YMMV / Carnival Row

• Anvilicious: So, are we clear that racism, sexism, classism and homophobia are bad yet? Or do we need to hear some more clueless assholes spewing mindless hatred? Fortunately, it gets noticeably beardier (and subtler) in Season 2.
• Critical Dissonance: On Rotten Tomatoes, the critical score of 57% is significantly lower than the 87% audience score.
• Designated Hero: Dombey's Heel–Face Turn in season 2 can run into this, because of just how thoroughly unpleasant he's been up until then and how he continues to be a racist jackass even while working with Philo. The ending implies he's moved on from his racism in the end as he becomes the new Inspector, especially after the other Choppers and racist officers turn on him for being willing to work with Philo, and that him and Philo have developed a Fire-Forged Friends situation, but the show never addresses the fact he still executed a sick Fae woman and spent the next few days acting like cock of the walk over it (an action that greatly inflamed the bubbling tensions, and one can argue triggered much of the resulting events that followed), and how much pleasure he took in abusing Faekind. It's not helped by this happening shortly after introducing that he has a genuinely loving relationship with his family, which while initially feeling like a solid case of Even Evil Has Loved Ones to add realistic depth to what had up until this point been the face of the Burgue's racism problem, the sudden shift in his character makes this feel like an awkward and very late retcon to better justify redeeming him.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Imogen and Agreus. Even the critics who disliked the first season usually agreed that their story line was the most well acted and compelling, albeit rather rushed.
• Genius Bonus:
  • The Fae continent, Tirnanoc, gets its name from Tir na nOg; realm of the gods and the Tuatha De Danann of Irish mythology. This may double as Bilingual Bonus because Tir na nOg means "Land of the Young" in Gaelic, Tirnanoc roughly translates from Gaelic to English as "Land of the Exposed."
  • Similarly, Vignette's homeland of Anoun is named after Annwn, the Otherworld in Welsh mythology. "W" is a vowel in Welsh and makes the "oo" sound.
  • There's also the city of High Bresail, named after the mythical island of Hy-Brasil.
  • Season 2 mentions that the series' werewolves are called "Marroks". Sir Marrok was an extremely obscure Knight of the Round Table who was cursed with lycanthropy.
• Like You Would Really Do It: After Vignette is arrested, Tourmaline has a vision of her being muscled onto a guillotine while trying to scry her fate. But, come on, it's episode five of ten for the season, no way are they killing off one half of the Official Couple, right? Right. Instead they kill off Sophie Longerbane on the guillotine and Jonah Breakspear by monster, while Vignette's execution is interrupted by the monster and she vanishes.
• So Okay, It's Average: The show received middling reviews and currently stands at a borderline "Rotten" rating of 57% on Rotten Tomatoes, though the audience score is a much higher 87%.
• Special Effects Failure:
  • Most of the time the special effects are pretty good, but there are a few scenes where a puck's hooves are visible that it's painfully obvious that they're nothing more than boots in which the actors are standing on the balls of their feet while wearing. Which is probably why shots that show a puck's feet are so rare.
  • The way the faeries' wings behave like floppy pieces of cloth when not in use (as opposed to being stiff, like real insects' wings) makes it hard to forget that they are in fact floppy pieces of cloth rather than real body parts. This was improved for the second season, where the faeries' wings are more realistically stiff.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: It's due to world-building rather than copyright-dodging, but the "Soldiers of the Burgue" song that Philo and Darius sing sounds very like the classic war song "It's a Long Way to Tipperary".

---