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Carnivale Season 1 Episode 2

After the Ball Is Over

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Episode Summary

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AIRED: 9/21/03

A practical joke leads Ben to a piece of the puzzle that is his past. Brother Justin and his sister Iris try to turn a brothel into a house of worship. Sofie tends to her comatose mother.

FAN RECAP

Fan Episode Reviews (2)

The ball caught me

10

By SleepTight, Sep 18, 2010

Wow, what an amazingly, moving and stunning episode this was.

After I saw the first episode I knew I could like this show, but the pilot didn’t completely grab me just yet. Towards the episode I was just completely confused and lost but at the end of the episode I finally learned what this show actually stood for.

With that amazing storyline this episode begins.

The characters are all so deep and mysterious with so many good storylines to tell.

The most interesting characters are so far Ben, naturally. People are always making fun of him but he doesn’t seem to bother. When he’s send to clean up some trash thing that actually isn’t supposed to exist. He goes inside and finds a picture of his mother, there is also something different with eyes and alive.

Anyway, when he tells it to the midget he seems to know the woman but doesn’t tell about her. He has pictures of all the freaks and she is inside it as well.

Anyway, meanwhile Sofie and her mother are having issues, she wants to see Ben again but he thinks she’s totally creepy. One night the woman walks towards him after he had a dream about war and she tells him that he’s the one and when Sofie finds out she’s gone the woman falls on the ground and doesn’t speak anymore. Everyone thinks that Ben attacked her but some stand up for him and know that he didn’t do anything.

My mysterious questions are, what the hell is wrong with that creepy lady? Also what the hell was his mother doing there? I am seriously dying to find out.

Also the other interesting storyline was about a priest who talks with god and gives him missions or something, he shows a man his sins and that guy ends up shooting himself. All very dramatic, all very well written.

I’m curious why the man was hitting himself at the end? So very confusing.

Anyway, this episode was amazing, I’m now hooked and can’t wait to see the rest of this fantastically well written show.

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OMG, I fell asleep.

7.0

By cybernaut_ev, Aug 06, 2010

Can the pace get any slower? It’s like they\'re running this in slow motion. And then there’s all the goofy little mysteries, the comatose lady throwing things around, the sidebar war shots, the preacher. I get the impression writers make up this stuff up as they go along and even they don’t know how it’s going to be resolved. I don’t understand why Ben is looking for clues to his past. What, does he have amnesia? I did enjoy the music, that sort of elephant waltz they did. (Seriously, it was good.) Adrian Barbeau is going to be a romantic interest? Isn’t she like 90? I mean she’s Maude’s daughter from the 70’s for Chrissake. The twins singing in the end was very nice. This show reminds me of “Wolf Lake,” a poorly written series where they would pile mystery on top of mystery with every succeeding episode and never resolve a thing. Or “Push, Nevada.” I never did get what was going on in this particular episode. Too many easy distractions. I’ll have to try harder to pay more attention next time. If there is a next time.moreless
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Cast & Crew: STARS

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Clea DuVall	Sofie
Toby Huss	Stumpy Dreifuss
Patrick Bauchau	Professor Lodz
John Fleck	Gecko
Clancy Brown	Brother Justin Crowe
Adrienne Barbeau	Ruthie

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Cast & Crew: RECURRING AND GUESTS

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Kathleen Gati	Emma Templeton	Guest Star
Dennis W. Hall	Garrett	Guest Star
Brent Hinkley	Wheel Man	Guest Star
Amanda Aday	Dora Mae Dreifuss	Recurring Role
John Savage	Henry Scudder	Recurring Role
Ted Rooney	Flasher	Recurring Role

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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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TRIVIA (0)
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QUOTES (3)
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- Waitress: Every prophet in his house.
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- Balthus: In desperate times, the Good Lord looks over the flock and chooses one man to inspire the multitudes, one man to accomplish the impossible, one man to offer hope where there was only hopelessness.
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- Rita Sue: (to Dora Mae) Gal, you eat like a lumberjack, you're gonna look like a lumberjack, and nobody wants to see a lumberjack dance the cootch!
  Libby: I'd like to see a lumberjack dance the cootch.
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NOTES (1)
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- Music from this episode includes:
  Ruth Etting: Love Me or Leave Me
  Rita Abadzi: The Bouzouki
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ALLUSIONS (5)
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- Title: After the Ball Is Over
  The episode title is taken from the song After the Ball, written in 1891 by Charles K. Harris. It can be heard towards the end of the episode, sung by Alexandria and Caladonia.
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- Jonesy: Babe get that homer yet?
  Samson: It's still sitting around 699.
  
  Samson and Jonesy, like the rest of the U.S., are eagerly waiting for Babe Ruth to hit his 700th home run. He eventually hit it on July 13, 1934, placing this episode's events sometime in the early summer 1934.
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- "Crazy as mud-bugs on a griddle": Mud-bugs are another name for crawfish. This phrase is an analogy to being highly upset about the current events one finds themselves in.
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- Crack-up: Colloquialism for a car accident. E.g. "You're lucky you didn't have a crack-up"
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- Your ma is a turnip: This is a way of saying someone is in a vegetative state. In this case, Ben said it referring to Apollonia, who suffers from chronic catatonia.
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