The second and final season of Carnival Row, one of the most extensive foreign productions to film in Prague, will premiere on Amazon’s streaming service Prime Video next Friday, February 17. Orlando Bloom returns in the fantasy series as inspector Rycroft Philostrate, who continues to investigate a series of murders against mythical creatures.

Fairy Vignette Stonemoss (Cara Delevingne), Rycroft’s love interest in the first season, now plots revenge against humans alongside a resistance group named the Black Raven.

The first season of Carnival Row premiered all the way back in the summer of 2019, and would later score three Emmy nominations. Last month, Amazon released the official trailer for the series’ second and final season.

Alongside Bloom and Delevignen, season 2 of Carnival Row co-stars Simon McBurney, Tamzin Merchant, David Gyasi, Andrew Gower, Karla Crome, and others.

The second season of Carnival Row had a tumultuous production throughout the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and 2021. Production in Prague was interrupted in early 2020 and shut down for more than a year before resuming in the summer of 2021 due to global pandemic restrictions and the resulting impact on filming.

In Prague, filming for Carnival Row took place at Barrandov Studios as well as a number of other locations throughout the center of the city. The Czech capital plays The Burghe in the series, the central city where much of its story takes place.

In addition to Barrandov, Prague locations utilized in the second season of Carnival Row include the Hradčanská area in Prague 6, Prague Market (Pražská tržnice) in Prague 7, and Nelahozeves and Toušeň in areas surrounding the Czech capital.

Beyond Prague, filming for Carnival Row also took place in surrounding locations in Bohemia including Kolín, Kokořín, Liberec, Doksany, and Sychrov.

Filming for Carnival Row also took place at three Bohemian quarries at Velká Amerika (Great America), Kosov, and Ledčice. In one of the more amusing stories from the local production, tourists who had wandered into the Kosov quarry were shocked to come across dozens of prop bodies used for the production.

Carnival Row’s Prague shoot wrapped in September of 2021. In a surprise move, Amazon Studios announced more than a year later, in November 2022, that it wouldn’t be returning for a third season.

While the middling reception for Carnival Row’s first season was likely a primary reason for the cancellation, developments regarding the Czech Republic’s tax rebate plan could have also played a role.

Applications for incentives are still on hold, and the most recent budget measures do not cater for large-scale productions. The new incentives plan caps tax rebates at 150 million crowns ($6 million), while the second season of Carnival Row was awarded rebates in the range of about 400 million crowns ($17 million).

Across two seasons, Amazon spent somewhere in the range of 3.5 billion crowns ($160 million) on production of Carnival Row in the Czech Republic, making it one of the largest projects ever to come to Prague. That total may soon be surpassed by The Wheel of Time, which is expected to return to the Czech capital to shoot its third season later this year.

Prime Video will premiere two episodes of Carnival Row’s final season each Friday, beginning February 17. In total, ten episodes will hit the streaming platform over five weeks.
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