Carnivale

Man, they know how to freak a guy out.

Such pleasant relatives Ben has! Pallbearer at Bedford Forrest's funeral, no less...

(Is it wrong that I found sweaty Sophie and the silent/filthy/pregnant girls cute?)

I found that scene with Clea to be rather sexy. And the fact that he healed her was a very moving moment. More to come for our Sophie, though. Oh yes. (rubs hands together grinning)

Granny Scudder takes the cake on creepiness.

Thou
Shalt
Be
Strong!

Wow. I've never seen such a symbolic orgasm before.

And now we're done.

As soon as Ben plunged into the cornfield, I was like, "Oh hey, we've been here before!" I also called Jonesy dying, after he had that touching scene with Libby. I didn't call how, though. Also, let's hear it for Norman.

I like the full-circle bits: Ben moving into Management's spot, and you can almost see Osgood taking over for Jonesy.

So as I read it, the avatars' kids take up the opposite side (Melnikov fathering Justin fathering Sophie, while Scudder fathers Ben). But while they are "opposite" it's not all that clear which side is which -- if this really is a battle between good and evil, and not just a long-running battle between shades-of-gray powers. Sophie's the last one, though, since I don't think Ben's got enough time to get a kid started.

My guess? Ben and Sophie would have met again, and been unable to fight, and left the world together, thereby ending the cycle.

Jonesy didn't die though, at least if the show would have had a third season he would have been alive. I believe the plan was for him to leave the troupe with Libby and start playing baseball again.

Yeah, I've heard that... but if that's true, then I'm happy the series ended where it did, because having him shot and left for dead, by Sophie no less, is a way more effective resolution to that story.

It was one of the show's few genuine happy moments when Ben healed Jonesy; of course that had to go sour.

Yeah, the creator said in an interview that Jonesy wouldn't die. Someone asked him pointedly, "Does Jonesy die?" and he said, "nope."

I found some interesting correlation between Pistis Sophia (a Gnostic text) and Carnivale. It suggested that Jesus married Mary M, healed her, then she returned to sin and he eventually saved her again. There's more, but I'll have to do some digging to find what I uncovered some time ago that blew me away with the whole Carnivale thing.

It was set to go on for 5 years, if I remember correctly.

Sophie's "alter" telling her "this is YOUR house" which is an interesting comment to the "every prophet in his house." What did you make of that?

And I loved Ben healing Jonesy. That was one of the best moments of any show I can conjure up in my head.

I also heard that the creator was looking into other avenues (books were the last I read) in order to finish the story.