Watch Me Watch: Carnivàle 1.1 -- "Milfay"

I've been counting the days until the return of LOST (21!), and thinking about how exactly a show like that can exist at all, especially on ABC, especially when shows like Carnivàle and Deadwood and John From Cincinnati fail so miserably on the supposedly "niche" network of HBO. Granted, HBO's audience is significantly smaller, but shouldn't that be a boon and not a burden to weirdo shows like these? Or is it the other way around, that given a little tweaking and a wider audience, executive-types would realize that the general public isn't as dumb as they think, that people actually like science fiction, the supernatural, the fantastic, and that they don't have to clutter up the tube with shows about lawyers and cops all the time?¹ Or maybe LOST played it just right, given that it snuck in all its weirdness under the radar until people were already hooked on the premise and people (but that's another post or five), but I don't think it could have flown as high as it has without the flame-out of shows like Carnivàle. But Carnivàle makes no effort to hide what it's trying to be right from the outset, because the pilot is pretty effing terrifying.

Oklahoma, 1934 -- A shitduststorm is whipping around a barely-standing shack. Inside, even the walls can't keep out little puffs of dirt and grime, and a woman lies coughing, dying on the bed. A young man (Ben Hawkins) dreams a dream most people would wake from screaming bloody murder, but apparently he's used to seeing lurching, long-haired men tattooed with the Tree of Life chase after a man through a cornfield while demonic, bloody images flash in between the grunts and growls. The coughing fit wakes him, and he approaches his mother, who recoils. He goes to touch her, but her squeals stop him. He leans back and watches her die.

The best thing about this pilot is the pervading sense of dread. The series being set between the Depression and the Dust Bowl, there's not really a lot to be happy for here, and it shows in the grime on the hobos' faces, Ben's loping stride, and the ever-present mixture of Christian and Tarot mythos.² But underneath all of the freaks and death and general despondence there's a genuine, ancient beauty of early Industrialized America. There's something awfully romantic to me about pre-war America, something about the advent of cars and blue jeans, combined with the prevalence of vagrants and tramps makes it all feel very Dickensian (though maybe that's just all the child labor) in a way that perhaps signifies the death of the American West, particularly in the way that the carnival of Carnivàle is struggling to stay afloat. The Little Man who gave us a prologue consisting of, again, a combination of Christianity and mysticism professes that the last thing the carnival needs is "another belly to wash." The freaks aren't drawing the crowds they used to, if they used to at all. It's not really clear where they're coming from (yet?), but maybe that's the point; the wandering nature of the vagabond seems to be just as ever-present as Death herself in this camp, and you can tell everyone has a deep genealogy to be uncovered over the course of the short-lived series, much of which most likely won't even get to the surface in only two seasons.³

And so Ben buries his mother as a bank stooge bulldozes his house, and is he shanghaied by the freaks of Carnivàle for the time being. And as he becomes steeped in the magic⁴ world of the carnie, we are similarly introduced to another land of freaks: a California church congregation. The Christian allegories abound, not only in the church, but the circus as well. In fact, there appear to be a fantastic amount of "good vs. evil" allegories so I think what Daniel Knauf was trying to say is that there might be some sort of... battle? Possibly between good and evil.⁵ But anyway, we meet a priest, who's the same guy who plays Kelvin Inman in LOST⁶, and he pulls a dubious and dusty woman from out of the crowd. They talk very seriously about prayer and condemnation, before the woman is overtaken by a most benevolent spirit and falls to her knees, praying and spewing money out of her mouth.⁷ Strange wraiths and phantoms seem to be afoot in pre-WWII OK/CA, mysteries abound!

And so, in the three weeks leading up to LOST, I've found a show that makes me feel similarly, because I'm a sucker for questions without answers, mysteries that go unfulfilled, and dimly defined mythology (seriously, I am), because they excite my imagination just like my perceived romanticism of the 20s and 30s and ancient magicks, whether it be John from Cincinatti's seemingly-incoherent-but-oddly-meaningful ramblings, the hieroglyphic references of the island, or the eventual fate of Deadwood, South Dakota. They intrigue me, because without answers of their own (whether because of cancellation, metaphysics, or just plain vaguery) I can provide my own, which are usually more interesting to me anyway. I look forward to being haunted by whatever daemons are hidden within Carnivàle, because god knows I love Christian-themed nightmares. Eesh.

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Addenda

The Wire is exempt, since it's about much more than just lawyers and cops. ↑


The combination of which makes for one hell of a Hellish atmosphere. ↑


Interesting note about the structure of the series, originally there were to be three "books" of two seasons each, the first of which was completed, then the whole thing got canned. ↑


Magic more in the archaic sense than the Harry Potter sense, because in the same way that Industrial America feels romantic, so does the mystic lore being spun. It's not concerned with tricks and illusions, but with a kind of alchemic affect on the world and its inhabitants, a more powerful force than mere sleight of hand. ↑


It's that heavy-handed. ↑


Full circle! ↑


I did not see that coming. ↑