastical Fae, the humans have emerged triumphant. With their fabled homeland of Tir na Nog in ruins, the Fae refugees now crowd Carnival Row, the slum streets of The Burgue, the capital city of the human empire. The mythic Fae creatures struggle to co-exist alongside their human counterparts, who treat them with contempt and repress them under unfair laws.
The theme of vulnerable immigrants being abused within an intolerant society is central to Carnival Row, and Amazon is pulling no punches drawing parallels to problems plaguing our own world, as you can see in this latest teaser-trailer:
Enter Rycroft “Philo” Philostrate (Bloom), a former soldier now turned police detective, who is trying to solve a string of bizarre murders in the Row. The awful crimes threaten the uneasy peace between human and Fae, and Rycroft is a man torn between two worlds. He rekindles his passionate but illicit affair with his former Fae lover Vignette Stonemoss (Delevingne), a traumatized faery who loves him, but also harbors secrets about terrible forces threatening the world of men.
Also expect the show to explore hot button social issues beyond racism and xenophobia, such as sexuality. “I’m a pansexual faerie,” Delevingne tells Variety, also revealing that there are other LGBTQ characters inhabiting The Burgue. “All faeries generally are,” she continues. “They don’t see gender. It’s all about who they are and their hearts. A lot of the things that weren’t written in the script, we made them so. Obviously, I didn’t say, ‘I want to be a pansexual faerie,’ but it made sense that all faeries kind of just love who they love.”
The most steampunk thing about this show might just be the fabulously over-the-top character names. Orlando Bloom promises the show is “steampunk, but cooler.” So if you’re a fan of fantastical potboilers loaded with intense romance and murder mystery, Carnival Row might be right up your alley. Below is Amazon’s “Featurette: Philo’s Story (Official Prologue):”
Carnival Row also stars Thrones alum Indira Varma as Piety Breakspear, a manipulative matriarch whose family controls the Burgue, Jared Harris (The Terror) as Absalom Breakspear, the city’s arrogant Chancellor, David Gyasi as Agreus, a faun with a questionable source of wealth who takes up residence in an upper-crust and aghast human neighborhood, Karka Crome as Tourmaline, a defiant Faery poet, and Tamzin Merchant as Imogen Spurnrose, a youthful follower of Agreus obsessed with reversing the fortunes of her aristocratic but bankrupt family.
Consisting of eight episodes shot entirely in Prague, in the Czech Republic, season 1 of Carnival Row debuts on Amazon Prime on August 30, tomorrow.
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