Carnival Row

honestly the show lost me when it was clear that the darkasher wasn't related to cthulu. the first episode is all dark god this, and he's coming that. then tentacle-face monster turns out to be a flesh golem and i stopped caring.

iannis said:

I found them amusing. They gave her the giant blonde wig, but didn't do shit about dem giant brown eyebrows.

Going for the mexican girl demographic I guess.

That girl up there is actually blonde. Don't need to check down bottom.

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It never stopped being funny for me. How many millions did they spend on effects, sets, costumes, etc. But I guess finishing Dany's makeup so she looked like an actual blonde person would have been too much. Perhaps the makeup people have never met a blonde before? I mean, they're super rare in Hollywood.

People made fun of the Sarbucks cup, but it was only in one scene, while the blonde queen's Giant Black Hairy Eyebrows made it into every episode.

Show was very good, at least an 8/10. I felt bad for that one guy with the kobolds (little guys in the street show) and they wind up getting deported because he fell asleep at the police station. He winds up being an advisor to the Chancellor in the end.

I actually thought they rushed the oppressed puck storyline so that he can wind up doing what he does to the Chancellor in the last episode. I also would imagine that Imogen's brother is going to play a role in hunting them down for S2. All these shows succeed when the acting is top notch and I didn't see a lot of weak points. The setting makes this show unique in how they are portraying the inner politics of the time period. The two leads were very good imo.

I slow burned this as well and we finished this last week. I have learned over this summer as we did an absolute glut of binge watching that I hate binge watching. Give it to me in 1 or 2 episode chunks and let's stretch this out over a week. This show was Bloodborne personified, meaning I totally dig the Victorian and steam punk settings. It was awesome and yeah it left a bunch of stuff hanging, but it's obviously intended to be a multi season thing, so I'm ok with that. Unless they pull a Westworld and the second season absolutely sucks.

As far as the SJW shit... I mean the "Too much SJW - Didn't watch" shtick is about as tired as the whole SJW cancel culture itself. Yeah not going to lie, my spidey senses did perk up at first, but they went down after episode 2. Why? Because they didn't make 100% of the critches 100% good and noble. They had enough of them doing enough fucked up shit to justify the fears of the Burgian people who wanted them gone. You had that Black Raven group. The crazy terrorist goat head (fucker?) guys. And the one goat head that was trying to break into society was ruthless as fuck. So they were not all rainbows and unicorns that the white man were holding down simply because of skin color... and hair color ... and having wings ... or horns.

Namon said:

Why? Because they didn't make 100% of the critches 100% good and noble. They had enough of them doing enough fucked up shit to justify the fears of the Burgian people who wanted them gone. You had that Black Raven group. The crazy terrorist goat head (fucker?) guys. And the one goat head that was trying to break into society was ruthless as fuck. So they were not all rainbows and unicorns that the white man were holding down simply because of skin color... and hair color ... and having wings ... or horns.

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I thought about this as well and if you reflect upon what went on you'll realize that any "evil" the Kritch participated in was a direct response to the pressures and abuses being inflicted upon them by human power structures. At least that's all it could've been as we weren't made aware of any other possibility. So in a way they were all an example of once noble peoples now tarnished by their marginalized destitution at the hands of the human majority in the Burg.

Sure the Black Raven's were cruel and swift to dispense justice upon turncoats but what did we actually see them do to anyone else? Apart from an initiation prank to steal that flag and their running of an illegal lottery there isn't much to condemn them with that we were witness to. It appeared that for the Pix it was a choice between the Raven's or prostitution as no alternatives were ever presented in the show. Which is odd considering that there should be a caste of Pix elite who had survived the war but that would've made things more complicated than they wanted it to be I suppose.

As for the two Puck's one was an enforcer who recovered runaway bondsmen and he no doubt carried out some dark deeds but again this was all at the behest of his former master. The other was a former servant who was dismissed from his position and as a result fell into abject poverty and religious extremism because again, they have no agency or alternatives. Perhaps it will be revealed that the wealthy Puck is funding the Jihadi's next season but at this point it seems just as likely that some human faction is pulling the strings. After all even that abomination of Kritch magics, the Darkasher, was created and controlled by a human.

At any rate I feel that the story would've benefited from a more balanced approach to things. Also the fact that there wasn't a single human PoV that wasn't an academic or an elite was a missed opportunity and was reflective of the show runners leanings. Sure there was Philo but the only things we saw from his PoV was the same one sided abuse and we got plenty of that from the others as well.

There was some human POV outside politics/rich people. The police station sort of served that purpose.

Cybsled said:

There was some human POV outside politics/rich people. The police station sort of served that purpose.

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I meant a real one. Here and there we see that the people of the Burg are unhappy and some are lashing out but never find out why beyond the same tired easy answers we've been given since the beginning of the show. Humans hate wings and stuff.

SJW complaining is so tiresome. Go watch Andy Griffith or something, snowflakes.

Alex said:

SJW complaining is so tiresome. Go watch Andy Griffith or something, snowflakes.

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God forbid we discuss social issues and their framing in a show that's going to heavily focus on authoritarianism and concentration camps in season 2. But again this was all just a tangent and not really important to the enjoyment of the show for most but it was fun to think over.

LachiusTZ said:

Gask

The rich puck explicitly stated he was required to behave like a "man" to get ahead in "mans" world.

Humans corrupted him. He was just far better than humans.

Also, all the beta self flagellating pucks white. The show had 2? black pucks. One was noble savage, one rich fucking white bitches that was corrupted by humans and forced to adapt to their society.

Show was drenched in SJW garbage.

Thx liberals for destroying my ability to enjoy shit.

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No, the rich puck lambasted the dumbass human who tried to act sympathetic to the plight as if he knew anything. Basically told him he was a weak punk if he didn't understand how the world worked and that he doesn't feel sorry for himself, and even hunted down his own to get ahead because he was ruthless in a ruthless world. He wasn't a "noble savage". There was nothing noble about him at all.

That human was essentially the "SJW" "male feminist" type of persona if you want to relate it to today's world, and he got put in his place for being clueless and naive.

Nobody is ruining your ability to enjoy things other than yourself.

LachiusTZ said:

Arent you the guy that got butthurt when I said Clapton had some great songs?

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Aren't you the dude that says people are worthless if they aren't getting married and having kids, but hates his own wife?

honestly poeple keep call this steampunk but outside of a couple of scenes (pact dirigibles, etc) there wasn't really any steampunk in it. it was just victorian age fantasy. i'd love a show with heavy steampunk and lovecraft, but this wasn't it.

j00t said:

honestly poeple keep call this steampunk but outside of a couple of scenes (pact dirigibles, etc) there wasn't really any steampunk in it. it was just victorian age fantasy. i'd love a show with heavy steampunk and lovecraft, but this wasn't it.

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There's not a ton of fighting or battles but it does have a 'steampunk' feel to it (although I agree it's not heavy). It actually reminded me a lot of this.

Vandyn said:

There's not a ton of fighting or battles but it does have a 'steampunk' feel to it (although I agree it's not heavy). It actually reminded me a lot of this.

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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okay, so maybe this is an important question...

what do you consider "steampunk?"