Ranking Every Major Performance In Carnival Row
10. Indira Varma (Piety Breakspear)
Indira Varma is a hugely talented actress, evidenced by her role in Game Of Thrones (despite being part of an unpopular arc by the end), as well as Luther, Patrick Melrose and voiceover work in Dragon Age and Mass Effect. It’s not even that Carnival Row misuses her, but that the nature of the twist necessitates she’s kept under wraps.
Varma’s Piety Breakspear turns out to have been the ultimate villain, killing everyone connected to Philo as she attempts to track him down. In the final episode, we see Indira Varma unleashed with the full range of her talent on display. Prior to that though, we just aren’t given enough.
In terms of the overall flow of the story, it makes sense to keep her on the fringes. Carnival Row isn’t a show of endless twists and turns but in Piety’s betrayal it does serve up a genuine surprise.
Varma is quite deliberately kept as a minor player, so it’s hard to rate her performance too highly off the back of just one episode showing what she can do.
A necessary but unspectacular role, though it’s a shame the show didn’t build more of a dynamic between her and Jared Harris’ Absalom Breakspear.