[BetteDavisEyes]

I think that the whole point of the story is the battle between good & evil.

Well, we have two principal characters Ben Hawkins & Brother Justin. Justin is a minister who believes that God is helping him make the world a better place. Ben is an ex-convict who has the power to bring things & people back from the dead & healing though at a high cost (ex. he heals a little girl who's paralyzed but all the farmland surrounding her parents home is destroyed). Justin has the power to make people re-live their most evil moments (ex. he makes a rich & powerful banker/lawyer? re-live the fact that he likes to have sex with little boys). Ben is picked up by a traveling carnival that has an odd group of weirdos & characters. The leader is referred to as MANAGEMENT. No one has ever seen Management & only a few are priviledged to speak to him. There is a blind guy (who's name I've forgotten) that is trying to get Ben to use his power for his own nefarious purpose while the ringmaster is a midget who tries to give Ben a helping hand but is thwarted by Management & the blind guy. There are other sub-plots like Sofie the psychic daughter of a paraplegic who's also psychic. The two principal characters dream of each other but do not yet understand what those dreams mean or what they are foretelling. The show ended with the Snake Lady being killed by a poisonous snake. Ben makes an uneasy alliance with Management & learns that the only way to bring her back from the dead is to take the life of another. He tries to kill himself but fails. When he returns to Management, he finds that the blind guy isn't blind at all & strangles him. The Snake Lady comes back to life. Brother Justin is turned away from the church when the orphanage he founded is burned to the ground with all the children in it. His sister is the one who started the fire in order to get him to fulfill his true potential. When he tries to force his mentor to relive his sins, he finds that the ministers greatest sin was to take Justin in. He tries to get his mentor to kill him but he won't do it. We last see Justin with eyes that are all black. The show is over & then we move on to Season 2.
Read on if you want a sneak preview of Season 2.

In Carnivale Season Two, we begin the second chapter of our story. Now that the players are positioned, the game is afoot between the forces of Light and Darkness. Ben Hawkins experiences an apocalyptic vision that reveals what's at stake: The fate of the earth.

Ben initiates an uneasy apprenticeship under Management, continuing the search for his father, Henry Scudder, who holds the key to the identity of Ben's nemesis. In order to find him, Ben must confront all the demons of his past. However, Management's ultimate goal in the search is far darker and will claim a far greater price than he could have possibly predicted.

Meanwhile, as Brother Justin's dark power grows, sacrifice and penance is the order of the day, extracted from his followers and supporters a like. Through the arcane teachings of the forbidden Gospel of Matthias, he learns more about his true nature, and the terrible steps he must take to fulfill it, including the key role played by a stranger named Henry Scudder. Brother Justin then begins his own search for Scudder, putting our two principal players on a collision course which culminates in a fatal confrontation.