Carnival Row – A Reckoning

By starrymag | March 9, 2023

By: Dawn Inchaurregui-Miller

 

Philo (Orlando Bloom) walks through the streets after watching Vignette (Cara Delevingne) get arrested. Faefolk pick up their belongings and try to fix their damaged stalls after the police search that left the Row in tatters. Philo goes home and turns on the shower as seconds later the front door opens and Kaine (Jay Ali) enters with a knife. He creeps into Philo’s bathroom, but Philo hears him coming and jumps him from behind. They fight for several minutes but Philo eventually bests him, pinning him to the ground. He doesn’t kill Kaine however, he asks for his help to save Vignette. Vignette stands alone in a court with police men jeering and screaming abuse. Dombey sits silently at the front but a smirk on his face. He gives his statement, with a story saying there were twelve of them that jumped him, but doesn’t mention Kaine or Philo.

Following this, they ask her to stand and give her own statement, to which she does nothing but spit upon the ground. The court erupts around her again and brave as she is, the fear she has is clearly worn upon her face.

Kaine and Philo talk through the options for what they need to do though things are still tense between them. Both are injured from fighting each other and when Philo asks Kaine to stitch up a cut in his back, he sees the scars from where his wings were removed.

Jonah Breakspear (Arty Froushan) is in his office where Nigel Whinetrout (Brian Caspe) hands him evidence about Sophie. It proves that she does indeed run all the companies that make the weapons and is set to profit from the arms deal with The Pact. Winetrout tells him that she’s actually intending to betray him and become Chancellor. He realises she had been making every political move for personal reasons and scheming against him. He also tells Jonah that she hasn’t been working alone.

Back in the row Sophie (Caroline Ford) and Nilly (Sinead Phelps) sit inside a carriage watching as fae workers use their day passes, leaving the Row to go work in the factory. From the carriage they see Nilly’s brother and remark on how much he’s grown. Sophie tells her that the fae have been given a weeks pay in advance so now her brother will have money to spend. She also states that The Pact sent a huge amount of money up front, now making her the richest person in the Burgue. They finally feel safe and laugh about how she will be Chancellor.

Mikulas Vir (Andrew Buchan) stands out in a train yard guarded by soldiers for The Pact. He is inspecting some of the weapons cargo that had been delivered inside a crate. Anrep (Karel Dobrý), The Pact Ambassador, steps up beside him, satisfied by the delivery. Millworthy (Simon McBurney) joins them, shaking their hands as they thank him for helping settle the deal. They place the weapons into the trains ready to take away. Millworthy then mentions that in order to speed up the delivery he arranged for them to take the weapons the Burgue already had and that the brand new weapons that were currently being built were to replenish those given away.

Vir, while thanking him, tells Millworthy he looked into his records as he still doesn’t understand his keenness to push this deal through. Vir says it looks like he wanted to help the fae earn money through the factory day passes. Milworthy is upset by the claims that he is a traitor to his race. Vir makes a passive aggressive threat that of course he doesn’t think that he’s a traitor to both his own government and The Pact. He leans in and tells Milworthy that he couldn’t possibly be stupid enough to make such a plan as he would be torn apart. Milworthy tells him he has his own reasons and to leave him to his privacy.

Tourmaline (Karla Crome) is in the old Haruspex house putting ingredients together for a spell. Darius (Ariyon Bakare) is with her, but asks if she is now completely ignoring the risks of dark magic. Tourmaline feels she has to in order to help save her best friend. She begins ritualistically cutting up an animal as Darius keeps stopping her for the sake of her own soul. He implores her to think of whether her best friend would want her to take this risk. Tourmaline continues saying he doesn’t have to watch, while turning the pages of her book. She finds a drawing of Vignette with some of her hair attached and takes it with her. She drops it into a bowl of simmering liquid made of animal guts and pausing only for a moment, plunges her hands inside it. She immediately begins to have a vision of Vignette being dragged somewhere and placed upon her back with her head through a wooden guillotine.

The next day Vignette is being led by police with her arms in handcuffs through crowds of people. Journalists are shouting questions, with photos being taken left and right. She is hurtled inside a carriage and jumps when a small arrow is shot beside her by Philo, disguised in the crowd. Attached is a note that says, “Tomorrow. Be ready.” Sophie goes to see Jonah. Not realizing he knows of her plans, he takes her through to his chambers and sits her down for a meal. He says he wants to marry her and that he needs her now more than ever, but she is reluctant claiming it is because of the timing.

If Jonah marries her it will make him incredibly rich and secure his title but if she says no, he will know for sure that she was plotting and cares nothing for him. When she makes the excuse that it would need to be done after the elections and that she cannot stay with him for lunch, he realizes she has definitely been plotting against him all this time. His face turns from wounded to enraged.

Having left Jonah, Sophie walks through the parliament halls with several of her members of her party, discussing ways to unseat Winetrout. Just then a man named Doctor Vitus (Paul McEwan) arrives with others dressed in white. They intend to take her away, claiming she was infected by the pix child she held in the Burgue. She travels with them inside a carriage and realizes she isn’t being taken to a hospital at all. She is told the Chancellor has had her arrested.

Philo and Kaine are back inside his house, finalizing the plan to save Vignette. They decide to intervene when she is removed from the cells and taken to court in the morning via a crossroads. Philo states that they are not to kill any of the guards as they have families and are only doing their jobs. Kaine states that the only option then is darts dipped in lixir. Kaine and Philo are startled by a hammering on the door. Philo approaches cautiously with his gun at the ready. It’s Tourmaline at the door with Darius by her side.

She tells him about her vision of Vignette and the guillotine. Over the top of Philo and Tourmaline, Kaine and Darius begin to argue over the fight during the attack on Dombey. Philo breaks it up as all are needed to help rescue Vignette. Philo tells her they plan to rescue her the next day, but what Tourmaline saw took place after dark and could even be that very night. Philo and Darius talk of Kaine as Darius wants to check that he is not letting his guard down. Philo says he needs him to get Vignette out. They are now going to have to try to get into Bleakness, the prison that they had previously ruled out as being too difficult to even try.  When Tourmaline offers to go in, Philo says no.

Sophie looks out the window of the carriage to see where they are heading, which is Bleakness Keep. The same building where Vignette is being kept. She passes the guilotine in the yard and is thrown into a cell. She hears a voice behind her claiming there must be justice in the world and looks up to see Vignette in the cell opposite. She tells Vignette she does care what happens to the fae and of her plan to get back at the men that keep women and fae alike in cages, physical or metaphorical. They bond over their shared experiences and Vignette tells her they must have been scared of her or she wouldn’t have ended up in the same place that she herself is locked.

Milworthy enters Jonah’s office, who tells him that he arrested Sophie. He asks him a series of questions to see if he is within his right to put someone charged with treason to death. Milworthy, though understanding Jonah knows what he has done, still answers his questions honestly. Milworthy is then taken away by guards himself, but pauses to tell Jonah that everything he did was to protect him, even from himself.

Philo and Kaine take down two officers patrolling the grounds and use one of the uniforms for Philo as a disguise. Their plan is to pretend he is delivering Kaine as a terrorist, but once through the gates Kaine will pretend to escape. With that as a distraction, Philo will go and find Vignette as he knows where they will be holding her. Vignette is sat in her cell wide awake when officers arrive with Jonah, who goes into the cell opposite hers, where Sophie is sat. He hands her a document to sign listing her acts of treason promising she will live.

She states that if she does that, he will amass her fortune and take her position in parliament away. He promises her it’s so she can live. As she looks down on the confession, a steely resolve sets within her and she stands while ripping up the papers.

As he leaves the cell and begins to walk away, Vignette clutches the bars and calls him a monster. At this he pauses and tells the guards to also take her along with Sophie. Kaine, who is sitting in the prison carriage that Philo is driving, talks to him through the window. He asks what will happen to him if he and Vignette get free and fly away. Philo responds that he is hoping to leave the same way they enter. He says he is only concerned about getting Vignette out and seems to accept this could result in his death.

A brief scene shows the guillotine being set as Sophie, Milworthy and Vignette are all taken to the courtyard. Jonah is opposite them as they all stand side by side. Other than the sound of chains raising the guillotine, the whole courtyard is in silence.

Philo arrives at the gates with Kaine still locked up in the back. The officer at the gate doesn’t want him to pass, saying the chancellor is there to watch an execution. He goes to the back, seeing Kaine through the window and tells Philo he will check if it is ok to let him in. Kaine undoes his handcuffs ready to fake the escape and fly away.

Sophie is strapped to a board and lowered back to be executed. She looks back at Jonah and demands that he not dare look away from her. He nods to the executioner and the blade is dropped. Her head hits the ground and rolls in front of him causing him to vomit.

There’s a long pause while he stares at her head upon the ground. Milford and Vignette stand in shocked silence, before Vignette is also dragged to the guillotine herself. She is strapped to the same board, pushed on her back with her neck clamped down.

Seconds after Jonah nods, Vignette is breathing fast with her eyes darting around. Suddenly there’s a noise and Vignette feels blood splatter across her face. When everyone turns to the source of the noise, an officer stands desperately clutching his own organs that are falling out of his stomach. Other officers begin being thrown, cut or pulled up into the air. Torches reveal flashes of a winged creature. Hearing gunshots and shouting, Philo disembarks the carriage and attempts to run into the courtyard but is stopped by the guard. The other guards rush inside, but the one he spoke to keeps him locked outside with a gun pointed at him.

Back inside the guards shoot at the mysterious creature as one by one they are each killed, leaving Jonah to fend for himself. The creature lands and is shown for the first time. It has wings and an almost bat-like body, with flesh that moves away from its head, revealing a face and jaw that look like a human skull. It also has arms and legs as a human would, but midway up its body it opens up revealing teeth. It approaches a terrified Jonah and wraps itself around him, lifting him from the floor. It gnaws at his stomach and chest, making him cough blood and upon death, throws him back to the floor.

The creature slowly approaches Vignette who is still strapped to the guillotine. Milworthy silently cowers at the side, covering his face. Philo is outside with guns pointed at him, with Kaine still locked in the carriage when an alarm rings. Someone shouts out that the prisoners are escaping. The gates fling open as fae and human prisoners alike attempt to escape the prison. The guards are distracted long enough for Philo and Kaine to fight past them and run inside. By the time they reach the courtyard where Vignette was to be executed, there is only Milworthy left behind. He tells them that Vignette flew away. They hear a noise above from the winged monster that is now upon the rooftop. They watch as it flies up over the prison and inland over the Burgue.