Carnivale

Oklahoma Dust Bowl, 1934. 18-year-old Ben Hawkins is a young man who lives with his physically sick, God-fearing mother.

A practical joke which has him clean an old dirty trailer leads Ben to a piece of the puzzle of his past -- a tuxedo-clad man named Henry Scudder who Ben keeps seeing in his dreams and who may be his long-lost father. Meanwhile, Brother Justin and his sister Iris have a conversation with Justin's mentor, Reverend Norman Balthus, who helps Justin realize that he has a gift he must put to use.

When the authorities of the cash-poor Oklahoma town of Tipton refuses to let the carnival set up show, Samson takes Jones' advice and temporally reinvents the troupe as a religious-revival show with Ben as the center act of a healer. In Mintern, Brother Justin's promise to the migrants of their new church upsets his regular congregation who despise the seedy people.

On the road to Babylon, Texas, the carnival encounters a horrific dust storm, called a 'black blizzard.'

The carnival finally arrives in Babylon, a tapped-out silver mining town in rural Texas with few inhabitants.