Carnival Row Season 2 Episodes 3 and 4 Review: No Season 3 Followed

Carnival Row season 3: what happened to the show

Anyone searching for Carnival Row season 3 will find the same answer: it does not exist. Carnival Row, the Victorian-style fantasy created by René Echevarria and Travis Beacham and led by Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne, released its first season on Prime Video on August 30, 2019. Season 2 was ordered in July 2019, and the long gap that followed meant the show returned on February 17, 2023, more than three years after its debut.

On November 7, 2022, TVLine reported that the series would end with that second season, and Amazon confirmed it as the final run. The 10 episodes were released weekly, in pairs, and the finale aired on March 17, 2023. Amazon did not publish viewing figures, and the reasons for the decision were never laid out in detail. Orlando Bloom has suggested that the pandemic disrupted the show’s momentum, and that the production shot enough material to wrap the story up in a satisfying way.

The two episodes covered here arrived together on February 24, 2023. They are the third and fourth hours of the season and the point where the show moves from setup to full crisis.

Where season 2 starts

Season 2 changes the angle of the series. Season 1 was a murder mystery with a refugee backdrop; season 2 puts the refugees in front. The critch, children of the Fae, are forced to live in sectioned-off encampments in the city. A plague is killing women and children in the Row. In the premiere, the Black Raven, a Faery-led rebel group, interrupted a meeting of aristocrats to plead for help, and that meeting happened to be the moment Philo was making his bid for the chancellorship. Heads rolled, and they were nailed to the barrier wall of the Row as a warning.

Episodes 3 and 4 live in the fallout. With the leaders dead, the Black Raven is aimless, the human government is jumpy, and Philo has an open case again.

Season 2 episode 3, “The Martyr’s Hand”

Directed by Wendey Stanzler and written by Wesley Strick, the third episode is the season’s setup hour, and the review of it called it filler for that reason. It is mostly worldbuilding. Philo returns to what he does best, working as an unofficial investigator, while his former colleagues on the police force treat him as a dirty critch. He gets help from Darius, the ex-soldier turned Marrok who was freed from imprisonment once the authorities had rounded up every Fae and no longer cared about him.

Philo’s investigation takes him through the world of terrified refugees reeling from the deaths of Dahlia and Bolero. The story uses shock to carry its message, and the review argued that this works in the show’s favor: the series has always been about haves and have-nots, and this season shows the deadly cost of classism and the brutality of the police.

Around him, the pieces move. Vignette seizes command of the Black Raven, giving the sort of survival speech that pits the Fae against the humans that wins a crowd and loses Philo’s approval, since he wants to stay in the middle of the coming war between humans and Fae. Tourmaline discovers she has gained a gift of foresight, inherited from a former witch. On the other side of the wall, Sophie Longerbane visits an infirmary in the Slums, a political gesture that turns into something warmer, and the episode begins to explain why she has pursued power so hard: her closest friend and servant, Jenila, was abused by her father, and the pair want control of their own lives. Runyan Millworthy grows in influence as an insider for the Fae. Ezra Spurnrose returns, still unable to let go of his sister Imogen, who is a captive with Agreus in a civil war elsewhere.

Season 2 episode 4, “An Unkindness of Ravens”

If episode 3 builds the world, episode 4 breaks it. Wendey Stanzler directs again, from a script by Dylan Gallagher and Mateja Božičević. The violence is harsh enough to recall the early seasons of Game of Thrones, and the review took it as shock used on purpose to force themes that most television avoids.

In Ragusa, Agreus and Imogen are among communist revolutionaries and have lost their status. Ragusa is a classless society of workers, where work culture is stressed and the belief is that once everyone is seen as equal, prejudice can be let go. Agreus, a self-made man who profited from indentured servants of his own kind, is called out by the block leader for the hypocrisy of his past. The scene works because it asks what freedom means to a man whose wealth has been a shield against being treated as lesser for being a Faun.

Back in the Row, the Black Raven strikes in retaliation, and Philo and his allies arrive to intervene in the season’s best chase sequence so far. The clues point in an uncomfortable direction, toward a Fae killing other Fae to provoke a class war and push the Black Raven into open conflict. The hour closes with Tourmaline and Darius getting closer just as Philo and Vignette split, for now.

Carnival Row at a glance

Sources: Wikipedia’s article on Carnival Row and TVLine.

Carnival Row season 2 episodes 3 and 4: the verdict

The review that these episodes drew was a conversion story. The reviewer had not cared for the show before, and by episode 4 was excited to cover the final season. The strengths were the themes, which have seldom been more direct about class warfare and refugee suffering, and the willingness to go to places that other series now tiptoe around. The reviewer placed the show in the same standing as other large-scale fantasy of the period, citing The Rings of Power and The Wheel of Time, and summed it up as allegory fantasy.

What this pair of episodes does best is give the supporting cast room. Darius is a more grounded figure than the leads, Millworthy is quietly playing a double game, and Sophie Longerbane gets a human side that complicates the villain she was in season 1. The weaker spot is Philo and Vignette, who spend both hours in an on-off relationship that the story treats as more important than it feels. Readers who tune in for the romance will get movement; readers who tune in for the politics will get the better deal.

That verdict deserves some context. Critics were not as warm. Wikipedia reports a 44 percent approval rating for season 2 on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 16 reviews, below the 57 percent of season 1. The criticisms, which the review acknowledged, were that the premise only scratches the surface of the subjects it raises. A reader coming in now should know that the show drops some of its sharper edges in the back half, and that the repeated plot points were already visible by episode 7.

As for the title question, the finale resolves what the series had set up. The Sparas turns out to be a Burgish officer, the fae and the Burgish end the show living more peacefully, and Philo declines the chancellorship in favor of a Fae chancellor. A reader who wants a complete story, even if rushed, gets one. A reader who wants more should look at the companion review of episode 7, which captures the repetition that crept in later.

Where can you watch? The show was a Prime Video original, so that is the place to start, though availability varies by country and changes over time.

Sources

• Carnival Row, Wikipedia — episode list, credits, ending and reception
• TVLine: Carnival Row to end with Season 2 — the November 2022 announcement