Carnival row episode 5 review: A dull slog that even the series’ women can’t save

Carnival Row gets overly bogged down in Philo’s backstory, in an episode that reminds us it’s the female characters that drive this show forward.

Given the fine line between the sublime and the ridiculous that every episode of Carnival Row has walked so far, we were probably past due for one that didn’t necessarily succeed at that delicate balance. “Grieve No More” is that episode, a largely dull and uninteresting slog that not even Imogen Spurnrose’s super awkward neighborhood tea party can save.

The story is bogged down in pointless Philo backstory disguised as progress in his hunt for the Dark Asher and whoever’s responsible for all the murders in the Row. It’s not clear who the writers thought was asking for more shots of Orlando Bloom looking mopey, rather than being a dashing leading man or brilliant detective, but, here we are.

In the previous episode, Philo made some noises about choosing a side in his apparently never ending internal war between his human and fae heritage. That apparently lasted for what appears to be the space of his dinner date, because this is an hour dedicated to him emotionally wallowing in virtually every aspect of his past, and it includes everything from orphanage flashbacks to memories of his mother, intercut with an unnecessary scene involving what we assume is a screaming baby Philo having his faery wings cut off.

To be honest, it’s not entirely clear what these scenes are really supposed to do. We already know Philo has a messy past and a complicated relationship with it, which has all clearly been exacerbated by the return of Vignette into his life. (One has to assume he managed to navigate the previous seven years with relatively fae-related guilt, but I guess you never know.) Yet, all of his angst over his mixed race heritage sort of appears to be going nowhere – it’s not making him a more well rounded individual, it’s not bringing him any closer to the woman he once loved or the one he’s dating now, and it’s not even helping him solve the case he’s working on.

Most of “Grieve No More” feels like so much emotional self-flagellation and it’s not just that it doesn’t move the story forward, its’ that it’s honestly not even interesting to watch.

Thankfully, another complicated female character grabs hold of the spotlight this week, as is the usual saving grace of Carnival Row. Sophie Longerbane, the daughter of Absalom Breakspear’s recently murdered political rival, arrives at the Burge Parliament to take her father’s seat and her entrance is nothing short of miraculous.

Sidebar: For a show with such fabulous female characters on it, Carnival Row really doesn’t seem to have a strong grasp on gender issues in its universe. Despite the fact that it’s the women of this story who are really running the show – in both the faery and human worlds – it’s the men who somehow still manage to hold all the real power. Sure, women can hold seats in their Parliament, but most of the aristocratic types have markedly less power than their husbands or male relatives and pretty much every lower class fae woman we meet is a maid or a sex worker.

Piety Breakspear and – as we saw in this installment – Sophie Longerbane are remarkable women in this world precisely because they’ve figured out how to break the rules of a system that’s stacked against them in their own favor. Sophie, for her part, not only uses her father’s untimely death to her advantage, but her own status as an outsider as well. (She’s non-white and one of the few characters who openly acknowledge that race is something that impacts society in the Burge.)

Dramatic and cunning, Sophie manages to use her father’s death to secure the freedom and agency she’s always been denied – that he specifically refused to give her, even! In a long and carefully plotted speech to the rest of the government, she declares herself hostile toward the plight of the fae, and is just as racist and xenophobic as any of her father’s supporters have ever been.

Though this sequence is extremely fun to watch – everything from Sophie’s carefully tailored power dress to Absalom’s increasingly uncomfortable expression to Useless Jonah’s obvious crush on her is absolutely delicious. Yet there is also something deeply off-putting about this sequence as well. Because Sophie is a woman of color, a fact that she acknowledges in her long and rambling speech about her family history and feelings about the fae. Yet, despite her marginalized status, Sophie chooses to punch down at the fae and paint them as even more “other” and dangerous than she is, rather than stand up to the ruling class (i.e. white men) that are busy oppressing literally everyone else.

Carnival Row is not the sort of show that’s at all equipped to deal with thorny, multifaceted issues like racism among and between minority groups, or how those in power count on those without it to fight amongst themselves for scraps rather than ask why they don’t all deserve more.

It’s possible that Sophie is a schemer, and actually believes little to nothing of the things she says. It’s possible that she sees being anti-fae as the quickest path to consolidating her father’s power. But regardless, it’s unsettling to see her say things about how the differences between human and fae are “more than skin deep”, a statement which not legitimizes not just the way these men want to treat the pixies, pucks and trolls, but the way they’ve different kinds of humans too.

At the end of the day, we’ll all be better off when Carnival Row moves on to the inevitable Sophie versus Piety (by way of Absalom) showdown that the Longerbane daughter’s new position of power promises. That’s the kind of drama this show is best at.

All episodes of Carnival Row are now streaming on Amazon.