Carnivàle 1.2 -- After The Ball Is Over

There's something particularly haunting about the sounds of Carnivàle. The lone trumpet of the soundtrack. The wind screaming like a banshee through shoddily constructed trailer walls. The shuffling of (it seems like) everyone's dejected and defeated feet. The 30s must have sucked. In fact, one of the things that Carnivàle does best is show just how badly America needed a war. The years leading up to WWII--that is, the post-Depression (the Great One, not whatever we're calling the current one), mid-Dust Bowl years--were probably some of the lowest points in American history since the Civil War. And Carnivàle seems to revel in the grime and despair of the poor Midwest, at least in its early stages, as well as constantly hinting at something bigger, something more important than ourselves, something yet to come.

The imagery of the show is obvious from the title sequence, and I've covered the light/dark, good/evil dichotomy a bit so far¹, but what's really being set up here? It might be mere conjecture on my part, having only seen two episodes, but is the war that these poor carnies find themselves wrapped up in the makings of not only a "literal" (as literal as such vagueries can be) battle between "good" and "evil" but an allusion to The Great War, the one that defined our country? The parallels aren't precisely on point, but I think that in times of great despair, as Brother Justin's lunch companion more or less said, people look to things greater than themselves, men that can achieve the impossible², and most of all, acts of heroism and leadership to assure them that, no, things aren't as shitty as they might seem, that there's somebody out there that can make things better.

It's a passive attitude to be sure, for the most part, but there are those who believe they can see the mechanisms of destiny turning, and that they can possibly dragoon them toward their own purposes, but as any staunch structuralist³ will tell you that there's no way out of what's already in place. In Carnivàle, though, it's hard to tell who's pulling the strings and who's just grabbing at the dangling ends. Is the ever elusive Management⁴ somehow controlling the events of young Ben Hawkins experience here at Carnivàle in a Jacob-like⁵ display of metaphysical prowess? Or is Management yet another cog in the machine of powers greater than ourselves, powers that Brother Justin seems to have faith in⁶, powers that are still ambiguous in their loyalties? Though I suppose that the Powers That Be don't have to be loyal to anyone, they choose who they want to be loyal to them.

On the surface then, this show about Good vs. Evil appears simplistic, but it's the intricacies of the events unfolding that make the war more complex. You'd think that the priest would represent the good side, and the boy with the troubled past and all the demons and scary things inside his head would be the evil, but that might just be too easy. What complicates the issue even further is the fact that our respective heroes (depending which side you're on) share the same horrifying dreams⁷, dreams that jolt them from their sleep but don't seem to faze them, as if they've had them their whole lives. These two are the chosen, the Creature of Light and Creature of Darkness that Samson spoke of in the prologue of the pilot, though which one is which still remains to be seen. But I would imagine that the answer isn't as simple as I would like to think. And there's no guarantees that these two men, chosen to lead, will lead their flocks to any greener pastures than the one they're in. World War II may have saved American business, but it sure did screw up the rest of the world pretty good. Like Samson says: "Things are changing. Not for the better."

Addenda

1. I mean, even the actual carnival (and the show's) logo is a diamond split into light and dark, with a sun and moon adorning their respective sides. Might be of interest to note that instead of being side by side, indicating a balance of some kind, the moon/dark sits on top of the sun/light. ↑


2. Babe Ruth's 700th home run is referenced multiple times in this episode, and the man himself is compared to David, of David and Goliath fame. ↑


3. Or post-structuralist? I can't really tell the difference, they've both been mindfucked into nonsensical oblivion. Sorry philosophy majors, I'll do my homework next time. ↑


4. i.e. the Man Behind the Curtain in the trailer with the diminutive carnival leader Samson. ↑


5. This show is more or less a spiritual sister to Lost in a lot of different ways, which I'll get into more as they crop up. ↑


6. Pun intended, but ironically so, because while Brother Justin appears to be the Hand of God in theory, his visions and the consequences of his actions don't paint the side of Light in a very flattering light. Confronting a man with a shameful vision of his pedophilic sins in order to intimidate him into handing over some property seems a little like overkill, especially when the poor soul commits suicide after giving in to "God's" plan. ↑


7. The focus of which we learned a little more about this episode. The man being chased through the cornfield, the man in the trenches in WWI, the man attacked by the Russian bear who sits down for wine and supper with himself just might be Ben's father?? Dun Dun Dunnn... ↑