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(Shamelessly lifted the first part from the Salt Lake Trib review of it)
"The 12-part series begins with chain-gang fugitive Ben Hawkins ("Terminator 3's" Nick Stahl) burying his dead mother outside their dust-covered farmhouse when he is interrupted by the traveling carnival, headed by Samson, played by 3-foot-7-inch actor Michael J. Anderson ("Twin Peaks").
A carnival manager who follows orders from "The Management," Samson takes in Ben and has him trained as one of the company's "carnies," helping set up tents, clean carts and other odd jobs.
But Ben has a mysterious past, and haunting nightmares disrupt his nights. How he plays into the total arc of the story becomes the show's main mystery.
Meanwhile, another story runs parallel to Ben's involving a small-town California Methodist pastor, Justin Crowe (Clancy Brown), who shares Ben's visceral dreams.
Brother Crowe is dealing with his own inner demons. Yet he becomes a self-proclaimed prophet who claims he is ordered by God to turn a brothel and gambling hall into a church and allow transients into his flock."
It's truly hard to describe, but the bottom line is both the preacher and Ben have some kind of abilities. Ben heals a girl who can't walk at the end and at the same time he does that, all the crops in the immediate vicinity whither and turn brown. The preacher on the other hand causes a woman to cough up silver dollars (she stole one from the collection plate) while they are praying (in a VERY odd scene).
Beyond that, there isn't much to say except that Ben had a memory of bringing a kitten back to live when he was a child after it had been dead and buried for 3 days and his mother called him filth (apparently thinking it was an abomination or blasphemy or something).
The little guy, Samson tells a couple of the other carnies that he had orders from "the management" (who I suspect is God or Satan) to offer Ben a job with the Carnivale.
All in all, it was an odd beginning, but fascinating.
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