List of Carnivàle episodes
Encyclopedia
Carnivàle
Carnivàle is an American television series set in the United States during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl. In tracing the lives of two disparate groups of people, its overarching story depicts the battle between good and evil and the struggle between free will and destiny; the storyline mixes...
is an American TV series created by Daniel Knauf
Daniel Knauf
Daniel Knauf, sometimes credited under the pseudonyms Wilfred Schmidt and Chris Neal, is an American screenwriter, comic book writer, director and producer best known for his creation of the 2003 HBO series Carnivàle.-Biography:...
. The series premiered on September 14, 2003, on HBO and finished its two-season run of 24 episodes on March 27, 2005. Until late in the second season, each episode is split into two distinct but slowly converging storylines taking place in the United States Dustbowl of the mid-1930s. Nick Stahl
Nick Stahl
Nicolas Kent "Nick" Stahl is an American actor. Starting out as a child actor, he gained recognition for his performance in the 1993 film The Man Without a Face and then embarked on a successful career as a child actor...
starred as Ben Hawkins, a young Okie
Okie
Okie is a term dating from as early as 1907, originally denoting a resident or native of Oklahoma. It is derived from the name of the state, similar to Texan or Tex for someone from Texas, or Arkie or Arkansawyer for a native of Arkansas....
farmer with strange powers who joins a traveling carnival
Traveling carnival
A traveling carnival is an amusement show that may be made up of amusement rides, food vendors, merchandise vendors, games of chance and skill, thrill acts, animal acts or sideshow curiosities. A traveling carnival is not set up at a permanent location, like an amusement park, but is moved from...
; Clancy Brown
Clancy Brown
Clarence J. "Clancy" Brown III is an American actor and voice actor. He is known for his roles in live action as The Kurgan in the cult classic film Highlander, Byron Hadley in the award-winning The Shawshank Redemption, Brother Justin Crowe in HBO's critically acclaimed Carnivàle, and Career...
played his adversary Brother Justin Crowe, a California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
preacher who uses his similarly strange abilities to rise to power. Carnivàle was originally intended to run as a trilogy of paired seasons, with each pair being called a "book" and the series as a whole spanning the years from 1934 till 1945, but the show was cancelled after two seasons due to low ratings. These two seasons complete the first book covering the years 1934 and 1935. The second book (seasons three and four) would have taken place around the years 1939 and 1940, and the third book (seasons five and six) would have played in 1944 and 1945, leading up to the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and the explosion
at the Trinity test
Trinity test
Trinity was the code name of the first test of a nuclear weapon. This test was conducted by the United States Army on July 16, 1945, in the Jornada del Muerto desert about 35 miles southeast of Socorro, New Mexico, at the new White Sands Proving Ground, which incorporated the Alamogordo Bombing...
site.
The character of Samson, the diminutive co-manager of the carnival, sets up each season with a monologue, giving glimpses of the show's complex story and good-versus-evil mythology. By telling the story visually and deploying dialogue sparely, Carnivàle is a demanding show with a lot of subtext, and similar to reading chapters of a book, viewers need to watch episodes of Carnivàle in the right order or risk being spoiled with too little or too much story information. Many reviewers found the story too slow and confusing, but praised the show for its cinematography and realistic portrayal of the 1930s. Carnivàle received much award recognition in mostly technical categories, including fifteen Emmy nominations with five wins.
The stops of the carnival throughout the Southwestern United States
Southwestern United States
The Southwestern United States is a region defined in different ways by different sources. Broad definitions include nearly a quarter of the United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah...
play a significant part in the show, with many episodes bearing the name of the location of Ben and the carnival. Some stops like Alamogordo, New Mexico
Alamogordo, New Mexico
Alamogordo is the county seat of Otero County and a city in south-central New Mexico, United States. A desert community lying in the Tularosa Basin, it is bordered on the east by the Sacramento Mountains. It is the nearest city to Holloman Air Force Base. The population was 35,582 as of the 2000...
are of historical significance; others are fictional. The only episode titled after Brother Justin's location is Season 1's "The River". Both seasons of Carnivàle were filmed in Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
, with the carnival set being moved to movie ranch
Movie ranch
A movie ranch is a ranch that is at least partially dedicated to being used as a site for the creation and production of motion pictures, and television productions...
es and Lancaster
Lancaster, California
Lancaster is a charter city in northern Los Angeles County, in the high desert, near the Kern County line. Lancaster currently ranks as the 30th largest city in California, and the 148th largest city in the United States. Lancaster is the principal city within the Antelope Valley...
. Brother Justin's story in the fictional Mintern, California was shot at Paramount Ranch in Malibu. The permanent filming location of the carnival in Season 2 was Big Sky Ranch
Big Sky Ranch
Big Sky Ranch is a movie ranch located in Simi Valley, California. It has been widely used for the filming of Western television and film productions....
, which was also used for Brother Justin's new home in fictional New Canaan. The show's interiors were filmed at Santa Clarita
Santa Clarita, California
Santa Clarita is the fourth largest city in Los Angeles County, California, United States and the twenty-fourth largest city in the state of California. The 2010 US Census reported the city's population grew 16.7% from the year 2000 to 176,320 residents. It is located about northwest of downtown...
Studios.
Series overview
| Season | Episodes | Originally aired | DVD DVD A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions.... release |
Viewers (millions) |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Season premiere Season premiere In North America, a season premiere is the first episode of a new season of a given television show. It often airs in September or October, after several months of reruns.-Evaluating the changes:... |
Season finale Season finale A season finale is the final episode of a season of a television program... |
Region 1 | Region 2 | Region 4 | ||||
Season 1 (2003)
| № | # | Title | Directed by | Written by | Ben's location | Original air date | Viewers (million) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Season 2 (2005)
| № | # | Title | Directed by | Written by | Ben's location | Original air date | Viewers (million) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Location notes
San Joaquin Valley
The San Joaquin Valley is the area of the Central Valley of California that lies south of the Sacramento – San Joaquin River Delta in Stockton...
in San Benito County, California
San Benito County, California
San Benito County is a county located in the Coast Range Mountains of the U.S. state of California, south of San Jose. As of 2010 the population was 55,269. The county seat is Hollister, which includes nearly two-thirds of the county's population. El Camino Real passes through the county and...
, near Salinas
Salinas, California
Salinas is the county seat and the largest municipality of Monterey County, California. Salinas is located east-southeast of the mouth of the Salinas River, at an elevation of about 52 feet above sea level. The population was 150,441 at the 2010 census...
. When Brother Justin loses his faith in God in the middle of Season 1, he leaves his Mintern home and heads for the San Joaquin Valley wilderness near Kingsburg
Kingsburg, California
Kingsburg is a city in Fresno County, California. Kingsburg is located southeast of Selma at an elevation of 302 feet , on the banks of the Kings River. The city is half an hour away from Fresno, and two hours away from the California Central Coast and Sierra Nevada Mountain Range...
. After visiting Norman in the hospital early in Season 2, Brother Justin and Iris head home and pass a tree; Justin names this location "New Canaan
Canaan
Canaan is a historical region roughly corresponding to modern-day Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and the western parts of Jordan...
", the future site of his temple. New Canaan is also located in San Benito County, California, south of Salinas
Salinas, California
Salinas is the county seat and the largest municipality of Monterey County, California. Salinas is located east-southeast of the mouth of the Salinas River, at an elevation of about 52 feet above sea level. The population was 150,441 at the 2010 census...
. The last Season 2 episode is named "New Canaan, CA" on DVDs.
b. ^ Babylon is a fictional town in Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
. It became a ghost town
Ghost town
A ghost town is an abandoned town or city. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economic activity that supported it has failed, or due to natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, government actions, uncontrolled lawlessness, war, or nuclear disasters...
after a cave-in in 1921 killed all miners but Scudder. There is a historical reference to a real Babylon, Texas located in Navarro County.
c. ^ Los Moscos is a real area in Chihuahua, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, near the southwest US New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
border, but its significance as the name of the first season 2 episode is never clarified. It is however established that Ben and the carnival spend most of their time in Loving, New Mexico during this and the previous episodes. Carnivàle suggests that Loving does not refer to Loving, New Mexico
Loving, New Mexico
Loving is a village in Eddy County, New Mexico, in the United States. As of the 2000 census, the village population was 1,326.Loving was named to honor pioneer rancher Oliver Loving.-Geography:Loving is located at ....
in the southeast of the state, near Texas, since the (fictional) town is said to be less than a mile from the Mexican
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
border in the Western part of New Mexico, thematically and geographically likely close to Los Moscos.
d. Alamogordo, New Mexico
Alamogordo, New Mexico
Alamogordo is the county seat of Otero County and a city in south-central New Mexico, United States. A desert community lying in the Tularosa Basin, it is bordered on the east by the Sacramento Mountains. It is the nearest city to Holloman Air Force Base. The population was 35,582 as of the 2000...
was the headquarter of the Trinity site, where humankind's first nuclear test took place in 1945. Ben's vision of the atomic bomb takes place in a desert nearby, ten years before the nuclear explosion would actually occur.
e. ^ Lincoln Highway
Lincoln Highway
The Lincoln Highway was the first road across the United States of America.Conceived and promoted by entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher, the Lincoln Highway spanned coast-to-coast from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco, originally through 13 states: New York, New Jersey,...
is the first road across America, conceived in 1912. During the episode, the carnival rests in Wyoming
Wyoming
Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...
close to the Nebraska
Nebraska
Nebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....
border, but the episode is misleadingly called "Lincoln Highway, UT" on DVDs.