The Mighty Nein: The Fletchling & Moondrop Traveling Carnival of Curiosities (1x03)

That was a lot of fun! And the gang is (almost) all together now!

Cons:

The same aesthetic comments I made in the last review still stand, of course, but by and large I think this episode was my favorite of the first three!

Still in the category of questioning/wondering, I'm very curious as to what the implications will be for Caleb that this inciting incident that brings the group together was sort of caused by him? Like, he wanted to steal the bugs for magic, and that's what let the devil toad off leash, so to speak. Obviously Beau and Nott were also involved in things going bad, but I'm just curious about this as a character beat. I don't have strong positive or negative feelings about it yet, I just hope the implications are explored in a satisfying way.

Taliesin did an incredible job acting-wise, but if I were given godlike powers to change stuff about this episode, I think I would have cut the dramatic scream and falling to his knees in despair after killing Gustav. I feel like it would have worked better to see him in a state of denial/shock that would carry through as we get to know his devil-may-care attitude. In general, Molly seems very in touch with his emotions here, which I always interpreted in the original version of the character as being... a really convincing lie. Like, Molly was good at dishing out advice about living in the moment and confronting your inner turmoil, but his whole personality is about avoiding asking too many questions about his own past. Living in the moment, but as an avoidance tactic. Again, it's obviously too soon to tell. Molly in particular is going to be interesting in adaptation, because of... well. If you know, you know.

 Pros:

This "pros" section runs the risk of me just listing things that happened in this episode and then saying "I liked that!" lol. It was good, I had a lot of fun. The setting of the carnival, first of all, felt so lush and detailed, with Molly and the tarot cards, the various other carnies, Gustav and Toya and the devil toad... bringing back really strong memories of early campaign two. I loved Jester dragging Fjord around to have fun with the games, I loved Beau getting kicked out for harshing the vibe and sneaking back in by means of bear costume, I just loved looking at all the colors and details in the background. I'm sure these shots of the carnival were rife with Easter Eggs that I totally missed on my first watch, and I'll be excited to have people point them out to me on Tumblr!

Let's start with Beau: much like in episode two I feel like there's not a ton to chew on with her character yet because we're still laying groundwork, but I really like how she is being shown as very smart but not very experienced at this work. She knows how to put the pieces together and get information out of the informant, but she doesn't know how to blend in and not make a mess of things. I know this doesn't match with Beau's real stats from the campaign, but it's sort of a high intelligence, low wisdom situation. Or maybe just book-smart but not yet street-smart. I like that vibe.

I also LOVE that the earliest interactions between Beau, Caleb and Nott are them scrapping at each other. Them running the con where they make Beau look bad for "attacking a child" was soooo funny. And I have to keep banging this drum, I think the Caleb & Nott relationship is the best thing this show has going for it right now, it's the relationship that is just popping off the screen for me the most at this point. It was so enormously sweet to see Nott jump on Beau and then later Caleb jump on Beau, yelling at her to get away from their friend. They've already got this incredible loyalty thing going on and I am digging it. We also see how their working styles are compatible, with them using the message cantrip ("you can reply to this message" lol) and having shorthand for different cons they want to pull. It's so important for their characterization that Caleb does not judge Nott for her drinking but instead tries to find ways to work within her needs and limitations. And Nott, for all that she's interested in and plans on using Caleb's magic for her own ends, is also protective of him and believes in his power and ability on its own terms. I'm so obsessed with it.

Jester and Fjord continue to be cute, their vibe in this early stage is very much "hapless orphaned sailor gets kidnapped by manic pixie dream girl," and it's very fun. Again I'm eager to see more of the personalities blend and bounce off of each other, but this is great too. My favorite bit here was Fjord asking Jester about the Traveler. At first, you might think it's Fjord questioning Jester's sanity or wondering if this Traveler guy is even real, or if he is real, if he's bad news. It is totally possible to read Jester's thing with the Traveler as the delusion of a sheltered young person who made up an imaginary friend during her lonely childhood. And yet, we know Fjord has these new powers and that they've been given to him by a giant Thing under the sea, and so actually his questioning of Jester is him wondering what's going on with his patron. I loved when he burst out with "what does he WANT from you" because that's obviously the question he's asking himself. Again we have every magic user having a different relationship with that magic and the source of it. Jester and Fjord aren't hunting down spell components like Caleb is, and Jester isn't questioning the Traveler and whether the source of her power is reliable or morally good, the way that Fjord is already starting to. I love the complexity here! 

And then we've got Molly. As I said I'm very curious how this adaptation will shake out, because Molly is kind of a difficult character to deploy in terms of the narrative of this larger story. So far, I feel like this is the polished, second-draft version of him in a way I quite enjoy. I love that he's a big ol' slut of course, I love that he's wily and clever but also has a bleeding heart: he steers a sick man away from relying on card reading and tells him to go to a real doctor, and even gives him his coin back. He is instantly put off by Beau's vibes, instantly intrigued by Jester's. Just as it should be. I caught the quote: "Everything will be as dandy as a de Rollo" from him, and it made me smile. I also think it's interesting that Molly is the character whose backstory we're not seeing portrayed in these early episodes. After seeing the Fjord and Jester meeting and Caleb and Nott meeting, I wondered if we'd open on Molly waking up for the first time and pulling himself out of a grave. But I like the restraint of this, of leaving some mystery on the table.

As a last thing to discuss, let's talk about that combat! Our first big group fight scene, and there was a lot of really cool shit to notice. First off, the devil toad was brutal and the deaths were gory and intense. Gustav turning back into himself after dying, and seeing his entrails spilling out on the ground... oof. Nasty. There's this shot of poor Molly just looking around at all the slaughtered folks and there's a body slumped against the wall that's just missing its head. Little details like that really added to the brutality. We see Fjord and Jester employing some classic combat techniques, we see the spiritual weapon lollypop, we see Caleb using spell-work and then that spell, which involves fire, importantly, going awry and causing more damage. We see Nott with her hand crossbow! And we see our first representation of Molly's power set. I love the idea of him having like an anime-style battle mode that he enters into, where his eyes glow and he just starts working on autopilot. Really interesting way to play with where his power comes from, which is of course, once again, distinct from the powers of every other main character we've met.

So far I'm really enjoying what this show has to offer, although I continue to notice that it's not paced the way viewers of TLOVM would expect. I find myself wondering how a fresh viewer who doesn't have pre-existing investment will be reacting to this. I saw a reviewer who had seen the whole first season say that a lot of it felt like setup. Really good setup, but setup nonetheless. My sister and her boyfriend are watching and she says she's excited to learn more and is liking it fine, but she's more excited for when they're all together and she starts to get to understand the group dynamics. We'll have to see where the season takes us from here! Super hyped.

9/10