Carnival Row episode 6 review: The pieces begin to come together at last

Carnival Row finally brings some of its many disparate pieces together, in an attempt to craft a whole that’s better than the sum of its parts.

For much of its first season, Carnival Row has felt like several different shows fighting in a sack. Despite the shared setting and overarching cultural issues, there were at least four very distinct sets of stories taking place at any given time.

There was the murder mystery part of the show, which involves Detective Philo, the Carnival Row constabulary and occasionally Vignette, since she keeps getting into scrapes her ex has to get her out of. There’s the political aspect of the series, which features Chancellor Breakspear’s struggles with Parliament and his wife’s behind-the scenes-machinations meant to further her ambitions of familial greatness. Part of the show is also a vague domestic comedy, as Imogen Spurnrose is forced to risk social ruin for financial gain by hanging out with a rich puck that all her snotty neighbors hate.

In “Unaccompanied Fae,” however, the disparate stories of Carnival Row finally start to come together into what feels like a deliberate way, offering hope that this show will eventually blend into something like a cohesive whole.

Philo’s mopey investigation begins to bear fruit, as it turns out that at least his endless self-reflection did have a purpose after all. Because the thing that’s linking all the Dark Asher’s murder victims is: Him. The monster – or whoever is controlling it – is very deliberating targeting all sorts of people for gruesome deaths connected to our favorite detective. His former headmaster. His absentee fairy mother. The doctor who performed the surgery that took his wings as a baby.

Yet, unlike the previous episode’s Philo-focused flashback fest, “Unaccompanied Fae” makes the smart decision to use the detective’s discoveries to firmly draw other parts of the story into this mystery and tie them all together.

We learn that the family that took in the pregnant Aisling so long ago was none other than the Spurnroses, who now so aggressively shun the company of the fae (Agreus aside these days, anyway.) The fae witch who counsels Piety Breakspear is apparently marked for death thanks to the fact that she told Philo about the existence of Dark Ashers in the first place.

Disparate pieces are finally starting to come together in interesting ways, and even if it’s all taken maybe a bit longer than it should have, at least it’s happening now. Even Vignette’s arrested just as Philo is – the Burgh constabulary finally having caught on that he’s a common denominator in all these crimes, thanks to Portia ratting her boyfriend out – which means that the two will have a natural and real reason to interact, rather than just running into each other in the street.

The episode’s most enjoyable moment, however, continues to belong to the Downton Abbey-style exploration of class and race issues that is Imogen’s budding friendship with Agreus. The two head to a charity auction together, where they not only seem to have a genuinely good time – Imogen discovers that being petty together is always fun – but seem to come to a better understanding of one another at the same time.

I’ve mentioned this before, but part of the reason this Imogen and Agreus subplot is so wonderful is because of how terribly wrong it all could have gone. It would be so easy for this story to be an awkward afterschool special about a marginalized person teaching a privileged one abut the inaccuracies of their longstanding prejudices. But it isn’t – nothing about this subplot is preachy or treacly. The grudging pseudo-respect between Imogen and Agreus appears to be thawing into something almost like friendship, but the evolution of their relationship has been completely natural and honest, with plenty of bumps along the way. Every step forward for them has felt earned, and I’m honestly excited to see what happens next.

In other unorthodox relationship news, Jonah Breakspear’s still obsessing over Sophie Longerbane, daughter of his father’s recently dead political rival. After spying on her during her dad’s wake, Jonah ends up having a long and surprisingly honest conversation with her – about how alike they are, how much their families suck, and how impressed he is by the façade she’s putting on for all her father’s former supporters. They have some decent chemistry, even if it’s clear from jump that Sophie’s going to be the braintrust of this operation.

She knows her father wasn’t responsible for Jonah’s kidnapping, which is a fair guess in and of itself. But the fact that she immediately susses out that Piety was is what marks her as both fascinating and dangerous. Did she guess that Jonah’s mother is guilty solely because it’s the level of deception she herself might have tried to pull off? Or was it just a lucky guess? Her confidence imbues Sophie with a certain amount of gravitas, as we’ve seen already, so it’s easy to believe anything she might say.

(I’m very much not looking forward to when poor Absalom finds out about this secret, as it will probably destroy him and I’m not sure my heart can handle his heartbreak? He was practically wearing a #1 Dad!!! shirt earlier in the episode.)

To be honest, as gross as her adopting a veneer of racism and intolerance to chase power is, it’s kind of a relief to know that Sophie isn’t the monster she initially appeared to be in “Grieve No More”. Or maybe she is, just – in a different way than we expected? Is it better or worse for her to actually believe all the racist and xenophobic things she’s said or to not believe them at all but still be willing to promote them anyway? And what is she trying to achieve? And how many innocent lives is she willing to put at risk to get there?

All episodes of Carnival Row are currently streaming on Amazon.