Carnival Row season two

It’s true, the first season of Carnival Row was a colossally budgeted, overcomplicated affair. “Look at all our money!” Amazon cried, “Here’s an eight-hour brainteaser for you to try and piece together.” Not to everyone’s taste in this age of semi-attention but, if you actually sat down to take it all in, it was in fact quite engaging and beautifully presented. And so it was that a second season was commissioned. Three years later, having been waylaid by the Covid-19 pandemic, it has arrived and no fewer abundant Amazon dollars have been funnelled into it. 

The writers have eased off on their hellbent complexity drive a little, which is welcome and makes the series more approachable, though it is still quite bloated. Thankfully, the story trots along at a nippy pace – appropriate, given there are a good half dozen arcs to keep abreast of. Perhaps a little more time than necessary is apportioned to the hatching of plans. 

The characters are, besides being numerous, well-formulated. Rycroft “Philo” Philostrate (Orlando Bloom) and Vignette Stonemoss (Cara Delevigne) head up the cast with one acceptable performance and one dodgy accent apiece – plus one half each of a strangely awkward romance. The script is rude and gritty, the executions truly brutal; it’s beginning to get to grips with the world it has manufactured for itself. 

This world that has been created to facilitate its multifaceted tale is undoubtedly the finest element of the latest season. This was true of the season one too, but it’s ramped up here to an astounding new level where the edgy steampunk aesthetic enthrals. It is urban fantasy revitalised, an example of televisual world-building that is rarely achieved in the modern day, where budget and technology have expanded so much as to make (in theory) anything on-screen convincing. The murky squalor of The Row (the ghetto into which the subjugated non-human species are crammed), the sinister darkness that pervades, the exemplary CGI utilised to create the non-human species all contribute to a setting that compels and inspires wonder.

Something has clicked. This season of Carnival Row has an edge on the last. It remains as overblown as it was bound to be, but it makes more of an extraordinary setting that is worth a visit. 

Will Snell

Carnival Row season two is released on Amazon Prime Video on 17^th February 2023.

Watch the trailer for Carnival Row season two here: