Carnival Row episode 4 review: We do not deserve this supporting cast

The lead characters of Amazon’s Carnival Row remain the series’ weakest link. But the supporting cast is so wonderful you probably won’t care, as “The Joining of Unlike Things” proves.

After a flashback-laden hour which reminded us that the star-crossed romance at the center of Carnival Row might actually be a thing worth caring about, “The Joining of Unlike Things” plops us back down into all the problems of the series’ present-day story.

Of which Philo and Vignette are one of the weakest parts.

Honestly, every time the story crashes back into Philo’s investigation of a string of murders by a creature that a fae wisewoman calls a “Dark Asher” everything grinds to a halt. Which, given that this the monster thing is apparently some sort of Frankenstein-esque creature cobbled together out of bits of the dead and, shall we just say some very personal biological material, is something that should not happen, and yet.

This should all be insanely over the top, and yet Carnival Row sort of treats the entire thing like an episode of NCIS. At least Philo kills a police informant before he can murder Vignette and they cover up his death together. That’s the kind of romance I’m here for, even if Philo does finally decide to go out with that nice boardinghouse lady he’s been sleeping with afterward.

Luckily, the Spurnroses and Breakspears are here to give this episode some much need dramatic – and deliciously campy – oomph. These storylines are such entertaining mess that it’s so easy to get sucked right in. Part of the reason for that is these roles are all so over the top that no one’s even considered asking any of these actors to be serious in them – and that’s precisely why it all works.

Jared Harris is out here selling Absalom’s desperation over his son’s disappearance with his whole heart while swanning around in a massive velvet robe and gleefully punching dudes in the face. Indira Varma’s sly glee over murdering a political rival is practically a living thing. And Tamzin Merchant has so fully embraced the complex layers within snotty, selfish society girl Imogen, that her sudden Sophie’s choice situation about whether to publicly associate with the sort of fae she’s always openly hated is actually compelling.

To be fair, it’s not exactly Orlando Bloom’s fault that Philo has been an emotional black hole for half the season, flashback episode aside. It’s frustrating precisely because it’s apparent he could do a lot more than what he’s been asked to do so far. At least Cara Delevingne’s is playing Vignette’s realization maybe not she’s the hard person she’s pretended to be for so long for all it’s worth, though.

Everyone else is definitely getting more entertaining things to do, however.

Over in the corner of this show that wants to be Game of Thrones, Piety Breakspear is busy convincing her husband that his #1 political rival Longerbane is responsible for the kidnapping of Useless Son Jonah. Thanks to her tears and her husband’s inability to hold a poker face for longer than five minutes, Absalom ends up publicly accusing his enemy of the crime, and abusing his power as Chancellor to have Longerbane arrested, beaten and imprisoned in the hopes that he’ll cough up Jonah’s location.

Harris, who is utter solid gold in this role, gets the chance to yell, cry, get in a fistfight and lament his role in the destruction of the Burge government, and it’s wonderful. Of course, poor Absalom doesn’t know all of this is a lie, which makes his fierce relief at his son’s safe return – after Piety has conveniently poisoned Longerbane to death, of course – honestly kind of heartbreaking in its sincerity.

And Jonah’s sudden realization that his mother was his kidnapper – thanks to her loud and distinctive footsteps – is exactly the sort of soapy twist this show needs more of. Will he tell his father? Blackmail his mother? Both? And what of Piety? Was her goal simply to take out someone she saw as a threat to Breakspur power? To force her husband over a moral line?

Speaking of crossing lines, that’s what the other most interesting part of Carnival Row is all about. Imogen Spurnrose, convinced that her brother’s poor business acumen is going to bankrupt them – which is not an unlikely fear, for the record – decides to be nicer to the rich faun that moved in next door, in the hopes he’ll like her enough to give the family a loan.

Agreus, not being an idiot, sees through all this instantly and calls her on it, a move that somehow seems both humiliating and shocking to Imogen. Whether she thought he’d be so desperate for a foot in the door of society that he’d ignore the fact that she forced him to come in the back door like a servant or if she actually realizes she’s done poorly by him is something of a question. But, Agreus agrees to strike a deal after learning about the Spurnrose family’s likely impending poverty, apparently willing to trade money for access after all – just as long as they’re both honest about what’s happening.

There’s so many ways this story could be terrible – and it would be easy to read this as a marginalized person once again being asked to help a privileged one realize that all the prejudiced things they think about the other group are wrong. But…it’s not. (Thank goodness.) There’s been a connection between these two characters since the series’ first episode, and on some level Agreus seems to recognize that Imogen is smart and capable in a way that her brother does not. There’s nothing about this that feels like pity, or indulgence; in fact, the two seem to have a begrudging pseudo-respect for one another, even if they don’t like one another at all. (At least not yet, anyway.)

It’s not an accident that this is one of the only parts of this story that is openly confronting ideas of prejudice that feels anything close to nuanced. (To be fair, it’s not nuanced, not really, but it’s trying, and so much of the rest of this show isn’t.)

All episodes of Carnival Row are currently streaming on Amazon.