Help, I Love ‘Carnival Row,’ a Steampunk Faerie Show That Makes No Sense

As a TV critic, it is my job to watch television and ascertain whether a show is good or not. With that in mind, I can report that Amazon’s new lavish fantasy series, Carnival Row, is a preposterous mess. It’s poorly plotted to the point of hilarity. The story itself is as small as the world-building is vast. Yes, we are meant to believe Carnival Row takes place in a sprawling world, and yet every single character in the ensemble cast knows each other. After years of thinking each other dead, faerie rebel Vingnette Stonemoss (Cara Delevingne) and brooding detective Rycroft “Philo” Philostrate (Orlando Bloom) keep running into each other doing daily errands. Overly complicated, farcically serious, and featuring the most obvious “subtext” ever, Carnival Row is just bad. Except it’s not. After screening all eight episodes of the first season, I actually think I love Carnival Row.

Carnival Row is set in an original fantasy world where a disastrous war in the faerie homeland, Tirnanoc, has forced magical creatures to become refugees in a great human city called The Burgue. Anti-fae sentiment has left the faeries, fauns, and other magical beings as outcasts, forced to live in a red light district called “Carnival Row.” Philo is one of the few human detectives who manages to treat the denizens of the “Row” with respect. He’s concerned about a Jack the Ripper-esque killer who is on the loose, and he’s haunted by memories of his time as a soldier. Everything changes for Philo when his long-lost lover, Vignette, confronts him. She’s been grieving his death for years and is furious that he abandoned her to return home.

That’s the basic gist of the show. Philo is trying to catch this killer, Vignette is trying to retain her self-worth, and both are dealing with the fallout of their failed romance. However, there’s SO MUCH MORE going on. Tamzin Merchant plays an elegant lady named Imogen Spurnrose who can’t decide what enrages her more: the fact that a wealthy faun has bought a mansion across the street or that her idiot brother has thrust them into poverty. Jared Harris is the Chancellor of the Burgue, but it sometimes seems like his wife is secretly in charge. Everyone has a secret and somehow all these secrets are connected. There are faerie prostitutes, pet bears, blimp battles in the sky, and a girl in a castle who is only introduced in Episode 4. It’s a Stefon nightclub brought to vivid life, but with sheep men.

Carnival Row has a lot going on, and it’s not quite sure how to juggle it all. It is infuriating how poorly paced the show can be at times, choosing to introduce new characters and important background in the proverbial third act. Watching this show is like slipping into a dream that keeps changing essential details on you. And yet, Carnival Row won me over. Visually, it’s densely beautiful, and I’m a sucker for pretty things. More importantly, Carnival Row succeeds where it really matters: with the romance. There’s Philo and Vignette’s “Romeo and Juliet” story, which gets a full flashback episode devoted to its swoon-y origins, a slow burn seduction between two polar opposites, and a carnal love affair with massive political implications. Even the heartache of love gone wrong gets treated with a tender touch. Whether it’s Vignette’s friendship with former flame Tourmaline or the ghost of one of the Row’s victims haunting the storyline, Carnival Row loves love.

Carnival Row also likes just going for it with earnest abandon. There’s no cynicism in any of the actors’ performances. They are all fully plugged in to this strange world with Victorian sounding names and steampunk faeries. (If you want to know how deeply the cast takes every detail, check out Decider reporter Brett White‘s podcast interview with Jared Harris where the actor takes umbrage with fans misidentifying the costumes as “Victorian.” He prefers to refer to them as “Bavarian.”) It’s this passionate commitment to the material that kind of sells it for me. Because if the cast of Carnival Row can lose themselves in a clunky, over-the-top, fantasy soap opera, then I can, too.

Finally, Carnival Row is just fun. It’s stupid, bizarre, beautiful, overwrought fun. It’s escapist fantasy at its most unhinged, and most sincere. For all of its faults, I have to love how much Carnival Row loves itself. It is a show that truly asks you to stop worrying and to learn to love faeries. So obviously, it’s not going to be for everyone, but bizarrely it seems that Carnival Row is for me.

Carnival Row premieres on Prime Video on Friday, August 30.

Where to stream Carnival Row