Carnival Row Season 2 Episode 8 Review: Imogen in 'Facta Non Verba'

Imogen Carnival Row: the heiress who learns to fight

Carnival Row is a fantasy drama created by René Echevarria and Travis Beacham, adapted from Beacham's unproduced spec script "A Killing on Carnival Row." Season 1 arrived on Prime Video on August 30, 2019, all eight episodes at once. Season 2 premiered on February 17, 2023, with episodes released in batches of two each week, and it was announced in November 2022 that this would be the last season. "Facta Non Verba," a Latin phrase meaning deeds, not words, was directed by Andy Goddard and written by Jim Dunn, Sam Ernst and Erik Oleson. It was released alongside episode 7, "Kindred."

For anyone tracking Imogen Carnival Row storylines, the arc is the most dramatic of the series. Imogen Spurnrose starts as a spoiled heiress and ends up as the character the review calls the most changed person in the show, a woman who has found her independence and is willing to do anything to keep it. Tamzin Merchant plays her, and the review opens by calling her performance subtle and riveting. The review also leans into a Game of Thrones comparison, with a line about the Mother of Dragons. Merchant did play Daenerys Targaryen in the unaired Game of Thrones pilot before Emilia Clarke replaced her, which gives the comparison some basis.

The wider cast helps place the episode. Orlando Bloom plays Rycroft "Philo" Philostrate, a police inspector who is half-fae. Cara Delevingne is Vignette Stonemoss, a faerie and Philo's former lover. David Gyasi plays Agreus Astrayon, a wealthy faun, and Karla Crome is Tourmaline Larou, a courtesan and former poet laureate. Jamie Harris, a recurring player in season 1, is a main cast member in season 2 as Sergeant Dombey. Episode 8 gives most of its time to Imogen and Agreus, and the other storylines wait their turn.

The episode: survival, a revolution and a flamethrower

This is a very Agreus-and-Imogen episode, built around their survival and how they move through what the review calls essentially a revolution. The episode guide says the New Dawn sends their group to negotiate, and that the Black Ravens and Boz's group ally with the New Dawn while Philo tracks the Sparas. The review adds one detail it clearly enjoyed: an actual, working flamethrower, not a special effect. Beyond that the review stays vague about context, so this recap does too.

Agreus gets a heartbreaking origin story that the review says fans cannot miss. He escaped indentured servitude and worked his way out of his chains by bounty hunting and selling other Fae, all to build a reputation. The show had hinted at it before but never at this level of detail. The review sets that history against Imogen's wild spinster days, an aristocrat's version of wild, and finds the theme to be that the two deserve each other, and not in a good way.

What the review liked and what it didn't

The weakness the review names is the romance. Having complained for two weeks about the show's will-they, won't-they beats, it found the episode doing it again, this time with the couple the review considers the healthiest and most emblematic of peace. Pulling that card on them is, in its words, a big no.

Ezra continues to be the least sympathetic character, and the review finds him ill suited to conflict, let alone warfare. Leonora, the New Dawn leader, does something unprecedented. For the first time all season the storylines cross, as Imogen and Agreus meet up with Philo and Vignette. A secret is revealed about yet another betrayal, and the review thinks it would have worked better earlier in the season: now it restarts the story and tips the balance again on who is evil and who is morally right.

Where the episode leaves the war

The review says Carnival Row has entered Game of Thrones levels of shock value. The ravages of war, and what it means to fight for your rights in a world that will not acknowledge them, point to a Humans versus Fae war that looks inevitable. That is the structure the whole season has been building toward. Episode 8 is where the main characters stop hoping to avoid it and start choosing sides, and Imogen's arc matters because she is a human aristocrat who ends up caught up in the Fae movement instead of watching it from above.

Merchant's work deserves a separate note. The review calls the performance subtle yet riveting, and it singles out how much the character has grown this season: she has had to adapt to her situation, and she has gone from spoiled aristocrat to a woman who has found her independence. That steady development is what the Imogen Carnival Row storyline has over the plot threads around it, and it is the reason the episode works even when the wider story wobbles.

For a reader catching up, the practical advice is to watch episodes 7 and 8 back to back, since they were released together, and to leave a gap before episode 9. The pairing makes the most sense that way: "Kindred" sets the pieces, and "Facta Non Verba" moves them.

Carnival Row season 2, episode 8 at a glance

Imogen Carnival Row review: the best performances of the season

The take from the review is brief. The best things about the episode are its performances, and it is good to see Imogen and Agreus' story resolved, because any longer on that side story and it might have gotten stale. As for the New Dawn plot, the review says it is not all that surprising, especially with the series heading to its natural end in the last two episodes.

Rough Cut Review would pick the Imogen Carnival Row scenes as the reason to watch this stretch of season 2. The series started with a murder investigation, but it spent its final hours on the politics of the Row, and Imogen is the character who shows what that cost. Merchant carries a character who has to be spoiled, frightened, calculating and sympathetic in the same hour, and the writing gives her enough material to do it. The Agreus backstory is the other strong piece of the episode. The weak spot is a plot that has trouble giving the supporting cast anything new to do.

The series has a short, clean history. Season 1 dropped all eight episodes on Prime Video on August 30, 2019, season 2 followed in February 2023, and the run closed at 18 episodes. Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne led the cast throughout, with Tamzin Merchant and David Gyasi in the main ensemble. Because Amazon announced the ending months before season 2 premiered, the writers knew the destination, and the review of episode 9 reads Imogen's last-minute empowerment as rushed for exactly that reason.

What happened afterward is simple to summarize. The next episode, "Battle Lines", comes with its own review, and the series ended with episode 10 on March 17, 2023. According to the episode guide, the epilogue has Imogen and Agreus married and bringing electric lights to the city. For how the whole series lands, see the review of the Carnival Row finale.

Sources

• Carnival Row, Wikipedia — Release dates, cast, season 2 episode guide and cancellation
• Tamzin Merchant, Wikipedia — Her role as Imogen Spurnrose and the unaired Game of Thrones pilot