selenak

You know, I had a perfectly good rant going, full of complaints about lost subtlety in Carnivale's second season, and then I saw episode 2.05. The name of the writer, Tracy Tormé, rings a bill - didn't she use to write for DS9? (Or was it BTVS, but I think the writer of Something Blue was Tracy Something Else.) In any case, this person, for it now occurs to me that Tracy is one of these English androgynous names which could be female or male, made me a happy watcher. More doppelganger imagery! Great Sofie development! An actually unclichéd guest star! And, which I have to confess adressed my biggest peeve about season 2 - Return of Conflicted Justin And Sibling Angst. A content woman I, for the moment.

Don't get me wrong, Carnivale still holds my attention, and there were several things about the first four episodes I liked and admired very much. Ruthie and her post-mortem ability to see dead people, for example. The ongoing prickly and afffectionate relationships of the Dreyfus family. Management revelations, and the fact it's now canon you don't inherit goodness or evilness (see: the Scudder clan). But. The show lost something in its second season, and that something, other than Ron Moore moving on to heading Battlestar Galactica, is subtlety.

smashcj wrote an excellent post on the subject of Southern stereotypes and the presentation of the Klan, so I won't go into this, safe to say that even I, a non-American and European viewer, was so familiar with the debile murderin' Southern white trash cliché that when I spotted the Scudder clan I thought "enough already". I'm all for the implication in the larger scheme of things, see above, but really, would a litte subtlety have hurt? It would have been far eerier and sharper if Ben had found, instead of being nearly buried alive and threatened with male rape (even that cliché made it into the show), welcoming friendly folk looking as if they had just escaped a Norman Rockwell picture. And then found out that they occasionally sport white robes on their Sunday meetings.

Also, if I were a Southerner, I'd start feeling insulted. When was the last time we actually saw some nice Southern folk? I can't help but contrast and compare with, say the pilot episode, and the way people not belonging to the Carnivale were presented there. We saw poor migrants and moderately well-off people and rich people. We had glimpses at their own tragedies, like the mother with the dead child and the man (husband? brother? friend? doesn't matter) who wanted to help her but couldn't. It's not that they got much screentime or lines, but they contributed to the feeling that humanity didn't just consist of diverse Carnivale people and homogenous clichéd Southerners.

Another of my fears and growing complaints has actually been soothed by episode 5. It was this: I recognized the tendency in several of Justin's sermons. "Rich industrialists and bankers" who "gluttoned themselves on Europe" and now were milking on the US? Yes, that's a favourite antisemitic cliché alright. I was just waiting for him to say the word, which he hasn't so far, admittedly. Now obviously antisemitism was a big issue in the 30s, and it's perfectly legitimate to work it into the show, but I was afraid that, just as we learned Grandfather Scudder co-founded the Klan, Justin would be shown to be responsible not just for antisemitism in the US but - via radio transmissions that somehow make it across the Atlantic - for the increasing power of the Nazis in Europe. I even had horror visions of an epilogue, after the inevitable Justin-Ben showdown ending with Justin dead, showing Hitler as the new champion of darkness. Because I really, really hate stories which put the blame for the Third Reich on demonic sources. It wasn't the devil that made them do it, people.

However, by showing some of the carnival workers and a sympathetic regular like Stumpy make casual antisemitic remarks (along with casual racist remarks) - which happens in ep 5 - the series set this fear somewhat at rest. They weren't presented as being influenced by Justin (or any other demonic source). Which establishes that in the Carnivale universe, too, racism and antisemitism is a an ugly symptom of the times but not something inserted into the people by an outside supernatural source.

Another big regret I have about season 2 is that by and large, we only get very brief flashes of Justin as something other than gleefully evil anymore. I can't help but having a vision of my own, of Daniel Knauf and his writing staff on a storyboarding conference after Ron Moore's departure declaring, "okay, we're aiming for a great battle between good and evil here, not between maybe good and reluctant tormented evil - out with this sympathy-inducing angst and in with the employment of serial killers and the rapes of maids, so people can see Justin is now well and truly evil (tm)". As opposed to the Dukat fiasco on DS9, here it can be framed into an organic development as the first season ended with both Ben and Justin accepting their "calls", so it's not that I think it feels false to the story. I suppose Babylon 5, which managed to keep Londo ambiguous and the viewers hoping for his redemption even when he was busy getting the blood of millions on his hands in the middle of a great apocalyptic scenario, spoiled me once and for all. Even if we go by strictly villains without any redemptive storyline only, Alias which is hardly the epitome of depth, managed to keep Arvin Sloane as both a villain and a three-dimensional human being for three and a quarter seasons now.

So you can imagine how utterly delighted I was when lo and behold, episode 5 gave us that conversation between Justin and Iris on the veranda. Because Justin is a much more interesting character when he's conflicted about something (doesn't have to be about being good or evil, which it definitely isn't in that case), and it's a shame to waste Clancy Brown's acting talents on moustache twirling. Now the previous episode had made it pretty obvious (to me, at least) that Justin deliberately goaded Tommy Dolan into finding proof against Iris. The follow-up could have simply been Justin getting rid of Iris this way, in an Evil Overlord - Not So Trusted Lieutenant manner, as an obstacle on his path to Antichristdom. However, we got something richer and far better connected to their season 1 development. He did set it up, but the subtext here is that he never managed to forgive her for the death of the children, and the fact he still feels these deaths as wrong means he might have decided to be solely evil but somewhere has something of his old set of values left. And he still both loves and hates Iris. Who has her best scene since her confession last season when she tells him "you have to ask". (Incidentally, there you have the reason, I think, why Justin and Iris despite their obviously mutual feelings for each other never physically consumated their relationship. She wants him to admit he wants it first, and he just can't bring himself to do that. Other than the one time with the kiss, and that wasn't verbal.) And he says "I can't". That's my OTP of Complete Wrongness.

The follow-up scene with dictating her confession was good as well. Presumably he didn't ask (we would have seen it otherwise, no?), but she did it anyway. Now we have heard Iris address her brother as Alexsei at various emotional moments, but in this scene, for the first time, we hear him call her by her old name. "You did the right thing, Irina. You are forgiven." Does he mean it? Does he just want to end it? Don't know - though I tend to the first variation, but even if he didn't, the ambiguity is back. At least for this episode.

Now

smashcj pointed out to me that if Scudder was the tattooed man who raped Apollonia, that would make Ben and Sofie brother and sister. The Light Side counterpart to Justin and Iris. Which would also explain why Samson went all "don't romance Sofie" on Ben. And would neatly tie with Sofie pretending Ben was her brother in the first season episode when she lost her virginity.

One of the things I was puzzled about when watching 2.01 was Sofie apologizing to Jonesy. Because at that point I hadn't seen the season 1 finale. Now I have, and understand why she did, but wish she had apologized to Libby instead. Who arguably did not wrong her at all and definitely hadn't deserved being set up the way she was in the finale. Other than that, though? I'm very happy with Sofie's development this season, and not just because my "Sofie is supernaturally gifted, too, but not yet aware of it" theory came true. The discovery that the precognition talent resides in her, and that she just projected it into her mother is stunning, but fits. (I wonder whether she has Apollonia's telekinesis as well?) As does the fact she realizes after Ruthie has given her the confirmation Apollonia is still around her, as a remnant. Which means that instead of the classic two champions scenario, we have three members of the younger generation, and that's far more interesting.

Oh, and my other prediction for the future: the vision of Sofie and Ben kissing will come true, and then Samson will shock them by the revelation of Scudder as Sofie's father. Cue much guilt and angst, and it might be that which drives Sofie temporarily away from the carnival. (And to California?) Because right now her allegiance to the good side is the obvious choice to make, especially given her increasing closeness to Ben, so there needs to be some complication.

In other news: as much as I thought the Scudder clan was horribly clichéd in episode 4, I thought the mask maker was an excellent guest star. Also a lesson in subtlety. His mild manners throughout, even when he was dosing chained-up Ben, the fact that we were left as uncertain as Ben as to whether or not the entire mask-making had been reality or dream, and the simple but effective moment of him sitting down next to the radio - now that is classy and elegant again in terms of chill-inducement. Plus of course it lead to the scene with Justin putting Ben's mask on, which is the reverse of his earlier vision of Ben emerging under his own face. Ben shattering his father's mask in 4 because of shock, Justin shattering Ben's mask in 5 because of shock, and the visual of the broken mask on the floor, to which in the case of 5 blood is added - this almost makes me believe I wasn't completely on the wrong track with my Wilfrid Owen poem and the two of them as doppelgangers. More, please.