Brother Justin Crowe

Brother Justin Crowe

Brother Justin Crowe is the antagonist in Carnivàle; reviewers also saw in him a possible alternate protagonist. Brother Justin is introduced as a Methodistminister who resides with his sister Iris in the small town of Mintern, California. As the series reveals in later episodes, Justin's birth name is Alexei Belyakov. He and his sister Iris are orphaned immigrant children in the wilderness, who were found and raised by Reverend Norman Balthus. Following strange visions and supernatural abilities in the pilot episode, Brother Justin erects a church in his God's name. But after a fire in his new ministry leads him almost to suicide, Brother Justin is hospitalized in a sanatorium and discovers his ability to manipulate and control those around him through sheer force of will. Shortly after Brother Justin's return to Mintern, Norman suspects his foster son to be possessed by a demon and confronts him, but Brother Justin is not disturbed by his true nature for long. In the beginning of season 2, Brother Justin has begun to gather a huge flock of worshippers of mostly migrants and Okies outside Mintern via his nightly radio sermons and newfound abilities of persuasion. A scholar named Wilfred Talbot Smith identifies him as the Usher and tells him that, to gain his full measure of power and fulfill his destiny, he must find and kill a man named Henry Scudder. While escaped convict Varlyn Stroud helps Brother Justin, the Crowes find a new chambermaid in ex-carny Sofie, not knowing that she is Brother Justin's daughter. Brother Justin at long last meets his adversary, Ben, in the final episode of the series. Brother Justin is killed in a battle in a cornfield near his home, but Sofie as the Omega arrives and places her hands on his chest, causing the corn stalks around them to wither and fall away.