Carnivale: The Complete 1st Season (DVD)

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"There´s rules. You give life, you gotta take it from somewhere else."

Trust HBO to come up with an original series like "Carnivāle", which has been described as "Grapes of Wrath" meets "Twin Peaks" with a little bit of "Big Fish" added in for good measure. In an idiosyncratic show that just gets weirder and more fascinating with each passing episode, "Carnivāle" is able to take a stranglehold to its audience and hold their rapt attention by cleverly revealing only bits and pieces of its truly mysterious plot each time; just enough to pique an interest in its audience and encourage them to return week after week.

While the regular networks are concentrating their efforts on creating ´procedural´ crime and medical shows ("CSI" and "Medical Investigations") that offer stories that usually wrap up in one episode, HBO is already an old hand at serials--shows that deftly develop its characters and story throughout an entire season. Literally, these are the shows that seem to consume its audience for months at a time, prodding them to follow each episode religiously, in case, God forbid, they happen to miss something that is discussed at the water cooler the next morning. With the exception of ABC, which debut two successful serials, "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives", this current television season, no other major networks have had as much success at serials as HBO. Now you can safely add "Carnivāle" to the pay cable channel´s illustrious list of great drama series. How can one ever go wrong with a channel that produces and broadcasts supreme dramas like "The Sopranos", "Six Feet Under", "The Wire" and the soon-to-be-released-on-DVD Western drama "Deadwood"? Like "Carnivāle", HBO´s hot streak seems like pure magic.

And magic, together with supernatural and extraordinary powers govern the entire universe that our colorful carnival characters inhabit. Theirs is a domain that is at once both wondrous and freakish as well. Where else would one find Lila, the bearded lady; Apollonia, a catatonic seer who speaks to her daughter Sofie through a psychic connection; Ruthie, the snake charmer; Gecko, the scaly-skinned lizard man; Alexandria & Caladonia, the contorting Siamese twins, Professor Lodz, a blind ´mentalist´ who can tell the origins of an object just by holding it; Gabriel the carnival´s strong man who can pull out steel nails with his teeth; and finally the trio of Dreifuss women, a mother and two daughters team who runs the carnival´s cootch-show, which is an early version of a strip club performance. Running the day-to-day operations of this traveling freak show is a dwarf by the name of Samson (Michael J. Anderson). But as we come to slowly understand the structure of the carnival, Samson is not the one who is actually in charge, as he takes his orders from a mysterious and unseen superior whom he calls Management, a title that cannot be any less innocuous than it actually sounds.

"Carnivāle" tells two parallel stories that at first glance, seem to have no connection at all with one other. It alludes the viewer to the fact that the Great Depression and the Dustbowl condition that the country experienced in the 1930s may be the work of something more sinister and supernatural and not man-made. And this is a tale of two individuals who are on opposite sides fighting for and against humanity.

The first is a story of Ben Hawkins (Nick Stahl), a troubled 18-year old whom a traveling carnival picks up as he is trying to bury his mother on their dispossessed farmland at the height of the Dustbowl era, circa 1934. As Ben passes out from exhaustion immediately after the burial, the carnies pick him up just as the authorities arrive. According to Samson, after conferring with Management about their new arrival, the mysterious owner of the carnival could only give the most cryptic reply ever--"He was expected". Something big, as they say, is definitely afoot.

As Ben tries to adjust to life with the rest of the carnies (the freaks) and the rousties (the laborers who do most of the back-breaking work like putting up the tents), he finds that some are not as welcoming as the others. Ben has an ally in Ruthie (Adrienne Barbeau), who takes more than a platonic liking to the young fellow. Sofie (Clea DuVall), the tarot card reader, tries to get to know Ben but is pushed away because Ben is not one for revealing anything about himself, preferring to alienate those around him. On the other side of the fence is Jonesy (Tim DeKay), the leader of the rousties, who dislikes Ben solely because of the attention that Sofie seem to lavish on him. About the only people who know more about Ben's special ability and his destined role are Management and to a certain extent, the seer Apollonia (Diane Salinger) and the mentalist Professor Lodz (Patrick Bauchau). It is rather convenient that none of these characters can reveal much because we never get to ´see´ who Management is, Apollonia is catatonic and Lodz is a blind drunk who knows of Ben´s powers but not enough to guess his exact role in the overall universe. A loner with a shady and dark past, Ben also suffers from repeated horrific dreams that are so vivid and scary to even spook Lodz as he foolishly places his hands on Ben while he was dreaming. Slowly, we learn that Ben´s visions seem to have a direct connection with the carnival, as the person who appears in it turns out to be a man who used to work there, named Henry Scudder (John Savage).

In the second ongoing story, half a country and thousands of miles away from where the carnival is, a Methodist minister, Brother Justin Crowe (Clancy Brown) attends to his flock in an idyllic California town of Mintern in the San Jaoquin Valley. At the outskirts of town, a tent city has gone up, where hundreds of people, trying to escape the drought and poverty, has congregated in this Californian town. None of the affluent townspeople welcome these newcomers and many of them leer at these poor and grubby outsiders. When an old lady from the tent city shows up at Brother Justin´s church during a service, his sister Iris (Amy Madigan) notices that the woman is stealing money from the collection plate. Delicately confronting the woman after the service, Brother Justin experiences a profound and miraculous event that completely changes his outlook of God and puts him on a new path to preach to and ´save´ the outsiders. After having a vivid vision in front of Chin´s, the local Chinese brothel, Brother Justin is now more convinced than ever that God is speaking directly to him, urging him to turn this place of sin into a place of worship. In one of many bizarre coincidences that seem to imply a deeper and more sinister connection between Brother Justin and Ben, we see them both share a similar dream about Scudder. That event alone foreshadows the revelation of the final truth and the amazing events that are yet to come.

In the first half of the series, the pacing is decidedly slow as the show meanders along at an unhurried pace, with both the main characters, Ben and Brother Justin (and the audience as well), going on a journey of self-discovery. First, Ben needs to come to the self-realization that his special ability is not a curse but a blessing and how the elusive Scudder fits into all that he is experiencing, traveling with the carnival. As for Brother Justin, following the visions that he sees, he sets out to explore the real reason behind why he has been chosen and what is his role in all of this. This series straddles both the paranormal, in Ben´s storyline and the religious, in Brother Justin´s tale. When their respective roles are revealed towards the end, the same realm that both men walk on will never be the same again. Battle lines will finally be drawn and the truth about both men´s destiny will then emerge. To disclose any more would be a major injustice to our readers who have yet to watch this series. Let´s just say, you certainly won´t regret it if you do. "Carnivāle" is perhaps the most compelling paranormal television series since "The X-Files".