Carnivorous Carnival: Part 1
- Episode aired Mar 30, 2018
- 46m
Come one, come all to the creepiest circus the world has ever seen, a place where puzzling mysteries - and a familiar face - await.Come one, come all to the creepiest circus the world has ever seen, a place where puzzling mysteries - and a familiar face - await.Come one, come all to the creepiest circus the world has ever seen, a place where puzzling mysteries - and a familiar face - await.
- Violet Baudelaire
- (as Malina Weissman)
- Arthur Poe
- (credit only)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaEsmé says that the fortune teller should move to the city and be on television, to which Olaf replies "I did that for 9 years and look where it got me." This is an in-joke that refers to Neil Patrick Harris' time playing Barney Stinson on How I Met Your Mother (2005).
- Quotes
Lemony Snicket: Besides getting several paper cuts in the same day or receiving news that your worst enemy has been awarded free ice cream, one of the most unpleasant experiences in life is a job interview. From the moment you introduce yourself in a job interview, you're participating in a ritual you are likely to find humiliating and sinister. You may be asked to perform some meaningless task which you are in no position to refuse. You are likely to be watched carefully while you perform this task, and you will likely pretend to be far more enthusiastic than you actually are. And you are likely to be evaluated, a word which here means, "Tested over and over again for no reason other than your own embarrassment." The worst thing about a job interview is that it is likely to fill you with despair, whether you are dismissed immediately and find yourself wandering unemployed across a desolate landscape, weeping and moaning, or whether your are hired and find yourself wandering across that same desolate landscape, weeping and moaning in exchange for a salary.
- ConnectionsReferences The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
This can be seen in both parts of "The Carnivorous Carnival". It is a perfect example of what is great about Season 2, having all of its strengths and one of the best episodes at it. For me, alongside "The Hostile Hospital", both parts, it is one of the two high points of Season 2, one of the best of this 'A Series of Unfortunate Events' adaptation at this quite late stage of it and one of the best of the entire series, again both parts which are equally excellent.
Characters may have been a little too many in number, there is a lot of them and you will definitely have needed to have seen the first season to see who is who to avoid any confusion. Likewise, a lot of attention is needed to fully understand how they fit into the plot when it seemed impossible.
It was truly great though to see those characters again and having lost none of what made them interesting in the first place, they are even more fleshed out here which was truly remarkable for the amount going on that there is. Like the first part of "The Hostile Hospital", it was a great thing though that Mr Poe doesn't appear in "The Carnivorous Carnival: Part 1", will continue to say with certainty that he never stopped being annoying and insultingly inept and he became pointless actually from "The Ersatz Elevator" onwards.
Momentum is never a problem here, actually feel it feels tighter at the start than the start of "The Hostile Hospital", most of the two parters actually, and that it doesn't take too long to set up. The setting is truly freaky, showing genuine danger and excitement. There is a real elaborate creepiness to how it's designed and the mysteriousness keeps increasing. "The Carnivorous Carnival: Part 1", simply put, looks wonderful and has a lot of atmosphere, which was a consistent strength throughout the whole adaptation. My praise for the opening credits sequence, for reasons already covered in previous reviews for the previous episodes, never changed from the very start to the very end.
Neither has that for the music, which fits the atmosphere with a mix of quirkiness and haunting. The writing is similarly quirky and darkly humorous yet also with the right amount of seriousness and even melancholy, the best moments belonging to Lemony Snicket (not overused or laid on too thick this time like it did in some of the previous instalments) and Count Olaf. The story increases in the freakiness and sense of danger, with the supporting characters remarkably well fleshed out with not so major characters having more to do, though with some splashes of well-gelled light-heartedness to not make it all doom and gloom. The mystery and twists are purposefully puzzling but also intriguing and clever.
All the performances excel, Neil Patrick Harris on fun and sinister form as ever, Sara Rue suitably mysterious, Patrick Warburton's expert balance of amusement and seriousness (deadpan in a good way) and Lucy Punch's increasing Cruella DeVil-esque Esme faring best. The theatrical troupe are hilarious and creepy as always.
Overall, great first part to one of the best adaptations of the series. 9/10
- TheLittleSongbird
- Oct 6, 2020
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- Runtime46 minutes
- Color
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- Aspect ratio
- 2.00 : 1