The Three Carnies: Recent Episodes
3 Carnies
Three enthusiasts chat about HBO’s Carnivale. Join us for a chat as we discuss the episodes featuring Nick Stahl, Clancy Brown, Clea DuVall, Carla Gallo and the rest of the most wonderful ensemble.
Join the three carnies one last time as we wrap up the season and series full of our most beloved characters.
Sampson devises a grand plan; Justin forces Iris to face her fear of heights; Ben performs his most important healings.
Lila challenges Samson's authority; Libby urges Jones to reveal a secret to the troupe; Sofie sees a face from her past.
Libby struggles to stick to her alibi; Jones goes for a ride with Ben; Talbot-Smith intercepts a near disaster for Justin and reneges on a deal with Scudder.
Ruthie’s visitor leaves traces of lipstick; Lila tries to reach Lodz; Sofie finds salvation in her work; Iris takes Eleanor on a picnic.
Ben and Samson have a heated argument; Libby shocks her parents with an announcement; Smith interprets a bad sign for Justin; Sofie finds a new job.
Ben follows his visions to a seedy hotel; Sabina airs her dirty laundry with Lila; Iris displays her strength to Norman; the troupe worries about Sofie.
Samson makes a deal with an old friend; Iris and Justin prepare for a difficult sermon; Rita Sue goes on a charity mission; Lila makes a new friend.
Justin gets pressured into making a tough choice by Dolan. Ruthie decides to share her visions with Sofie. Stroud is relentless in his quest to track down Ben. Justin gets a strange gift.
Ben's relative reveals dark secrets; Balthus bears witness to Justin's abuse of power; Lila finds clues in Lodz's trailer; Jonesy gives Sofie a new assignment.
Ben searches for the next link; Sofie refuses to read Ben's tarot cards; Dolan grills another arson witness; Ruthie is visited by a mysterious shadow.
Ben seeks out Scudder's former associate; Justin and Iris welcome a new servant into their home; Samson threatens to replace Stumpy; Sofie seeks comfort in manual labour.
After showing Ben an explosion of massive destruction in a desert, Management reveals himself as Lucius Belyakov, the Russian soldier from Ben's dreams. He tells Ben to find Henry Scudder to learn the name of his enemy, the preacher from his dreams. Samson is to further act as their intermediary, and it is his first task to get rid of Lodz's body. Jonesy and Sofie are the only ones to survive the trailer fire; Samson presents Apollonia's burned body to the police, claiming that fugitive Ben was killed in the fire. Meanwhile, Scudder's trinket prompts Ben to revisit the Templar Lodge in Loving, where he learns that Scudder was once involved with chaplain Devin Kerrigan. After meeting in 1923, Kerrigan seemingly lost his mind and painted a tattooed man into a Templar mural; he is now institutionalized in Alamogordo. Brother Justin visits Norman, who after suffering a stroke is unable to speak. On his way home, Justin sees a decrepit tree that he already encountered in a vision about the Tattooed Man and the Usher. Following another vision at the foot of the tree, Justin declares, "this will be my New Canaan.[a] Here, I will build a temple." Wilfred Talbot Smith meets up with Brother Justin in Dolan's radio studio, predicting Justin will become the Prophet and the Usher as soon as he kills a man named Henry Scudder. He then hands Justin the Gospel of Matthias, a Templar book that once belonged to Scudder. Justin's "Church of the Air" radio speech reaches Varlyn Stroud in prison.
Here your favorite carnies discuss the season as a whole. We’re working on Season 2. See you all very soon!
Ben turns to Lodz for advice; Stumpy and Rita Sue strike a deal to save their marriage; Sofie settles a score with Libby and Jones; Balthus and Brother Justin contemplate the former's greatest evil.
While Ben's dark visions about Justin and Scudder continue, Sofie learns of Jonesy's affair with Rita Sue. Lodz organizes Ruthie's death with Management's blessing, and Ben finds himself unable to revive her. As police reports appear about the ministry fire, Iris is forced to confess her guilt to Justin.
Brother Justin returns to Mintern; Libby catches on to her mother's deception; Stumpy enlists a new dancer; Lodz and Lila wait for Ben to succumb to sleep.
To supplement the carnival's income, Samson arranges a "fireball show". Ben tries to drive off the torments of his dreams by staying awake. He remains defiant to Lodz's urges to listen to his dreams and learn from them. Samson hands Ben the medal, saying he is the rightful owner as Scudder's son. The medal's significance becomes clear when Lodz touches it and experiences the same strong visions as Ben had with Boffo's ring. When Sofie envisions her mother being raped by a tattooed man, she unburdens her heart to Jonesy and Samson. Iris, who is still in search of Justin, participates in Dolan's radio show but rejects his romantic advances. Brother Justin is released from the mental institution.
Samson sends Ben on a road trip to enlist a new attraction; Sofie debates defying her mother; Brother Justin receives treatments for religious excitation.
Iris gets unexpected support from a radio reporter; Rita Sue and Stumpy argue over their family's future; Ben and Ruthie hunt for snakes; Samson goes to work on the bally.
Still in the mineshaft, Ben experiences visions of Scudder, Lodz and a Russian soldier in the trench war. Lodz pressures Ben to tell him about his dreams. After last night's death, Jonesy accuses Samson of pretending Management's existence, and Ben participates in "carnival justice". After Samson has learned of Scudder's past in Babylon, the carnival resumes its journey South. Brother Justin entreats God for answers to the ministry fire and he receives signs to go into the wilderness. He tells campfire strangers that he has lost his God and unknowingly becomes acquainted with Los Angeles radio reporter Tommy Dolan.[25]
The carnival sets up in Babylon, and Samson invites the carnies for a party in the ghost town. After drinking too much, Ben wakes up in an abandoned mine-shaft and finds AVATAR written on the walls. Sofie, the carnival's Tarot reader, hears Scudder's name from her catatonic mother, and the carnival night ends with a tragic death. Brother Justin prays for the children who died in the ministry fire.
On the road to Babylon, Texas, the carnival encounters a horrific dust storm, called a 'black blizzard.' Intrigued with clues about his past, Ben follows Lodz into an abandoned house where the seer tests Ben's powers. Meanwhile, a lonely Sofie socializes with a handsome café owner. Samson visits an old flame while Jones, facing a roustabout mutiny of the carnies, comes up empty in his effort to meet with the mysterious and godly Management which controls Carnivale. In Mintern, Brother Justin struggles with an ultimatum by Reverend Norman Balthus: give up his new migrants ministry at Chin's, or face losing his old congregation at First Methodist.
When the authorities of the cash-poor Oklahoma town of Tipton refuses to let the carnival set up show, Samson takes Jones' advice and temporally reinvents the troupe as a religious-revival show with Ben as the center act of a healer. In Mintern, Brother Justin's promise to the migrants of their new church upsets his regular congregation who despise the seedy people. Meanwhile, Ben and Sofie team up to continue to search for clues about his mysterious past when they meet with an ailing old woman outside Tipton who knew Henry Scudder, Ben's father.
A practical joke which has him clean an old dirty trailer leads Ben to a piece of the puzzle of his past -- a tuxedo-clad man named Henry Scudder who Ben keeps seeing in his dreams and who may be his long-lost father. Meanwhile, Brother Justin and his sister Iris have a conversation with Justin's mentor, Reverend Norman Balthus, who helps Justin realize that he has a gift he must put to use. With the help of a vision that comes to him at the right time, he persuades the owner of the local brothel Mr. Chin's to allow him to turn it into a house of worship for the local...
Oklahoma Dust Bowl, 1934. 18-year-old Ben Hawkins is a young man who lives with his physically sick, God-fearing mother. After his mother dies from a long illness, Ben unceremoniously buries her in the back yard of his home which is then repossessed for outstanding late payments. Ben is taken in by a traveling carnival troupe (titled Carnivale) and becomes acquainted with the residents who include the kind-hearted dwarf owner Samson; his right-hand man and head rigger Clayton Jones; Gypsy tarot reader Sofie; the bearded lady Lila; girlie tent owner Felix "Stumpy"