Carnival Row – Original Sins

By starrymag | March 10, 2023

By: Dawn Inchaurregui-Miller

 

 

Imogen (Tamzin Merchant) and Agreus (David Gyasi) wake up in bed together. It’s another sunny morning in Ragusa, but Agreus has not forgotten the words from the night before. He doesn’t want there to be friction, nor does Imogen but she wants them to stay and give it a chance there but he refuses and sees it as a prison there. Imogen warns him that he needs to accept living there as Leonora will take drastic measures and potentially his life. Agreus is angered by her keeping this from him, but she responds by pointing out the parallel of him hiding the mass murder of his officers.

She asks him if he they can trust each other and if he can be honest about whether he could be happy there. He returns the question to which she answers, she isn’t sure if it’s quite happiness, but she feels there’s an honesty there. She doesn’t feel spoiled or trapped or as though she has to be silent. She states that she can make choices there and the choice is always him. With that Agreus says he is a man of his word, so if she believes it’s a good place, then he must trust her decision. Downstairs at breakfast they sit and wait for Kastor (George Georgiou) to take them to their work detail. When he arrives Agreus surprises him by offering tea alongside an apology. He has decided to give living there a chance, for the sake of Imogen. Kastor then tells them there is something they must see.

Kastor takes them outside to where people and fae alike, happily tend to the gardens. He tells them that today there will be drinking and dancing as it is the anniversary of the revolution. He then hands them something telling them they are ready. It is a manifesto for the revolution, written by Leonora herself from a prison she was placed in by a lord of The Pact. She had been placed there for taking scraps of food from her master’s plate and given three years hard labour. He tells them that while moving rocks she came across a green weed amongst the rubble. Agreus mistakes the lesson to be one of hope, but Kastor says that wasn’t what happened. She became enraged that she had to claw rocks aside just to touch something alive. This is when she decided to change things and work to help the poor and hungry majority instead of working to benefit the rich individual. They take the book, seeming genuinely in awe and say they do not wish to be late for work. He smiles at their willing change of heart and tells them he will see them at the festivities. Alone, they talk of the story as propaganda, with Imogen saying aloud that they are not safe there and they must run.

Later, inside the factory Agreus plans with Ivor (Daniel Zappi) , one of the freed workers from his ship. Agreus makes plans with him and promises him riches if he manages to get them clear of the island. Ivor tells them to slip away during the festival and make their way to the docks. Nodding to Imogen that the plan will go ahead, he is surprised by armed soldiers of the New Dawn who tell him Leonora wishes to speak to him. Both he and Imogen look terrified as he is led away, worried she knows of their plan.

Agreus has been led down a steep staircase underground with dripping walls and rusty pipes. He turns a corner where a furnace burns and pipes steam, so that when he finally comes face to face with Leonora (Joanne Whalley) it is all the more intimidating. She is silent as she pulls out a gun in front of Agreus, clicks it open and removes all of the bullets except one. Agreus is afraid as he readies himself for a bullet, but she surprises him when she hands the gun over and tells him he will need it. Further to his surprise a snivelling man is dragged in from the side and revealed to be Ezra (Andrew Gower), Imogen’s brother. She tells him they intercepted his obvious plans to kill Agreus and kidnap his sister. Leonora tells him that she doesn’t know him well enough to know if he is capable of reform or whether he should be put to death. It’s in his hands now whether he lives or dies. He raises the gun with tears streaming and a clear want for vengeance, but instead stops. He lowers the gun and says Ezra can change, but by this choice, she says he is now responsible for him and any actions he takes.

Imogen argues with her brother inside one of the factory rooms. She tells him she had nightmares for months of him murdering Agreus and taking her against her will. She is now standing over a shadow of a man embarrassing himself. He claims he is there to save her from debasing herself by working and being with a Puck. She tells him he is lucky that Agreus was the one offered the gun, not her.

She storms out of the room, telling Agreus that her brother is not coming with them when they flee. Agreus tells her neither she nor himself would forgive that decision. Agreus re-enters the room and tells Ezra that they plan to escape. He says if Ezra (Andrew Gower) truly loves his sister, he must keep the plan to himself, lest she be executed.

The episode then goes back to seven years prior, during the fall of Tirnanoc. Philo (Orlando Bloom) is carrying his best friend and brother in arms Darius (Ariyon Bakare). They take cover behind rocks as members of The Pact shoot at them. With Darius injured and slow, Philo is left with no other option but to cover Darius as he attempts to run. Darius is reluctant, but Philo insists and begins to dip in and out from behind the rocks to shoot.

When Philo eventually moves from his cover he goes the opposite way, giving Darius a chance to make it to safety. He crawls through the mud trying not to give his position away as members of the Pact run through the woods on all sides. Hearing screeching and screams from behind him, he moves around the rock. His eyes grow wide as he sees a bat like creature flying between the soldiers, leaving disembowelled men in its wake. He continues on trying to pass the fighting on his stomach, using his knees and elbows to army crawl. A dead body is thrown in front of him. He looks down to see it is a member of The Pact with his intestines ripped out. He reaches forward when he sees something sticking out from the dead soldier’s body and rotates it to see what it is. It slightly resembles a shark tooth, or the spike from an octopus tentacle. There’s a thud from behind him and he slowly turns to see the beast. The creature leans over to smell him and stands upon its feet. It begins to change into a woman (Markéta Tannerová) who bends naked to clean the blood from her arms. She can smell that he is half pix and tells him to run.

Back at the army barracks Philo speaks to his superiors, showing them the tooth and suggesting the creature could be a sparas. Philo suggests that they should form an alliance with them to cover them as they retreat from The Pact. His Lieutenant, Quintrell (Steven Elder) is hesitant and doesn’t see why the sparas would even talk to them as they hate humans and dismisses the idea. Philo is taken aside and ordered to move the men through the valley where he had seen the sparas. He is ordered to use all of their explosives and burn the entire valley down to keep The Pact from passing through. He states that if they don’t, it will allow ten thousand soldiers of The Pact to destroy their army and all of their colonies. Philo asks to speak freely and says he disagrees with the order as it will destroy the last remaining habitat of the sparas. The lieutenant hears what he has to say, but orders him to do it or face demotion.

Some time later Darius stands next to Philo overlooking the valley. Darius tells him that it’s war and the sparas are only critch. Everyone stands waiting for his word and Philo is visibly torn up as he shouts fire. Explosives are launched all over the valley, leaving the sparas who are also on fire, to fly up into the night sky. Their screeches of pain echo across the tree tops and Philo looks distraught as he watches them.

Back to the present day sees Philo hanging upside down being tortured in a cell. They question him regarding the monster, the escaped prisoners and the death of the chancellor. His answer is the same, that he had nothing to do with it, he got into the courtyard after everything had already happened. Dombey (Jamie Harris) and Berwick (Waj Ali) arrive and stand on the other side of the bars as Philo is repeatedly beaten by Olren (Zdenek Dvoracek), a massive jailor with a heavy punch. They attempt to reason with the warden, Wrenbrick (Neil Bell), without seeming to side with a critch.

While he’s hanging there, Wrenbrick talks aloud about how Philo famously tried to defy his commanding officer about burning down the last remaining habitat of the sparas fae, claiming he wanted to risk human lives for theirs. He then nods for Olren to beat him again but Dombey shouts for them to lay off him. They give one last punch before dropping him to the ground and lock him in for the night.

Vignette (Cara Delevingne) and the escaped prisoners fly over the Burgue with constant bullets and shouts echoing after them. She narrowly makes it back to the Row and rushes to the home she shared with Philo, to change her clothes. Almost as soon as she opens her closet the front door is kicked open and police come bursting in. She hides amongst her own clothes as the officers smash up their belongings calling the place a dump. Constable Thatch (Ryan Hayes) suggests they go back to the Black Raven hideout.

When they have gone she runs out into the street, unsure where to go. She hears whispers and decides to follow the sound. It leads her to the old Haruspex house. Tourmaline (Karla Crome) opens the door and Vignette, seeing her, runs in for a hug. Vignette tells her she could feel tourmaline in her head but doesn’t know how? They go inside and tourmaline listens as Vignette sits in the bathtub talking of the guillotine. Vignette then tells her the only time she was happy was with her, just before the war broke out. She says she wishes she would have run away with her and regrets calling her a coward as she is the bravest person she’s ever known. Vignette tells her she wishes she never let Philo come between them. Tourmaline lightly defends him and assumes it was him that broke her out. Vignette had no idea that Philo was even there as she was already long gone before he arrived in the scene.

When left by himself, Philo begins to hallucinate another version of himself. This darker self points blame at him for allowing the valley to be set on fire and accuses himself of hating fae. He tries to work out how the sparas knew that the chancellor was there and the other version of him talks in confused riddles, making him doubt his integrity. Philo says he had to keep being half pix secret as the humans would have hated him, but the other Philo says it’s his hate, not the humans around him.

Tourmaline walks through the house looking for something. Vignette blames Philo for the reason she was arrested, but Tourmaline insists that he actually put himself in danger knowing he might never come back. Tourmaline reaches what she was looking for and says at least he’s still alive, as she looks down at his Darkasher in the jar. When Vignette questions whether she should go back for him, Darius enters and says no one will be able to get through Bleakness after the jail break. Vignette questions why he is there, to which he says he lives there but it’s a long story. She asks how Vignette got out if it wasn’t Philo. Darius replies that it was a sparas. Tourmaline realizes this is what she has been seeing in her dreams and is what is coming to kill her and it makes her physically sick. She tells Vignette as much when Darius tells her she sees through its eyes.

Back in Philo’s cell he is still seeing and hearing the other version of himself speaking negatively about his character. It says to him that the priests talking to him of human purity and the sinful fae must have had an effect on him. If it didn’t, why did he run off to join the army and the police? Philo insists it was to help people and people like him. The doppelgänger tells him that “helping the police hurts the fae.”

Vignette and Tourmaline sit together drinking and talking of the sparas that seem destined to come. Vignette wants Tourmaline to run but she tells her it will happen no matter what. Her visions have all come true, so running is pointless.

Vignette wants to try and says she will go with her and sneak her out. Tourmaline says no this time, because although Vignette means it in the moment, something else always comes up. She loves Vignette but can’t go through the broken promises again. She knows ultimately she will not run away with her and leave Philo in Bleakness.

At the parliamentary building, a carriage takes a bloodied Milworthy (Simon McBurney) to the front and he is then taken inside. Nigel Winetrout (Brian Caspe) and Fletcher (Fraser James) deeply apologise to him for being caught up in Jonah’s tyranny. Members of The Pact, Ambassador Anrep (Karel Dobrŷ) and Mikulas Vir (Andrew Buchan) are the ones that helped get him out of the cells and encourage Milworthy to remain with the government and help make them better. When he rejects the offer and begins to leave, Vir takes him aside. He actually encourages him and says he is a man of honour and exactly who the Burgue need right now. The Pact don’t want their biggest ally to descend into a civil war that could be averted by a man of conscience like him. More than this though, Vir tells him that people are out for fae blood after the prison break and murder of the chancellor. Some people are talking of burning Carnival Row to the ground and that a good man shouldn’t sit by and do nothing.

Berwick enters Philo’s cell and hands him a flask of whisky. He tells him that both him and Dombey know he had nothing to do with the sparas. The fact that Philo had taken the police uniform and used arrows dipped in lixir rather than killing the police officers, proved he wanted no one dead, merely just to free Vignette. Dombey is going over the warden’s head to get him out and they want his help. The creature is a shape shifter so Philo has no idea how they would even try.

Berwick then explains that he thinks the sparas has been planning and staging things from the start to incite a war. The body of the soldier that was made to look as though a pix had murdered him. The two members of the Black Raven beheaded to make it look as though the police had killed them. Then, the fae hating chancellor was murdered the same night the fae prisoners were released. Philo says no wonder the shape shifting sparas is after all of them for what was done to its home. All the humans that burnt, bought or sold its land for profit. He includes himself as an example of someone that wronged them. He ends up getting angry and kicks Berwick out of the cells.

Back at the old Haruspex house, Darius and Vignette bump heads, crossing words with each other. They both have Tourmaline’s best interests at heart and Vignette asks for his help to get her away from there before her vision comes true. Suddenly he spins his head to the side and says they have visitors, running out of the door he confronts Phaedra (Eve Ponsonby) and Kaine (Jay Ali), but Kaine says they are only there for Vignette. They talk to her of the fight that has finally come and that they are planning to tear down the wire above the Row, but after a pause she tells them both she is out. She can’t do it anymore and she made a promise to someone that she intends to keep.

She enters the Haruspex house again and Tourmaline says that Darius could hear the conversation and is it true that she sent them away. Vignette holds her hands and says she is what matters to her and can they please get her out of there before hugging her.

Dombey, the warden and Berwick enter Philo’s cell and offer him his freedom if he will help them catch the sparas. Still delirious, the other version of him tells himself to lie and mocks the men. Eventually Philo speaks and says and agrees to their terms.