WiC Watches: Carnival Row season 1

EPISODE 102: “AISLING”

Philo investigates the murder of a mysterious Fae. Tourmaline introduces Vignette to a new group of faeries. Imogen tries to have Agreus removed from the neighborhood. Jonah disappears.

What Happened?

Emotionally wounded by their meeting, Philo and Vignette move on with their lives. Philo has a new investigation dropped in his lap: the grotesque, Jack-the-Ripper style murder of a “Pix” at the waterfront. The dead Fae is a household servant named Aisling, apparently a former entertainer of some fame. Philo searches Aisling’s flat and finds the oddball Runyan Millworthy (Simon McBurney) and his pet kobold hiding there.

Ezra and Imogen Spunrose initiate a failed campaign to have Agreus Astrayon removed from their neighborhood, which results in a rainy day confrontation with the puck. The abduction of Jonah Breakspear causes vengeful consternation in his powerful family, who await a ransom demand. Denied by the authorities, Philo has Aisling’s corpse autopsied by a sympathetic puck butcher/mortician (Will Johnson). At the Bleakness Keep prison, Philo makes his daily visit to the incarcerated Darius (Ariyon Bakare), a former Burgue soldier who was his mate in the war.

Karla Crome as Tourmaline Larou in Carnival Row s1

Vignette escapes the clutches of the aggressively salacious Ezra and seeks refuge with Tourmaline, who puts her in touch with the Black Raven, a Fae underground organization led by the brutal Dahlia (Chloe Pirrie) made up of former soldiers and blockade runners. Piety Breakspear seeks help from a Haruspex “crich magic” witch (Alice Krige), much to the dismay of her Martyrite husband, Absalom. After a ritual sacrifice, the Haruspex announces that Absalom’s political rival, Ritter Longerbane, has taken their son.

Learning of Vignette’s illegal truancy, Philo pays off her contract to the Spurnrose family, whom we learn is on the verge of bankruptcy. We discover that Piety and the Haruspex are involved in Jonah’s kidnapping. Proving herself to the Black Raven, Vignette steals the banner from police headquarters, briefly colliding with Philo on her way out.

Was it good?

So far, Carnival Row is at its best when it journeys along its Victorian streets and back alleys as Philo and his constables move through the lamplit nights and soot-grimed days searching for their perpetrators. Bloom excels in his role, and the investigation in the Row is engaging on many levels. Now that she’s escaped the Spurnroses, Vignette’s story looks to take on more of a cloak and dagger feel.

(Amazon has released a map of the Carnival Row world, so you can check out all the unknown regions below.)

The magical elements of the Fae universe really begin to spill into the human world in this episode. Add in a clash of religions and everything feels weightier than before. There is still the problem of too many storylines, and rather than reduce them, “Aisling” adds more, such as the conspiracy of Piety and the Haruspex and Philo’s connection to Darius.

So far, the storyline involving the wealthy denizens of the Crossing and their spilled tea is dragging things down, with Imogen being a touch too precious and Ezra slithering around as a one-dimensional drunken lecher, though Agreus may liven things up once he is loosed into the mix. The first two episodes are working hard to introduce a lot of characters, and it’s hard to see how they’ll all get decent development in one season, which suggests that Amazon was playing a longer game from the start.