A travelling carnival crosses the Dust Bowl in 1934 carrying a young fugitive who can heal the sick at a price, while in California a Methodist preacher discovers powers of his own. Daniel Knauf created the series for HBO, which had planned six seasons and cancelled it after two, in 2005, leaving the confrontation between the two men only partly resolved. It was expensive, deliberately slow and heavy with Depression-era iconography, and it won Emmys for art direction, costumes, hairstyling and main title design.