Carnivale is Over
I’ve had a very sad post rolling around in my head for a while now, a post that I just couldn’t make myself write, a post I refused to even speak about. When the second season of Carnivale ended, I was speechless. I turned off the television after the last episode and never mentioned the show again for weeks and then only to say what had to be said: that pretty much sucked.
In the weeks before the end of season 2, there was quite a sense of tension growing in my gut. As the last episode of the season drew near, things on the show were building toward a climax that I would tell would be either incredible or incredibly lame. And then something occurred to me: what if they don’t end it this season? What if they have a third season? I mentioned this to someone and she said “God, I hope not, they’ve dragged it out long enough already.”
When HBO began pushing commercials for the season finale, they called it “the last episode”, “the final battle”, and other things that led me to believe that the show was approaching its end and would end with dignity. But then, the last week of the season, they began advertising “the season finale” instead, and my heart sank. The show’s quality was starting to falter and had actually become lame at times, something that never happened in the first season. It was sad, but not nearly as sad as 13 more episodes would be. The show had become almost a Odyssey-type show, with the travelers sure to run into some new freak this week that would provide some new key to the past and the future and would end as predictably unpredicably as every previous episode. But with the target defined and known, there was a goal and the show had a purpose. As season 2 ended, it looked like we would now have a Fugitive ripoff, with one crew chasing the other in an endless series of events and episodes, now unencumbered by most of the cast and storyline that made the first 2 seasons worth watching. How many significant characters were left in the Carnivale? How many were left outside the Carnivale? Barely enough for another episode, most certainly not enough for another quality season.
And so, I have been wondering when and how I would finally come out and say how sad I was that Carnivale was to have a third season. How sad that Carnivale had jumped the shark (either in the last minutes of the last episode or when Justin stood holding the head in the red flashing scenery straight out of a bad Nintendo game from 1994). How sad that this thing was going to continue and I would probably not be able to make myself turn away from the train wreck of what was surely to come.
And then I recieved some great news from Jayson: Carnivale is over.
HUZZAH!
If only they had cut off the last minute of the last episode and had let it end with dignity…