The title treatment alone won my undying love.

Yes! I can't wait to get hold of S2 episodes.

t /unapologetic Carnivale fan

(I love Jonesy, Sophie, Samson and the Freaky Blind Dude whose name I forget),

Lodz

and the occasional moments when it punches me in the gut, like that whole thing with the miners and Dora Mae (like, one of the most upsetting things I've seen on TV EVAH)

Yeah, that was a very dark and upsetting storyline, and the last shot of "Pick A Number" is one of the most haunting things I've seen on a TV show. Comparable to the big reveal in The Kingdom (the original Lars Von Trier mini).

and the occasional moments when it punches me in the gut, like that whole thing with the miners and Dora Mae

Amen. A year later, that is haunting.

I just had a thought. I was having trouble figuring out why Walt would summon a polar bear, but reading the TWoP recap, I remembered the burning comic book. There's a close-up on the polar bear. Maybe Walt was thinking, "Man, I wish a polar bear would come and eat my stupid dad cause he burned my stupid Spanish comic book." And it backfired.

Question is, why are there polar bears around to be summoned? Assuming Delenn's bears were polar -- did she say?

No, I don't think she did.

There was an earlier polar bear incident when Walt was reading that part of the comic book, but I don't think it's any conscious agency on his part, even in the wishful thinking sense.

eta: I don't mean there's no connection, of course, because that seems pretty inescapable at the moment.

She didn't say polar, no. She just said "bears."

But you're right, their existence in general is still unanswered. Maybe they were brought with Del--Rousseau's original crew, all Noah's Ark-like.

Or maybe they manifested from the ether, when Send 'Em to the Cornfield Kid wished it.

Are there any bears even vaguely native to that presumed geography?

I mean, if Danielle's talking about Kodiak bears, is that any less whacked? Writer not named JJ Ockham, but I'd pretty much figured that all the bears were polar, until we get evidence of menagerie-type infestations.

I mean, if Danielle's talking about Kodiak bears, is that any less whacked?

Nope, just as whacked.

The bird incident would seem to lend credence to the idea that the polar bears are the bears Danielle mentioned, and that Walt is unknowingly summoning them, rather than his unknowingly creating them out of thin air. But she didn't say so.