Inevitability (Review)

Series: Rome

Episode Title: "The Kalends of February"

Original Air Date: November 20, 2005

Episode Grade: B

Caesar's assassination has loomed large over Rome's first season. I wasn't watching the show during its original run, so I can't say if it did the same back in 2005. I imagine, however, that the show's viewers had been anticipating the extraordinary moment throughout the first season, and it wouldn't be surprising to learn that HBO's executives were looking forward to it from the moment they green-lit the show.

So how does "The Kalends of February" handle the whole affair? Well enough, I suppose. The actual assassination scene is more workmanlike than inspired. But considering Rome's somewhat rocky history with big moments, they pulled this one off well enough.

The assassination scene does a good job showing the brutality and the messiness of the whole affair; a dozen guys stabbing another guy is going to be unpleasant, and depictions of Caesar's assassination can gloss over that in an effort to get at the grand historical drama of the moment. There's a particularly good shot here looking down on the scrum, as the Senators weave around Caesar, their white and red robes swirling, knives plunging into Caesar. 

The most powerful moments, however, come after the assassination, when the Senators look on their work. Tobias Menzies has done an excellent job these last few episodes, and it continues in "Kalends," though he only gets a couple scenes. Though Brutus organized the whole affair and urged the Senators to do the killing themselves, he falters in the moment, and has to be persuaded into delivering the final blow to Caesar. 

And in the near-silent aftermath, as Brutus sits on a bench looking at the dead body of his slain friend, he lets out a wordless, animalistic howl that's more effective than it has any right to be. A viewer might reasonably quibble about the believability of Brutus' sudden spasm of conscience, but I'm willing to accept it as a fair response to the brutality of what he's seeing.

"Kalends" also does solid work when laying the groundwork for the assassination, though a lot of that labor was already completed in previous episodes. There's a kind of "on the one hand, on the other hand" approach here that does grate a bit; Caesar is given a rather ham-handed bit of symbolism when he walks on a large map of Rome laid out on the Senate floor, while the conspiring Senators are as elitist and arrogant as they are patriotic, arguably more concerned with Caesar's introduction of low men (including Lucius Vorenus) into the Senate than they are with Caesar's supposedly "tyrannical" actions. 

Stories can get in trouble when they try to take the "everyone sucks equally" path between two opposing points of views. It was one of my view complaints about BioShock Infinite, for example. But again, Menzies salvages the set-up with his obvious sincerity and patriotic concern. Brutus isn't entirely above his colleagues' elitism, but he is genuinely worried about the direction Rome is taking under Caesar. And Rome has displayed a nuanced enough understanding of Caesar throughout this season that one can accept a few loaded moments like the map scene.

But, of course, "Kalends" isn't just about Caesar's assassination. It's also concerned with Lucius Vorenus and his relationship with Niobe. This is normally fertile soil for the show, and it works again here. Most of "Kalends" is taken up with showing the full evolution of this marriage, and it's a truly beautiful, truly earned set of scenes.

Even in its weakest episodes Rome was able to exploit Kevin McKidd's excellent work and explore the dynamic between Vorenus and Niobe. Their chemistry in "Kalends" is truly extraordinary, and watching the two simply interact is a joy. Vorenus has been the consistent strong point in this first season, and his evolution from a strict, traditionalist Roman into a loving and caring husband has been both dramatic and natural. 

But things don't end there. Vorenus' elevation to the Senate brings his plotlines with Niobe and Caesar together. Caesar's decision to give Vorenus a Senatorial posting is not really about recognizing Vorenus' merit, of course. Nor is it just about appeasing the Roman mob, which loves Vorenus after his stunt with Pullo in the arena.

Instead, Caesar sees Vorenus as a kind of bodyguard and wants Lucius by his side should anyone try anything. Once Brutus figures this out, his mother takes over. Servilia sends a servant to whisper the truth about his "grandson's" parentage in his ear. Vorenus storms off, leaving Caesar alone. And since Antony is also detained...knife time.

There's something kind of ironic about the fact that Julius Caesar's assassination is only the second-most jarring death of this episode. Of course, we knew to expect it. We didn't know the same thing about Niobe.

Again, there's nothing particularly innovative about the moment when Vorenus confronts Niobe. He's throwing the expected rage fit, and Niobe cringes and cries appropriately. McKidd and Indira Varma both play their roles well in this scene, and it's always good to be reminded of the kind of physical presence McKidd can be when the situation calls for it. 

Still, it's a measure of the painstaking character work both actors have turned in over the course of the season that it's genuinely shocking to see Niobe push herself off the balcony of her house and onto the stone courtyard below, saying only, "The boy is blameless."

I have been rather harsh on Rome at various points over the course of the first season. The first several episodes of the show's run were, by and large, weak episodes that failed to achieve much of anything when McKidd wasn't on-screen.

Still, it's impossible to deny the uptick in quality that Rome displayed over the last four episodes or so. Nothing here reached true greatness, and not much really approached it. But Ray Stevenson reached deep, impressive levels of emotion with Titus Pullo, Vorenus' storyline ended in a skillful if heartbreaking fashion and the show didn't botch Caesar's end. 

Season Grade: B-

Notes

• I knocked this episode grade down a notch because of Pullo's storyline, which reached its true climax in "The Spoils." That he's genuinely remorseful about killing Eirene's fiancee is believable, and Pullo sells it. I'm far, far less willing to accept that she ends this hour holding his hand as they walk away from a religious shrine.
• Part of the reason that annoys me so much is that there's a great moment early in the episode where Eirene seethes outside listening to Pullo and Vorenus laugh. It's a wonderful, quiet commentary on the Roman social system, where Pullo can brutally kill a slave and still end up laughing with an old friend (remember, he only got in trouble for killing an important man). Eirene's anger is futile and righteous and thus compelling. It's also completely neutered by the end of the episode.
• Atia: She hates me. Antony: So do I. That's no bar to friendship.
• Antony's slow, silent retreat from the Senate chamber into the darkness after seeing Caesar's body is somehow quite threatening.
• A sad goodbye to Ciaran Hinds, who was wonderful to the end. He's particularly good at playing Caesar's shock and disbelief, even while bleeding out.
• Housekeeping note: We're going to take a brief break from Rome reviews. Look for a review of the Psych musical episode instead next week. 

The Memory of Honor (Review)

Series: Rome
Episode Title: "The Spoils"
Original Air Date: November 13, 2005
Episode Grade: B+

That Rome was a rather honor-obsessed society is no great insight. That men are often torn between their sense of honor and the reality of the world in which they live is not an original observation. And that politics can trample all of our principles and lead us to places we never thought we'd step is nothing more than a cliche.

But it's said that there are really only seven stories to tell, and the quality of a story is probably not best measured by its originality. "The Spoils" is about all of the well-worn tropes listed in the opening paragraph, and it doesn't offer any real penetrating insights into any of them.

What it does is effectively exploit some of its stronger performances and weave together themes of honor and self-doubt across a number of characters in disparate circumstances. It's a solid episode of television, and helps Rome to what is really its first true winning streak of this initial season.

The motivating dynamic in "The Spoils" is the yawning abyss between Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo; the former, now an honored magistrate, the latter, a murderer-for-hire who opens the episode tracking and killing some anonymous victim through a deserted street.

Pullo's problems are many, and go beyond his utter lack of honor. He's not actually a good assassin; his targets die well enough, but Pullo never really got the hang of subtlety, and that's a problem for a crime boss with certain pretensions of respectability. And, ultimately, Pullo doesn't have the make-up of a hired killer: he botches another job when he's unwilling to kill the lone witness to his murder, and he ends up in jail as a result.

Vorenus' problems are somewhat different. He's now Caesar's man, which is an uncomfortable position, and when Mascius, a former comrade from the 13th Legion, comes by to demand Italian land for Caesar's veterans, Vorenus is forced to put him off.

I feel like I spend a lot of time in these reviews starting sentences by saying "Kevin McKidd does a good job...," so forgive me a little more of that praise here. What's fascinating about McKidd's performance in the early portions of this episode is that his conflict is conveyed without any dialogue; he is, at all points, Caesar's loyal magistrate. He doesn't express any overt sympathy with Mascius, and he doesn't berate Caesar behind closed doors.

There's not even a scene where Vorenus pours his heart out to Niobe. Instead, McKidd manages through his tone and facial expressions to make clear that he is riven by the memories of his service with the 13th and his loyalty to Caesar. And when he "persuades" Mascius into supporting Caesar's offer of land in Pannonia with a bribe of some 12,000 denarii, there's no tearing of hair or gnashing of teeth, no flashing neon sign that says "COMPROMISED PRINCIPLES." Instead, there's just the simple reality of what he has done, and where he is as a man.

"The Spoils" plays this note out a little bit further when it brings Pullo and Vorenus together by the latter's attendance at the former's "trial." Caesar has made clear that he can't help Pullo; the man Titus killed was an important member of the "Nailmakers' Association" and an enemy of Caesar. He cannot have it look as if he is killing his enemies and protecting the murderers.

Vorenus again serves as Caesar's champion when he makes that exact point to Mascius, who has brought together some former members of the 13th Legion to rescue Pullo after the trial (his conviction is never in doubt, despite the best efforts of his youthful, desperate lawyer). Lucius has to take another step down the political chasm by threatening Mascius with the revelation of his bribe and then watches as Pullo is sentenced to death in the arena.

It is in the arena that "The Spoils" moves from workmanlike to genuinely excellent. Rome has often struggled with the large-scale battles that shaped its world, but the fight in the arena is at a scale it can truly master. It's a spectacular, brutal piece of work, one that finally makes clear what a genuine bad-ass Pullo is.

Watching Pullo, roused from his apathy by his gladiatorial executioners' ill-considered taunts of the 13th Legion, brutally slice up all comers is a hell of an experience. The scene is cruel and unsparing, and it's handled skillfully.

Is it a little much to have the scene inspire Vorenus to jump into the arena and save Pullo as he's about to be killed by the final gladiator? Maybe. But the strength and brutality of the scene does a lot of the work here, and McKidd, as usual, manages to sell the emotions of watching his brother fight for nothing but the honor of their former legion.

Rome has long been at its best when exploring the limitations of Vorenus' honor and traditionalism. This little arc, which sees him succumb through a series of reasonable, understandable decisions to the temptations of a political career, while Pullo falls to new lows as a result of disenchantment with his life and decisions, has been triumphant.

Brutus has his own problems with honor. He was Caesar's friend, then Caesar's enemy, and now he's in a torturously awkward position. Connected to Caesar through the bonds of genuine friendship, he's also disgusted by Caesar's apparent tyranny and by his own cowardice and indecisiveness.

Tobias Menzies does his best with the couple of scenes he's given here, and it's easy enough to understand his conflict. It's less easy to understand how he can go from telling Cassius to fuck off when the latter approaches him with a plot to kill Caesar in the opening scenes to ending the episode by telling his mother he's finally willing to take that step.

The crucial moment, supposedly, is his scene with Caesar, where the newly minted dictator-for-life asks his old friend to govern Macedonia for a year or so. Brutus sees this as the ploy to get him out of Rome that it is, and is, apparently, offended to learn that he hadn't even bought Caesar's trust by selling his honor.

Again, it's easy to see how that could be troublesome. It's not so easy to get from there to, "Well, gotta kill him now."

Still, "The Spoils" manages to do right by its characters in exploring their conflicts and doubts. Heading into the season finale next week, there's reason to be optimistic about the direction Rome has taken.

Notes

• It's Octavian who broaches the idea of helping Pullo. Still hard to understand why he cares at all.
• Atia and Antony are back to having sex! Always nice to see those crazy kids making it work.
• "Men with swords never starve." "But they do die, captains first."
• Pullo should have known that you don't mess with Big Nail.
• Turns out that Caesar actually did pay the crime boss to assassinate the nailmaker. 
• There's a painful gut punch of a scene where Pullo asks his boss for work, gets paid some small pittance in advance, goes to the bar to buy a drink and is ordered out by the boss, as the place is "respectable" and only caters to law-abiding citizens. 

New Heights (Review)

Series: Rome
Episode Title: "Triumph"
Original Air Date: November 6, 2005
Episode Grade: A-

"Triumph" is putatively about the loud, massive, drunken party Julius Caesar throws to celebrate his victory in Rome's civil war. The "triumph" was the greatest honor a Roman general could be given; half-parade, half-orgy, the triumph was the general's opportunity to display the spoils of conquest and revel in the praise of the crowd.

But "Triumph" excels instead at finding the quiet and desperate moments. It's Rome's best episode yet, and if I said that a few weeks ago about "Caesarion," well, this episode is clearly a step above that one. Its stories are almost all compelling, and the characters in the spotlight justify the attention given them.

"Triumph," in short, is the episode that best delivers on the promise of what Rome can be: character-focused, without losing sight of the larger historical context.

The good work begins with the first scene, which takes place in the Senate on the eve of Caesar's elevation to dictatorial powers. The conversation Brutus and Cicero here is a little on-the-nose and expository, but Tobias Menzies (Brutus) and David Bamber (Cicero) both do excellent work in conveying their despair and bitterness in a wry tone. And when Bamber starts speaking of "honor," and Menzies quickly points out that if the two of them had any of it they would have killed themselves like Cato and Scipio, there's a genuine edge of sadness to the exchange that's brought across without excess emoting.

I've had some fun pointing out where Rome has noticeably cut corners as a result of its budget; see, for example, the entire "Pharsalus" debacle. But "Triumph" actually does justice to its titular event; not, it must be acknowledged, in the fashion of Cleopatra and other sword and sandal Hollywood epics of the past, where the parade is given a long, luxurious look.

Instead, "Triumph" focuses on the details of the planning and one particularly intense scene during the event itself. There are some memorable shots of the planning stages, including a particularly beautiful scene shot looking straight up toward the sky while red banners are unfurled toward the camera.

If there's a particularly eloquent character in "Triumph," it's a silent Vercingetorix, the Gaul chieftain who surrendered to Caesar in the pilot. His final days are placed in sharp, if obvious, contrast with Caesar's moment of victory. From the time Vercingetorix is pulled out of his dungeon, looking emaciated and disheveled, to be examined by Caesar one final time, his fate is obvious.

And when he's dragged out on the day of the triumph, dressed in a mocking simulacrum of what he wore as a proud warrior, it's impossible not to feel the crushing weight of the moment on his shoulders. His day ends as it must, strangled to death (in a slow, agonizing scene) in front of Rome at Caesar's orders.

Vercingetorix's body is unceremoniously dumped onto the side of the road, though the episode ends with some anonymous folks (presumably Gauls) retrieving it and giving the chieftain a proper funeral pyre. None of this is particularly subtle, but it works based in no small part on the strength of Giovanni Calcagno's silent, terrified performance as Vercingetorix. And as a kind of subtle foreshadowing of Caesar's eventual end, it's got some resonance.

It's hard in watching "Triumph" not to think of a couple famous lines from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: "Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once."

That's the reality facing Brutus in this episode: he is alive and well, and Caesar allowed him his to return to the prestige of a Senatorial posting. But as played by Menzies, Brutus is more a ghost than a man. His is not just an honorable name, it is a name that almost means honor in Rome, and Brutus sullied it. First by turning on his friend, then by crawling back to him for mercy.

This is most apparent and most compelling when baldly stated by his mother, Servilia. She has her own reasons for anger, of course, and they have less to do with honor and patriotism than fury at being set aside by Caesar (oh, and the whole "attacked and stripped naked in the streets" thing from last week). But she can use honor and patriotism as psychological weapons against her son, and she does so with brutal effectiveness.

When Brutus acknowledges that he has failed her, Servilia responds, "You have not failed me. I'm your mother, you cannot fail me. You have failed the Republic." It's a cruel, cutting remark, and Lindsay Duncan delivers it with just the right amount of contempt and motherly solicitude.

It brings to mind yet another quote, the farewell Spartan mothers were reputed to give their sons as they left for war: "Come home with your shield, or on it."

And Servilia's not above taking advantage of Brutus' name either, affixing it to the anti-Caesar propaganda she writes with the help of Cassius and Pompey's son Quintus. This doesn't really present much of a danger to Brutus, though he's appropriately horrified; Caesar readily believes that Brutus had nothing to do with the propaganda, though he's not above making Brutus squirm a little bit.

The other storyline of note in "Triumph" is Titus Pullo's collapse. As a private citizen he's not allowed to march in the triumph with the 13th Legion, and he has no real trade to fall back on. More devastatingly, when he buys the freedom of Eirene, the slave he has fallen in love with, he finds out that she's in love with another slave (based on an IMBD search, I believe his name is "Oedipus") and intends to marry him.

Pullo takes this badly.

This is a brutal scene for a number of reasons that go beyond watching Pullo slam Oedipus' head into a wooden pillar so often that he pretty much obliterates the poor kid's face. He committed this crime in Vorenus' home, and Lucius is so appalled that he sends Pullo away for good. This partly a reaction to the murder itself, partly a reaction to the fact that it took place in Vorenus' home and partly a reaction to it happening in front of Vorenus' children. Frankly, those are all pretty reasonable causes for an angry reaction.

These last two episodes have allowed Ray Stevenson to explore the sadness and desperation at the heart of Pullo's character, giving him a chance to bring some depth and color to a previously one-dimensional character. Pullo ends "Triumph" drunk and despondent among the revelry, and vulnerable to the approaches of Erestes, the local crime boss Vorenus has repeatedly angered.

"Triumph" is outstanding. It gets great performances from its core cast and explores inter-personal dynamics in a way that is both compelling and subtle. This first season of "Rome" has been a disappointment, but "Triumph" provides some reason to hope that it will end on a high note.

Notes

• I don't usually relegate Vorenus' plot to the notes, but he has a fairly basic and predictable arc where he becomes disillusioned by the corrupt nature of the election he is running in. Pullo later points out how hypocritical Vorenus has been, and it clearly stings.
• Polly Walker is wonderfully insulting in an early scene where she visits Servilia and offers unctuous sympathies for the latter's attack. 
• "I have never seen a bad case so well-put."
• Most of the history I've read indicates that Vercingetorix was probably killed in prison after the triumph, not in front of screaming crowds.

Wherein We Learn Having Sex With Your Brother is Bad (Review)

Series: Rome
Episode Title: "Utica"
Original Air Date: October 30, 2005
Episode Grade: C

Well, we're back to dull.

Not every episode can revolve around Titus Pullo impregnating Cleopatra, though I confess I'd probably watch that sitcom ("Oh no! Caesar's home! Quick, go out the fire escape!" "Seize her? I barely even know her!" *cue laugh track*). And "Utica" seems more about setting up the last two episodes of this first season than any other task.

Still, "Utica" is also an episode that goes down some weird, silly, pretty gross story paths, and to no apparent end. It also focuses heavily on Octavia and Octavian, neither of whom have been well-defined enough to make their plots particularly interesting.

But let's start with the good, which for once is something happening around Lucius Vorenus but isn't about him. Ray Stevenson's been game enough so far as Titus Pullo, but despite the writers' desperate insistence that Pullo is charming and interesting, the character just hasn't been of much value so far. Yes, yes, Pullo likes to drink and carouse, and he's very happy to tell you these things, but a man is not the sum of his vices and habits, and that's how Rome has treated Pullo before now.

So it's interesting and gratifying, if a little cliched, to see him fall into a depression in "Utica." Pullo and Vorenus have finally returned home from the wars, Vorenus to the loving embraces of his children and the bed of his beautiful wife, Pullo to...what, exactly?

It's a question we can see Pullo asking himself as he watches Vorenus' family reunion. Pullo doesn't really have any family (we find out later in the episode that his mother was a slave and he never knew his father), and we've never actually seen him live anywhere. He's a soldier and a drinker, and that's all we know of him.

So it's good to see Rome realize this and nod at something more. Stevenson does great work simply with his facial expressions in this episode; the envy and sadness on his face as he observes Vorenus and Niobe are palpable. And so is his desperation as he tries to convince himself that he has something similar with his slave girl, Eirene.

There are a couple of touchingly pathetic scenes between these two, and if Chiara Mastalli, the Italian actress playing Eirene, isn't particularly dynamic with her limited dialogue, she also expresses a lot with her face. Pullo gifts her a bracelet he looted from Egypt, and the awkwardness of the moment is clear just from looking at Eirene.

And toward the end of the episode, when a drunken, bellowing, teary-eyed Pullo finally takes the inevitable step and embraces a naked Eirene, less in lust than in a desperate search for connection, there's nothing sexual about the scene. It's thoroughly pathetic, in fact, and there's something quite chilling about the dead-eyed look we see on Mastalli's face as the scene ends.

Of course, none of this means that Vorenus is left out of the fun. I've been pretty effusive in my praise for Kevin McKidd's work so far, and if "Utica" doesn't give him his juiciest scenes, there's still plenty here to enjoy.

Some of Rome's best scenes have come from showing the awkwardness of Vorenus' interactions with his family. This awkwardness doesn't come from masculine disdain or even apathy; he clearly loves his wife and children very much. He's simply uncomfortable with an environment with actual, expressed emotions, and he doesn't know what to do with himself when he's not a soldier.

As a result, "Utica" is concerned with how Vorenus is going to find his way after the wars. He spends a month hanging around the house, boring the children with his war stories and generally not contributing anything. But his brief attempt at learning the butcher's trade ends with him embarrassing the underling of a local crime boss (the same one he briefly worked for earlier), which puts his life and his family's life in danger and is not generally how a butcher's day goes.

This particular plotline ends with Caesar making an unexpected appearance at Vorenus' house as he waits for the crime boss to come for him. Caesar has a different idea: he wants Vorenus to run for the magistracy of the neighborhood. And after a rather amusingly short period of reluctance, Vorenus accepts.

There's not much to that particular development in this episode, but I look forward to seeing how it evolves. There's a lot of humor and drama to be mined from the straight-laced, blunt-speaking Vorenus politicking for votes, and I expect good things from McKidd.

Sadly, I had no such expectations for the other plotline in this episode, and in those low expectations I was proven quite correct.

The "relationship" between Servilia and Octavia, which was first established in "Pharsalus," has always been curious. It was a rather transparent attempt by Servilia to establish an in with Atia's family and find some way to exact her vengeance. But the endgame was unpredictable, as it was never clear how having sex with Octavia would end with the destruction of Atia.

Well, this particular plant starts blooming in "Utica..." only to be destroyed immediately.

Octavia lets slip to Servilia that Caesar has some sort of serious affliction, which interests Servilia a great deal. She tries to guilt trip Octavia into pumping her brother (phrasing!) for information, and when that fails, she wins over Octavia by claiming that Atia had Octavia's former husband killed.

Octavia does not cover herself in glory in this episode. She immediately believes Servilia's claim that her men had captured one of the murderers. Atia later points out how ridiculous this is (Octavia didn't even ask to speak to the guy), and Octavia crumbles and believes her mother. Sure, Servilia is telling the truth (or at least she's right about the husband's murder), but Octavia's swings are utterly unbelievable.

And her initial attempt to get the information from Octavian are clumsy and ineffective ("Tell me a secret"), though she does get Octavian to disclose his role in the death of Niobe's lover, a fact of which Servilia is appropriately scornful.

This brings us to the "ew" moment of the episode. Servilia somehow manages to convince Octavia that she should seduce her brother to get the information. Again, Octavia goes from "no way" to "yeah, sure, I'll sleep with my brother" with shocking celerity.

Now, to her credit this goes better than her first effort, and she does succeed in seducing her brother. So...kudos to Octavia, I guess?

Accept this doesn't actually accomplish anything. Octavian knew what she was doing the entire time. His reaction when she starts to ask for her favor is to say "Ah" and explain that he was expecting her to ask again about Caesar's infirmity.

It's...it's just all so pointless and stupid. Servilia gains no particular advantage from knowing about Caesar's epileptic fits, aside perhaps from the ability to spread accurate rumors instead of lies. Octavia is so easily persuaded it's laughable; agreeing to ask for more information is one thing, but allowing yourself to be talked into having sex with your brother in order to please your lesbian lover who has a grudge against your mother is just soap opera shit. Octavian's role in this is all a little odd as well (he admits that incest is really, really awful, not just a societal more), but it's probably best not to focus too much on his mindset here.

None of this works out for Servilia, of course. Octavian immediately tells Atia (why on Earth...), who dispatches her man to do some dirty work. His gang ambushes Servilia's litter in the streets, kills her guards, cuts her hair and strips her naked in public.

So, that's a pleasant way of ending "Utica," an episode that focused on two under-developed characters doing awful things together with no explainable motivations and to no discernible end. Yay.

Notes

• The episode begins with Cato and Scipio, the last two anti-Caesar holdouts from the Senatorial party, retreating to the African city of Utica after losing yet another battle. Cato kills himself, followed shortly by Scipio. Say goodbye to two characters with whom we never spent any time. I don't think Scipio had ten lines of dialogue before this episode.
• We're shown the aftermath of this glorious battle: a couple corpses and some burnt wood. And a dying elephant! I think the elephant must have exhausted Rome's budget, based on how the show has handled battles so far.
• Pullo, upon seeing Vorenus in the tunic of a political candidate: "You look like laundry."
• "You're a virtuous woman, so you must know seducing your brother is wrong."
• Octavian to Brutus: "I believe your capitulation is sincere." "How nice of you to say so."
• Oh, and sister-banging Octavian is going to be a pontiff, which is a very Borgia approach to high religious office. 
• I just have "EW" written in my notes.

Pride and Paternity (Review)

Series: Rome
Episode Title: "Caesarion"
Original Air Date: October 16, 2005
Episode Grade: B+

Maybe the utter disappointment that was "Pharsalus" drove my expectations low enough that I'm now grading Rome on a scale. Or maybe "Caesarion" genuinely is an excellent episode of television. Regardless, this is easily my favorite episode of Rome. It's an episode that, to be sure, has some of the same problems that have bedeviled the show in the past; but it nods at intriguing questions of nationalism and tradition, and above all else it is driven by an extraordinary performance from Ciaran Hinds.

Caesar hasn't exactly been backgrounded in Rome's first season, and in fact I've written about the strength of Hinds' performance in a few different reviews. Still, it hasn't been easy to get a sense of Caesar as a character. Rome has shown us Caesar as schemer and manipulator, as master politician, but aside from a couple of brief moments with Servilia we haven't really been shown Caesar as a person. Put another way, we know Caesar's lies, but we don't know his truths. We don't understand what genuinely matters to him.

"Caesarion" takes place almost entirely in Egypt in the aftermath of Caesar's victory at Pharsalus and the death of Pompey on the Egyptian shores in the previous episode.  It's the latter event that drives the best parts of this episode. When Pharaoh Ptolemy and his advisers hand Pompey's head over to Caesar, they expect a certain amount of gratitude from their unwelcome guest.

Instead, Caesar reacts with the anger of a man who has just lost a friend, and, after the recently completed civil war, it's easy to forget he's exactly that. Caesar's not a sentimental man, but he had worked closely with Pompey for years before their split. The tear he sheds in a private moment at Pompey's funeral pyre makes clear that he's genuinely saddened by Pompey's death.

But, of course, there's always more to Caesar than friendship and sentimentality, and his immediate reaction to being handed Pompey's head is driven more by pride than sadness.

Hinds is incredible in this scene, and when he follows a somewhat understated, "Shame on the house of Ptolemy," with a booming, raging, "He was a consul of Rome!", it's enough to make hairs stand on end. This is Caesar as defender of the Roman state and Roman pride, as protector of Roman dignity, as Roman. His anger at the death of Pompey is only partly anger at the loss of a friend; it is fueled in no small part by a patriotism so deeply ingrained it crosses into chauvinism and a pride in power so strongly held it crosses into a crushing arrogance.

Caesar and everyone else in Rome look down on all who aren't Roman, of course, but they have special contempt for the Egyptians. They have contempt for the eunuchs and cowards who bow and scrape to Ptolemy while manipulating him, and they have contempt for the boy Pharaoh and his weakness. That one of their own, a great citizen, a consul of Rome was so cravenly betrayed by men such as these is offensive to Caesar's sensibilities.

This sense of pride and of alienation from the Egyptians they're occupying plays into the other storyline in rather fascinating ways. Caesar, in order to protect the supplies of Egyptian grain that keep Rome from starving, elects to stay in the country and resolve the dispute between Ptolemy and his sister Janice...er, Cleopatra. In order to do this, he must find Cleopatra, who Ptolemy's advisers insist is lost and beyond their reach.

Caesar dispatches Vorenus and Pullo to find her, because these are the only two soldiers in the Roman army.

We've talked at some length about Vorenus' sense of tradition and deeply felt religious convictions, but that's always been in a Roman context. What makes Vorenus' role in the plot of "Caesarion" so interesting is that he carries these same sensibilities into Egypt.

I just finished talking about Roman arrogance and patriotism, but when it came to religion the Romans were the farthest things from bigots. They worshiped their gods, but not out of a belief that these were the only gods in heaven. The Romans instead believed quite sincerely that the gods of their enemies were real and powerful, and on many occasions would attempt to sway or even bribe these gods into switching sides. Once conquered, former enemies were largely allowed to worship according to their beliefs and traditions.

So when Vorenus rebukes Pullo for mocking the gods of Egypt, he's not being ahead of his time and he's not acting out of character. When he says the gods of Egypt are "old and powerful," he's not being especially tolerant. Instead, he's acting within the personality we've seen so far.

That he's set up against Pullo in this isn't particularly surprising; Rome has driven this dynamic into the ground. But he's also implicitly set up against Caesar, who obviously has precious little respect for Egyptian gods and traditions (Caesar also has precious little genuine respect for Roman gods and traditions, to be fair). Pullo and Caesar are very much of a type in "Caesarion:" contemptuous of the decadence and rot of the Egyptian state and insistent on Roman supremacy. Vorenus, by contrast, affords his surroundings with a measure of respect; not out of any regard for the Egyptian people or Ptolemy, but instead out of a realization of the staggering history of the place. Egypt, he points out, was a thriving civilization thousands of years before Rome was even founded, and the blood of the ancient Egyptians still flows in Cleopatra and Ptolemy. Vorenus is a man who respects history and traditions, even those that aren't his own.

The little twist "Caesarion" puts on the well-trod history is worth mentioning, even if I'm not sure what to make of it right now. Pullo and Vorenus track down Cleopatra by following the assassins Ptolemy dispatched to her tent. They kill the assassins seconds before they can murder Cleopatra and escort her to Caesar in Alexandria.

What happens next is a little weird. Cleopatra understands that she has to seduce Caesar to win his support ("I have him or I die, so I will have him"), which is shrewd enough. But the night before she arrives in Alexandria, she's somehow able to discern that she'll conceive a child if she has sex that very night. Caesar's not there, but she realizes a child would give her extraordinary power over Caesar, so...time to find a pinch hitter.

Cleopatra initially turns to Vorenus, who is tempted, but ends up refusing, partly out of masculine Roman pride ("Roman men are not used in such ways"), and, though it's unstated, partly out of love for Niobe.

Pullo has no such worries.

So, yes, it appears our Titus Pullo is, in fact, the father of Caesarion. As I said, I'm not sure what to do with this information, but there it is.

For all that works in "Caesarion," I can't call it a truly great episode, and I mentioned back in the opening paragraph that it's plagued by some of the same problems that we've seen earlier in the series. The big issue here is what happens after Vorenus and Pullo deliver Cleopatra to Caesar and the latter two end up in their inevitable steamy embrace.

"Caesarion" elects to skip over the year Caesar spent besieged in Alexandria alongside Cleopatra, which was a rather fascinating bit of history. Instead, we get a brief glimpse of some Egyptians gathering outside the gates, and then we go to the Roman Senate, where Cicero blandly informs Brutus that Caesar has been trapped for a year in Alexandria and gosh Brutus, isn't that interesting? Then Antony comes in, has a fun scene, and tells the two Senators that Caesar broke the siege.

And that's that. Portraying a lengthy passage of time is always tricky in a TV series, and when you only have 12 episodes (instead of a network run of 20+) you have to cut some temporal corners. But coming a week after Rome so blithely passed by the Battle of Pharsalus, this is something of a sore spot, and it's hard to escape the conclusion that this was, again, more a budgetary decision than a narrative one.

Still, "Caesarion" succeeds in righting the ship that threatened to capsize after "Pharsalus." It's fun and compelling, two features that have too often been lacking from Rome so far. And in spending so much time with Caesar, it finds a stable center.

Notes

• Hinds really is something in this episode. When Ptolemy's eunuch points out that Caesar's debt collection is only legitimate under Roman law, Caesar thunders, "Is there any other form of law, you wretched woman?"
• Cleopatra is played by Lyndsey Marshall, whose IMDB page is filled with work I've never seen (apparently she had a significant role in Being Human, which was a big deal in the UK before being adapted here). Her performance is...uneven, but she is quite excellent and manipulative in the scene where she seduces Caesar. "A man without sons is a man without a future."
• She is also quite chilling when she finally confronts Ptolemy and his eunuch adviser. "It must not speak. It must die."
• Caesar and Cleopatra's sex scene is intercut with Servilia and Octavia, which I guess serves as a useful reminder that there's hot lesbian action going on back in Rome?
• Caesar and his retinue are clearly bemused by all the ceremony surrounding Ptolemy when they are first introduced to him, which feeds nicely into Caesar's reaction when Pompey's head is revealed.
• The scene in the Senate I referenced above is largely just a clumsy excuse for exposition, but James Purefoy gives it some life with his bullying, intimidating performance. The way he manhandles and threatens Cicero is quite impressive. 
• "Majesty commands you will enter her." 

Portrait of a Magnus in Decline (Review)

Series: Rome
Episode Title: "Pharsalus"
Original Air Date: October 9, 2005
Episode Grade: C

"Pharsalus" is a perfect example of what we might call a "strategic anti-climax." There are moments in a story that an audience can recognize as momentous and epochal, especially when the story is based in well-known history. These moments present certain challenge and expectations.

Instead of taking these challenges head-on, the strategic anti-climax deliberately sidesteps them, disposing of the crucial event in a cursory fashion. The focus is placed on the lead up to, or aftermath of, the incident and how it shapes the characters involved.

There can be thematic reasons for this, such as an attempt to emphasize the importance of all the little things that contribute to the large event. In comedies, the strategic anti-climax can be played for laughs. In skillful hands, it's a storytelling trope that puts the audience off-balance by subverting its expectations.

"Pharsalus," on the other hand, is strategic anti-climax as cop out. It dispenses with its titular battle in a way that betrays a contempt for the audience and doesn't do nearly enough in the aftermath to make up for it. There's enough in the closing moments of this episode to keep it from qualifying as a true disaster, but it remains the worst episode of the series so far.

There are two choices here that creak and squeal like a rusty gate. In the first, the episode starts by showing Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus stranded on an island somewhere in the Aegean, most of the 13th Legion having been drowned by the massive storm we saw last week.

In the second, "Pharsalus" elects to elide The Battle of Pharsalus, in which Caesar destroyed Pompey's forces. The "battle," such as it is, is represented with a soundless, generic, 15-second vignette in which a few soldiers swing swords at each other and scream menacingly. This being finished, we cut back to an ever-so-slightly bruised Caesar riding triumphantly into camp.

And so Rome handles the first truly momentous, epic moment of its run: by waving at it from a passing car. I eagerly await the moment where the show grapples with Caesar's assassination by having Pullo say, "Hey, remember when those dudes stabbed Caesar last week? That was weird, wasn't it? Anyway, I like having sex."

Let's be honest about what this is: a bullshit-powered plot machine. Rome was famous as one of the most expensive shows of its day, but it has shown no stomach for shelling out the money required to truly do justice to a battle like Pharsalus. This episode is an attempt to make a virtue out of a necessity, and the necessity is an inability or unwillingness to grapple with the true scope of the moment.

Pullo and Vorenus, for their part, are stranded on their island so that they can't take part in the "battle," such as it is. If our two main characters were present the show wouldn't be able to get away with ignoring Pharsalus; the audience would expect to see the two in action. We wouldn't accept breezing past a moment that presented so much danger to Pullo and Vorenus. Throw a shipwreck at them, however, and the details of the battle become irrelevant.

Of course, the shipwreck plays a more important role in the story: bringing Titus and Pullo into contact with a defeated Pompey. The two escape their island by building a raft out of the corpses of their comrades, which is terribly innovative and interesting to anyone who hasn't read Watchmen. 

Titus and Vorenus wash up on the beach right in front of Pompey and his family, who are fleeing to a Greek port where they can take ship to Egypt and try to raise more forces. This is, again, an utterly ridiculous contrivance, a deus ex machina so ridiculous that it's partly redeemed later in the episode when Caesar lampshades its ridiculousness by suggesting these two men must have gods on their side.

For all that there is in this development to set one's eyes a-rollin', it does at least bring us the few moments that prevent the episode from a complete collapse.

Kenneth Cranham hasn't had much to do so far as Pompey, but he shines in his final episode. "Pharsalus" does well when it is exploring a defeated and humbled Pompey, and it is at its best when Pompey is interacting with Vorenus.

There are some cursory attempts to raise questions about power and influence in these post-Pharsalus scenes. Pompey's servants and soldiers all flee, one of them stealing the jewelry from his wife's neck as she sleeps. The guide and protector who's left, a creepy fellow named Lysandros (with a bitchin' metal nose), is impudent almost to the point of mutiny, harshly inquiring about his fee and refusing to move on to the Greek port when Pompey demands it.

Cranham handles all of this with a heartbreaking mix of wounded dignity and resigned acceptance, and he takes advantage of his first real chance to imbue the character with something more than simplistic arrogance. And Rome doesn't allow Pompey too unrealistic a transformation; he shows a flash of the old arrogance when explaining Pharsalus to Vorenus, defending his strategy as "right" while blaming its failure on the "cowards" in his army.

Vorenus, who had initially taken custody of Pompey after killing Lysandros, decides to release Pompey. He later tells Caesar that he didn't think a "broken" Pompey was a threat, what with his watery eyes and shaking hands, but his explanation to an aghast Pullo is a little different. The traditionalist, honor-bound Vorenus just doesn't think a man such as Pompey Magnus deserves to be trussed up and delivered like a slave to Caesar. It's a reasonable explanation that's consistent with what we know of Vorenus.

In the end, of course, all Vorenus does is give Pompey the freedom to die on the Egyptian shore. It's a moment that's handled with the kind of unsparing directness that I can only wish the episode had displayed with the Battle of Pharsalus.

For all of the good work turned in by Cranham and Kevin McKidd, "Pharsalus" remains an utterly disappointing and uninspiring episode of television. Yes, the scope and size of this moment is massive and difficult to cover. But it's a task Rome gave itself, and the magnitude of the moment should give the show an extraordinary amount of pitch and drama.

Instead, Rome opted out of the moment, and in doing so betrayed a crippling lack of ambition and creativity.

Notes

• The other significant plotline here is Atia dispatching a reluctant Octavia to ask Servilia for some men to guard the house. This leads, as it so often does, to a lesbian affair. I assume this will eventually prove to be part of Servilia's revenge plot, but right now it's just manipulative.
• There's a really good scene before the "battle" in Pompey's camp. Pompey wants to hound Caesar into a hunger-driven surrender without offering battle, but Cato, Cicero and Scipio play on Pompey's ego and talk him into an "honorable" battle.
• Caesar's reason for giving battle with his hungry, desperate troops: "We must win or die. Pompey's men have other options."
• Cicero and Brutus surrender to Caesar, who has a shockingly joyous reaction to seeing the two Senators. 
• Ciaran Hinds is good in relatively limited work here. He's charming with Brutus and Cicero and furious with Lucius Vorenus. 

Loyalty and Intimacy (Review)

Series: Rome
Episode Title: "Egeria"
Original Air Date: October 2, 2005
Episode Grade: B-

What kind of man is Rome's Marc Antony? We've seen a fair bit of him in the first five episodes of the show (and, in one memorable scene, we saw all of him), but Antony's characterization, while direct and entertaining, has been rather thin. James Purefoy is clearly enjoying playing the blunt, brutish counter-weight to Caesar's smooth manipulator, and it's fun to watch, but Rome is a little too fond of that juxtaposition, and hasn't really given Purefoy much of weight.

That changes a bit in "Egeria," which is very much an episode about Antony and his priorities. There's still a lot here that's groan-worthy, though Purefoy does his best with it. But there's also some genuine insight into Antony's character, all sparked by the episode's primary story development.

But first we get the thoroughly entertaining spectacle of Antony trying to oversee the governing of the city in Caesar's absence. Caesar is in Greece, chasing Pompey in the hopes of forcing a climactic battle, and he left Antony behind to "keep the peace."

This, it goes without saying, is a task for which Antony is singularly ill-suited, though he executes Caesar's will well enough. When he calls in the senior Senator remaining in Rome and tells him he will be co-consul with Caesar, the Senator points out that Caesar is already dictator-in-fact. Antony has enough cunning to reply, "It sounds so much better if he's consul. Much more amicable."

Again, Purefoy is excellent here; he's all pleasant malevolence in his conversation with the Senator, and it's possible to see in this early scene why Antony has a position of power. But this is Rome pounding home a certain point about Antony, and it's a point we've seen made plenty of times before.

Things truly get interesting when Caesar writes Antony with a plea for help. While Caesar was pursuing Pompey, assuming that the aged general was just mindlessly fleeing in an attempt to postpone the inevitable, Pompey was actually gathering legions from the eastern provinces. Now, Pompey out-numbers Caesar 10-to-1, and he is the one chasing Caesar, who wants Antony to bring the 13th Legion to Greece as soon as possible.

But Antony is given another path. An ambassador from Pompey visits Antony and makes him an offer: abandon Caesar and side with Pompey, and the general will give Antony immunity for any crimes, a great deal of money and a province to rule.

It's hyperbole to say that Antony is torn by this turn of events; as played by Purefoy, there's not much introspection or psychological torment in Marc Antony, and he receives Pompey's offer with his usual smirk and bravado. But he is clearly considering it; when he dismisses Pompey's ambassador, he tells the man to disguise himself, evidence that he's ashamed of the meeting. The ambassador has a smirk of his own in response.

This gets to a question at the core of Antony's character: namely, does this character have a core? Antony has been set up, in many ways, as an opposite of Lucius Vorenus' duty-bound sense of honor, a man of coarse interests and simple tastes, with no sense of loyalty to the idea of "Rome" or her traditions. He has here an opportunity to protect himself at the expense of his oldest friend.

And Atia paints him an even more interesting picture. Once she discerns that Caesar might actually lose the war with Pompey, she starts looking for a way out; as Caesar's niece, she is vulnerable to a backlash from Pompey's loyalists should he win. So she makes a rather startling proposal in the aftermath of yet another sex scene: marriage.

Antony's reaction ("Why on Earth would we want to do that, of all things?") is appropriately incredulous, but Atia is dangling a hell of a future in front of Antony. Abandon Caesar, accept Pompey's offer, marry Atia, gain the advantage of her name and wealth and become de facto King of Rome. The choice in front of Antony, then, is not just loyalty or survival, it's loyalty or unfathomable power.

But Antony, it seems, does believe in something more than himself, even if it's only friendship. He chooses Caesar over Pompey, Atia and the throne of Rome, and he leaves Atia's bed after an exchange of slaps (Polly Walker gets the worst of these, of course).

The course of history dictates the result of this storyline, of course; the writers couldn't very well have Antony betray Caesar at this point, not when there's a battle with Pompey to be fought and a famous assassination to witness and Antony's own renowned end to orchestrate. But there's still something to be said for the details here, and this is an excellent way of making us give a damn about Antony.

So Antony makes his decision, and the episode ends with Vorenus and Titus Pullo sitting in a ship on the Aegean Sea, surrounded by their comrades, sailing to Greece.

Vorenus is the focus of the episode's other main plotline, which is always good. It's primarily a small scale, domestic story, which is less good. Kevin McKidd is exceptional no matter the story he's given, but he is at his best when his honor and dignity are set against the larger cynicism of Roman power.

Regardless, there is real and remarkable tenderness in this story, which is yet another chapter in Lucius' attempt to make Niobe hate him a little less. And it works in this episode, even if that's less a result of anything Vorenus does and more of Niobe making a decision to forget Evander, the man who fathered her child while Vorenus was away soldiering (Pullo and Octavian killed him in last week's episode, you might remember).

I haven't written a lot about the work Indira Varma has done as Niobe, and to an extent that's because the writing for her has been workmanlike at best. She's a put-upon wife uncomfortable with her absentee husband. It's not terribly original stuff.

But she shines in this episode, and when placed alongside McKidd, the chemistry between the two is outstanding. The awkwardness of their early scenes together is continued in this episode, only to fade in a way that is both genuine and consistent with the characterizations we've seen. The few days of bliss that Niobe and Lucius share feel earned, as does the sadness on display when Vorenus has to leave for Greece.

Notes

• One other plotline in this episode: Pullo takes Octavian to a brothel to lose his virginity at Atia's urging. It's an insignificant little affair, though it ends with Octavian having sex with a prostitute whose accent seems vaguely Russian (well, probably. We never see the act itself, and it's possible Octavian wimped out at the last second)
• "Octavian, have you penetrated anyone yet?" Oh, Atia. Never change.
• Atia tries to get in good with Servilia by sending her a jeweled turtle (everyone's favorite Christmas gift) and a well-endowed slave. "A large penis always welcome." Oh, Atia. Never change. 
• Antony holds court with his beloved dwarf aide by his side, something that offends Vorenus to no end. 
• Lucius and Niobe are in the middle of a pleasant romp when their daughter interrupts. "Father, that dwarf wants you." Hell of a cockblock right there. 

The Set-Up Man (Review)

Series: Rome
Episode Title: "The Ram Has Touched the Wall"
Original Air Date: September 25, 2005
Episode Grade: C+

There are episodes with enough energy and wit that they can feel eventful and exciting despite a relative lack of plot movement or character development (see The Newsroom's latest episode). "The Ram Has Touched the Wall," Rome's fifth episode, is a vastly different sort of beast. Objectively speaking, a lot of important things happen in this episode. And yet it's basically a bore, a dull affair saved by some outstanding scenes in its last few minutes.

We begin in Pompey's camp, where the great man, realizing his weakness, accepts the (ridiculously unbalanced) offer of truce Caesar sent last week. One thing I wish Rome had done better over the last few episodes is demonstrate exactly why Pompey's position is so weak; instead, Caesar acquires a large supply of gold and Pompey surrenders. This isn't a huge issue (it's not hard for viewers to connect the two points), but it could use some spelling out.

There's an excellent scene later where Caesar, Antony and Caesar's personal slave marvel over Pompey's surrender. Ciaran Hinds continues his good work in his discussions here, simultaneously explaining to Antony why he can't simply reject the truce he proposed and trying to find some pretext for doing so. Their conversation gets at questions of power and manipulation; when Caesar's slave points out that Pompey has the Senate with him, Antony retorts, "In Rome they are the Senate. Beyond the walls they are merely 300 old men."

Caesar finds his pretext in Pompey's refusal to meet him in person; it is a clear, simple explanation that the people of Rome can understand and support. Much to Antony's dismay, however, Caesar refuses to pursue Pompey and decides instead to wait in Rome.

Polly Walker doesn't get a lot of screen time this week, but she is the instigating force behind two of the episode's three significant plots. In the first, she enlists Titus to help Octavian learn to be masculine. The straw that broke the camel's back here appears to be discovering Octavian joyfully painting his sister's toe nails, but this particular issue has been bubbling since the pilot, so it doesn't feel forced.

In the second, Atia finds out from Antony that Caesar's only staying in Rome because of his love for Servilia. This infuriates Atia, and she starts scheming to break up the two.

Atia's hostility, though established in last week's episode, is still difficult to explain. The show offers no compelling reason for it. We're not told that Caesar's relationship with Servilia poses any sort of threat to Atia's position; she's Caesar's niece, not his lover. Her power is familial, and thus not vulnerable to Caesar's flings.

Octavian even points this out, and all she can say is that she's concerned about the Republic. Again, Octavian scoffs at this, and I don't think we're supposed to buy it. At this point, Atia's actions just seem like motiveless villainy, and that's not consistent with what we've seen from her in the past.

But this Roman Iago, this ancient Machiavelli, this scheming evil genius gets her way. We can see this was inevitable after discovering her fiendish plan to hire some dudes to paint graffiti on the walls.

Which...hey, it works, and perfectly. Caesar and his wife Calpurnia are out for a pleasant stroll with their litter and armed guard, and they see the (admittedly quite skillful) depictions of Caesar having sex with Servilia. Calpurnia makes the situation abundantly clear: Caesar dumps Servilia, or he gives his wife a divorce.

What follows is quite masterful, and two people deserve credit for this. The first is Bruno Heller, who wrote the episode. There are no scenes here where Caesar agonizes over the decision, weighing his love for Servilia with his lust for power (Calpurnia's family is quite influential). Instead, Caesar simply makes the only decision he can, and next we see him he is telling Servilia that they will no longer see each other.

The second person who deserves credit is Hinds. His scene with Servilia is utterly brutal, and that's with Lindsey Duncan providing all of the emotion. Hinds plays his part utterly stone-faced; he is terse and direct, and he betrays no ambiguity with Servilia. This is a political decision, not an emotional or romantic one, and he treats it as such.

Our man Lucius Vorenus, meanwhile, has run into some bad luck. The slaves he brought back from Gaul died from disease, and only one scrawny little boy survived. The slaves were the foundation of his business plan, and he has no other way of earning money.

The plot that follows is a little perfunctory. Vorenus initially takes a job as a bodyguard for a local businessman, but has the expected ethical qualms at being told to kill one of the businessman's debtors (he broke the guy's arm with some mild hesitation). He ends up crawling back to Antony and taking the offer he spurned last week: a big promotion, prestigious position and ample signing bonus.

I call this "perfunctory" because the entire plot really just exists to get Vorenus back in the legion. The slaves suddenly dying of the flux...OK, that's fine. It's an excuse, but really, all plot points are just excuses, and the idea that a group of slaves crowded together in squalid conditions would all die of the flux is reasonable enough.

But Vorenus' decision to re-up with the army doesn't seem to fit with what we've seen of him in the past. He won't kill the debtor, but he practically begs Antony for the chance to join the army and kill his fellow Romans, the prospect of which had greatly bothered him before. He has enough sense to be embarrassed by all of this ("I have sold myself to a tyrant").

For all this, the scene where a fully armored and equipped Vorenus receives the blessing of Mars at the god's temple is wonderful, and mostly wordless. The camera is tight on Vorenus' face as he strides through the streets, and the self-loathing Lucius feels is evident there. When he has finished the ceremony, the temple priest smears a streak of blood down the middle of Vorenus' face, and the shot of Lucius wearing his prefect's helmet is striking.

"The Ram Touches the Wall" has a run time of 52 minutes, and through about 40 minutes this is the series' worst episode. The end of the thing salvages it, but taken as a whole this episode is still smaller than the events within it. Technically, this is quite the eventful 52 minutes: Caesar severs his relationship with Servilia, Pompey and the Senate flees to Greece and Vorenus re-joins the 13th Legion.

But this is all put together in such a dull, workmanlike fashion that it has precious little weight.

Notes

• Pullo's manhood lessons quickly turn into him begging Octavian for advice as to whether he should tell Vorenus about Niobe's adultery. Octavian is, for reasons surpassing understanding, quite enthusiastic about helping the soldier he barely knows, and ends up helping Pullo kidnap, torture and kill Evander, the guy who fathered Niobe's child.
• "I dare say I can kill people well enough, as long as they're not fighting back." Rome, perhaps getting a little on-the-nose with Octavian's characterization.  
• Atia points out the worthlessness of Greek philosophy by slapping a slave on the head and saying, "Here's a Greek philosopher for you." God, I love her.
• Servilia puts a curse on Atia and Caesar. "Let his penis wither, let his bones crack, let him watch his legions drown in their own blood." As curses go, that's pretty badass.
• I'm still trying to decide how I feel about Max Perkis' performance as Octavian here. He's quite good when he's playing sullen or dismissive, but when he has to confidently explain some point that he's figured out with his mighty intellect it's not at all convincing.
• It's hard to overstate just how brutal the scene with Caesar and Servilia is. It ends when Servilia slaps Caesar, and he responds by slapping her. Hard. Three or four times. Beautifully acted, but tough to watch. 

Gods and Gold (Review)

Series: Rome
Episode Title: "Stealing from Saturn"
Original Air Date: September 18, 2005
Episode Grade: B-

Television writers love duality. By creating two similar sets of events (a feast, let's say), populating them with different characters and setting them up in different contexts, the writer can point out (with varying shades of subtlety) differences in motivations and worldviews. It's something of a natural experiment, only scripted for dramatic effect: put two people in identical situations, see how they handle the situations.

"Stealing from Saturn" continues Rome's interest in tradition and the role of religion by counterpoising two feasts: one thrown by Atia for her triumphant uncle Caesar and one thrown by Vorenus to mark the beginning of his new business venture. The duality explored here is relatively superficial, and goes directly to some of the themes Rome has been trying to suss out in these early episodes: Vorenus, the devout and sincere man, set against Caesar, who treats Rome's religious traditions as tools of manipulation.

This is really the first time Rome has allowed us to spend significant time with Caesar, and Ciaran Hinds makes good use of the screen time. There's really nothing openly exceptional about Hinds' performance; there is, instead, an admirable stolidity and an ability to command the room through quiet dialogue and underplayed facial expressions.

Caesar's concern in "Stealing from Saturn" is to defy Pompey's prophecy that he will lose the support of Rome by ruling as a bloody tyrant. His chief tactic for avoiding this fate is to throw money at the problem; it's not the most subtle of strategies, but it is tried and true. Better bribes than blood.

The first step in winning over the people, Caesar understands, is to make a show of winning over their gods. So he approaches the priests of the Temple of Jupiter to hold an augury, with the hope that the ceremony will demonstrate the approval of the gods.

Of course, Caesar being Caesar, he's not prepared to let such an important occasion be determined by the random flight of birds. There's a clever little conversation between Caesar, Mark Antony and the head augur at Atia's party where the three bargain over the augur's bribe, all in the guise of arranging a birthday present for the augur's wife. Caesar wants his birds, and the augur can give them to him.

The problem is that you must have money to throw money at problems, and Rome's treasury, as we saw last week, now lies in the hands of one Titus Pullo, who came across the stolen gold while on a scouting mission.

This is where Vorenus' feast comes in. It plays a thematic role, certainly: Lucius chose the day of the feast because it was the gods had ordained it an auspicious day, and he opens the festivities by kneeling before a an altar of Janus and praying for a successful meal. All of this can't help but be contrasted with the cynicism on display at Atia's feast. Antony was even nice enough to stick a pin in this contrast earlier in the episode, when he accuses Vorenus of being "foolish, like a priest. Blinded by a cowl."

The feast ends when Niobe's sister, who married the father of Niobe's child, gets drunk and crashes into the altar of Janus, breaking it. Vorenus sees in this a bad omen, which, you know, is not unreasonable. Or incorrect, considering that the altar was shattered by a woman married to the father of his wife's illegitimate child.

But Vorenus' feast also has a crucial narrative role to play, as it connects Caesar with the stolen gold. Pompey has dispatched his son Quintus to track down the stolen treasury, and Quintus is quite good at his job. Quintus appears after the feast has ended and threatens Vorenus and Niobe unless Lucius tells him where the gold is located.

When Pullo shows up (with annoyingly fortuitous timing), he and Vorenus overpower Quintus and kill his thugs. What follows is interesting for what it says about Pullo, a man the show has tried to set up as a cynic and a sensualist in contrast to Vorenus' stern sense of Roman duty.

Vorenus orders Pullo to return the gold (and Quintus) to Caesar. Remember, Vorenus isn't Pullo's commander any more. He's a civilian. He resigned his position in last week's episode. Pullo would be well within his rights to tell Vorenus to sod off.

But he doesn't. Instead, Pullo physically straightens up when Vorenus' makes clear that he is giving in an order and reluctantly agrees to speak to Caesar about the gold. The pull of duty is strong, even for Pullo.

(Of course, Vorenus could always tattle on Pullo if the latter didn't agree, and that would have ended badly for Titus, so maybe that's the motivation here)

In the end, Caesar gets his gold. Pullo speaks with Antony and Caesar outside Atia's party, bringing Quintus along for the ride. Caesar lets Quintus live, much to Antony's dismay, and dispatches Pompey's son back to his father with a truce offer he knows Pompey can't accept.

And when Caesar gets his gold, he also gets his augury. The episode ends with a ceremony in which the holy birds are dispatched and their flight interpreted as favorable. And Caesar, on his knees in front of the chief augur, smiles in the knowledge of his power.

"Stealing from Saturn" is better as the result of its focus on Caesar; the plotting is tighter, and the viewer's attention isn't pulled in a dozen different directions. The episode does well to highlight Hinds and Kevin McKidd, its two best performers, so extensively.

There is no spark of brilliance here, however, nor any sense that the show has something meaningful or original to say about the nature of power or tradition-bound societies. That the powerful manipulate traditions ordinary people believe in is certainly true enough, but it's hardly a point that merits primetime television in the year 2005.

Are we closer to an answer to the "What does Rome want to be?" question I asked last week? Maybe. If the show retains the tighter focus displayed in "Stealing from Saturn," it's easy enough to see improvement in Rome. But to quote a Spartan response to Philip of Macedonia, "If."

Notes

• Well, that's James Purefoy's penis.
• Atia has some fun moments here. Concerned with Octavian's apparent lack of manliness, she demands he eat goat testicles in much the same way a sane mother would force broccoli on her child. "Puts oak in your penis."
• Huh. Lot of penis in these notes.
• Antony has a dwarf messenger he's named "Cato." Vorenus doesn't find this as amusing as Antony does.
• Atia, complimenting Servilia, mother of Brutus and Caesar's lover: "She has none of the goatishness of women her age."
• There are some wonderfully creepy shots in Rome's deserted streets. The camera work following Vorenus' daughter as she scampers through the streets and avoids the marching soldiers is quite impressive. 
• Niobe gets some chicken livers examined to determine if her secret is still safe. The priestess examining the livers can only say "probably." This is why you opt for the good livers, not the cheap crap you get in the frozen food aisle at Wal-Mart. Or, um, Walus-Martus.
• According to Wikipedia, the practice of examining the entrails and organs of birds for prophetic messages is known as "haruspicy." Treat these notes like they're the end of a G.I. Joe episode.

A Glorious General, If Not a Glorious Episode (Review)

Series: Rome
Episode Title: "An Owl in a Thornbush"
Original Air Date: September 11, 2005
Grade: C+

Three episodes in the history of a show isn't much of a sample size, but with the shorter seasons employed by HBO dramas (Rome got 12 episodes in its first season) this point isn't too soon to begin asking broader questions about the direction of the enterprise. In the case of Rome, that question is simple: what exactly does the show want to be? Is it a grand historical drama concerned with the world-shaping events surrounding the fall of the Roman Republic, or is it more interested in the lives of ordinary men and women and investigating how those lives are affected by the grand events?

Through three episodes, including this week's middling affair, that question remains unanswered. Instead, Rome seems to be trying for a hybrid approach, where the larger events are foregrounded, but viewed through the eyes of those either outside the circles of power or right on their peripheries. The result so far has been a relatively dissatisfying amalgam, where the machinations of the powerful are rendered dull and the lives of the less powerful characters aren't given enough detail to be truly compelling, with one notable exception.

The most notable example of this dynamic in "An Owl in a Thornbush," which is largely set in Rome as Caesar approaches and Pompey and the Senatorial class flees to a better strategic situation, is the side plot featuring Octavia and her ex-husband Glabius. If you've forgotten about these two, don't feel bad; we should all be so lucky.

Octavia was happily married to Glabius, before her mother Atia broke the marriage in an attempt to connect Octavia with Pompey. Octavia whined about it in the second episode, and this week she sneaks out of her home in the middle of the night for a tryst with her beloved ex. Atia finds about it, dispatches a man to take care of things and, yada yada yada, Glabius ends up with a sword in his stomach, which will happen in Rome, even today.

All of this is supposed to be terribly sad, especially the scene where Octavia stumbles across Glabius' corpse, then confronts Atia, only to have her mother lie and say she had nothing to do with the murder. The idea here, I think, is to reveal the corruption of power and the extent of Atia's ruthlessness.

But this fails as plot because Glabius is a non-entity who ends up with about two and a half minutes of screen time, and Octavia, while more prominent within the show, has been given no real characterization to speak of. And it fails as character work because Atia's ruthlessness and power hunger have already been amply demonstrated. In short, I don't care about Octavia, I don't care about Glabius and Atia is much more entertaining in other contexts.

The show simply hasn't devoted enough time to Octavia to make me care about her little tragedies, and when it counts around to reminding us that she exists it's simply not enough to actually create compelling drama.

I mentioned above that one element of this show is clicking so far, and that element continues to be Kevin McKidd's Lucius Vorenus. Dispatched with new BFF Titus Pullo to scout ahead of Caesar's march and avoid combat, Vorenus is instead concerned with two things: his wife and his soul.

McKidd in this episode continues to do fantastic work conveying the torment of a traditionalist and a religious man swept up into a rebellion he neither understands nor supports. He is a member of the 13th Legion and does his duty, but he does so always with the understanding that he is damning himself and his country in the eyes of his gods.

Lucius explains the baffling fact that his scouts find no resistance as they advance (Pompey has fled Rome with most of the nobles) with the belief that the gods have withdrawn their favor from Rome and no longer protect the city. It is a staggering realization for a man such as Vorenus, and McKidd plays it well, with just the right mix of pious anger and despair.

Vorenus is also concerned about his wife, whose distaste he is aware of, and again, this is handled in a way that resonates with what we know of the character. As he says, "I love her and I require she love me also, or else I am only her slave, and I cannot tolerate that."

This is the thinking of a man who loves his wife but is also of his time; he wants his wife to be happy because he loves her, but the "or else I am only her slave" clause is not some sort of masculine chest-thumping or attempt to cover his feelings. Vorenus is a proud man of 1st century Rome, and proud men of 1st century Rome are not in positions of weakness vis a vis their wives.

Vorenus's storyline in this episode ends with the momentous decision to leave the 13th Legion, a decision made after he and Pullo enter Rome and nail Caesar's proclamation to the Senate door. He prays to Venus for his wife's love, but again, while this is a reflection of the depth of his feelings for Niobe, it is still the prayer of a Roman man. He does not ask to be a better man to earn that love; instead, he offers his blood so that Venus will give him that love.

But that pride crumbles when he finally sees Niobe, and the words he says to her, while shrouded still in a measure of Roman pomposity, are humble, almost plaintive. "I've been sullen....cold...but I'm not made of stone...I can change. I swear on the life of my daughter's son that I will change if you will have it so."

This ends with Vorenus embracing his wife, who seemed on the verge of confessing her infidelity. The point is left ambiguous. Does Vorenus understand that the baby in the other room is his wife's by another man and has decided to forgive Niobe? If not, the inevitable revelation will prove an interesting test of the "new" Vorenus.

Notes

• "Of course, the best way to please a woman is with the wet, beating heart of an enemy. They say they don't like it, but they do." Titus Pullo's idea of the perfect Valentine's Day present.
• Vorenus is quite shocked to learn of the existence of the clitoris.
• There's a weird, abortive sub-plot here with a group of soldiers stealing gold from Rome's treasury, only to have the great misfortune of running into Vorenus and Pullo, who solve things the way they usually do: with stabbing. Pullo returns to the scene later, discovers the gold, then takes the cart away just as Caesar's column approaches. I imagine he ends up rich and satisfied in a life of splendor.
• Polly Walker, who plays Atia, really is wonderfully entertaining in a comedic context. Her instructions as to who will kill who as an angry mob gathers outside her door are hilarious. To a slave: "You must kill yourself. Your survival would be inappropriate." To her son: "Octavian, who would you prefer to kill you?"
• With Pompey and all his supporters fled, and Rome now in the hands of Caesar, Atia is running a nifty little protection racket, extorting money from local businessmen in exchange for Caesar's favor. Good thing that practice died out thousands of years ago. I'd hate to think any Italians would ever get the idea of doing something so unethical. 

Of Traditions, Tribunes and Rubicons (Review)

Series: Rome
Episode Title: "How Titus Pullo Brought Down The Republic"
Original Air Date: September 11, 2005
Grade: B

One of the thematic threads I expect Rome to weave throughout its narrative is the question of how tradition affects the behavior of the people in this world. The Roman Republic was full of traditions, most religious, which governed everyday life. Rome was hardly unique in that, and an observer in the 1st century BC would be hard pressed not to see the hand of a benevolent deity (or seven) in the unlikely rise of a small village to global superpower status.

"How Titus Pullo Brought Down the Republic," aside from representing a significant improvement on Rome's pilot episode, is concerned primarily with exactly that theme. How our characters grapple with the web of traditions in ancient Rome is what defines them in this episode, and those same traditions play a huge role in pushing forward the inevitable break between Caesar and the Senate in Rome.

The most fascinating work here is from Lucius Vorenus, who accompanies Antony to Rome at the request of Caesar, who is hanging around with the 13th Legion outside of Italy while his consulate ticks to a close. Antony is being named Tribune, a kind of people's representative inside the noble Senate, and Vorenus and Pullo are tabbed with escort duty.

Vorenus has his own concerns: he is seeing his wife for the first time in eight years. Vorenus is the representative of tradition in this episode, a believer in the values and rituals that define the Roman Republic and earned it divine protection.

This makes him the most interesting and challenging character we've seen through two episodes. Vorenus isn't an anti-hero in the same sense as Tony Soprano or Walter White, a man who is compelling while violating the standards and mores of his culture. He is, instead, an excellent man by the standards of his time. It's just that the standards of his time are so alien and loathsome to our own.

Vorenus' interactions with his wife Niobe in this episode are cruel when they aren't awkward, clueless when they aren't cruel, heartbreaking when they aren't clueless. One of the first words out of his mouth when speaking to his wife after eight years of separation is "Whore!" See, Niobe is holding a child who is clearly not eight years old, and Vorenus' rage is only slightly assuaged upon hearing that the child is his daughter's by a young plebian boy.

These scenes with Vorenus, his wife and their daughters do a remarkable job capturing all the difficulties that would arise after an eight-year military separation. Niobe has to introduce Vorenus to his daughters. The entire domestic scene, with a crying granddaughter and a miserable wife, is alien to Vorenus, who handles it as a Roman man would: by berating and criticizing his wife.

This is all difficult to watch, but it also makes sense for the character and setting. The show's attempt to establish a dichotomy between the traditionalist Vorenus and the more iconoclastic Titus are rather clumsily handled and less effective; Titus is still in the mode where he baldly states all his motivations, and those motivations are neither particularly compelling or expressed with any great skill or eloquence.

The links betwen Pullo and Antony, on the other hand, are more interesting, as the show is better at showing Antony's disregard for tradition and cultural mores than it is with Pullo. The two are separated by status and power, but they are of a type.

We'll move past the scene with Antony having sex behind a tree while his army stands 20 feet away and focus instead on how he behaves in Rome. Rome loves its elaborate ceremonies, especially for those holding public office, and Antony impatiently has to sit while priests chant and dance around him. When it's all over, Antony's groan of pleasure is cleverly paired with Pullo's in a brothel.

Antony's primary purpose in Rome is to meet with Pomey, Cicero and Cato and work out some kind of compromise. Or, more accurately, his primary purpose is to feign compromise and provoke the Senators into moving against Caesar by being his arrogant, brutish self. Caesar's strategy works too well; Pompey puts forward a motion in the Senate to send Caesar an ultimatum with the expectation that Antony would exercise his tribunal veto.

Pompey is not particularly clear or convincing in explaining the point of this (something about sending Caesar a message), and it's one of the episode's weaknesses. Regardless, the plan falls apart when the Senate degenerates into chaos following Pompey's motion; Antony's veto is never heard or recognized, and the ancient man running the Senate insists per Roman tradition that the motion has the full force of law. "This is a religious issue, and there are no tricks in religion," he wheezes.

Pompey and Cicero find a loophole: the Senate's hearing was never officially adjourned, which means the Senate is still technically in session. However, this idea falls apart in exactly the way Pompey fears it might: a fight breaks out in the Forum as Antony heads to the Senate to veto the ultimatum when Pullo recognizes a man who helped wound him in a bar fight a few nights earlier.

Antony flees to a now-outlawed Caesar with Pullo and a wounded Vorenus, and here we get the portrait of a man who handles tradition differently than either Antony or Vorenus. Caesar exploits Rome's traditions for his own purposes, exhorting his previously mutinous soldiers by detailing the blasphemous way the people's Tribune was accosted in the forum.

This has the appropriate effect: Caesar's soldiers are outraged and rally behind their general, and he marches across the Rubicon into Italy with only the slightest hesitation. This is the first time the show really makes Caesar a noteworthy presence. Where traditions bind Vorenus and annoy Antony, Caesar knows how to make them work for him.

Notes

• The final scenes in the military camp really do an excellent job of showing Caesar as the master manipulator he was in real life. A bruised and bloodied Antony goes to wash himself, but Caesar wants the visual for his soldiers' benefit.
• Antony, Cato, Cicero and Pompey have a meeting at Atia's house. Cato: "Woman, this meeting is invisible." Atia: "Be assured Cato, I do not see you."
• Cato is outraged that Antony is wearing the red cape of a soldier within the borders of Rome, another nice little bit on Roman tradition.
• The Atia Sex Watch: Yep, she has some. With Antony this time.
• Octavia gets her first entertaining moment of the series, mocking Atia by mimicking her mother's orgasm noises. The most amusing aspect of the scene is Atia's utter lack of shame throughout.
• There's a really cool, painful scene of Pullo undergoing primitive Roman brain surgery after his bar fight, including a moment where the doctor pounds a nail into Pullo's skull. Presumably this is the future of American medicine post-Obamacare.
• Vorenus overhears his wife telling a convalescing Pullo how miserable she is. This is more than a little Three's Company-esque for my liking.
• Vorenus acquiesces to his daughter marrying the plebian after hearing that his family makes decent money driving herds of cattle around. He's initially a little skeptical about the kid, as his house is built from cow dung, but the kid assures him, "It's very hygienic. It doesn't smell at all."
• Oh, turns out the baby is Niobe's, which we find out in a last second revelation that is not nearly as dramatic as the show thinks it is. 

The Series Wasn't Built in a Day (Review)

Series: Rome
Episode Title: "The Stolen Eagle"
Original Air Date: August 25, 2005
Grade: C

There is perhaps no hoarier cliche when talking about television than, "Pilots are hard." It's accurate, of course, but that doesn't make the sentiment any less obvious or any more insightful.

So, forgive me then: pilots are hard. And Rome is a truly outstanding example of that particular sentiment.

Things start off poorly, with a voiceover providing what must have seemed like crucial exposition. "Rome rules a lot of nations! But it can't rule itself! Nobles don't like poor people and poor people don't like nobles! Here are Caesar and Pompey!" It's all terribly dull, and in that respect sets a perfect tone for what follows.

We start this series, as we should start every series, with a battle scene, and while it's obviously handicapped by budgetary concerns (we see about seven Romans and maybe a dozen Gauls), it's a nice way of providing insight into our main characters, Titus Pollo (Ray Stevenson) and Lucius Vorenus (the well-traveled Kevin McKidd). The discipline and skill of the Romans is well-displayed here, and Pollo breaking formation is treated with the appropriate seriousness.

After this, however, the episode degenerates. There's a lot that goes wrong here, but the chief sin is that it's dull.

Oh, things happen, and it's easy enough to see how they will become more interesting in the future. Caesar (Ciaran Hinds) accepts the surrender of the Celt chieftain Vercingetorix, then finds out that his daughter Julia, who is married to his ally and co-consul Pompey (Kenneth Cranham), has died in child birth. Caesar's first reaction to this news is to try and find another member of the Julii clan to marry Pompey and keep the consular alliance strong.

Meanwhile, his relative Atia (Polly Walker), who, in traditional HBO fashion, we are introduced to in the middle of a sex scene, conscripts her son Octavian (played with admirable sullenness by Max Pirkis) to take a beautiful horse to Caesar in Gaul and good lord we're 10 minutes in and I'm already bored.

There are elements of this episode that work. When Caesar's eagle standard is stolen by a couple of "Spaniards" who are painted blue, the legion reacts with appropriate ferocity. Vorenus is given the task of retrieving the standard, and starts by crucifying a member of every tribe in the area. It's an effective scene, and McKidd plays it just right: efficient, mechanical, ruthless without being ostentatiously cruel.

Vorenus and Pollo (who was thrown in prison and sentenced to death for breaking formation, only to be sprung by Vorenus in order to help search for the standard) search fruitlessly for a while. During one of the breaks, Pollo has is made to explicitly lay out his entire character motivation, saying, "Kill my enemy, steal his gold, take his women. What else is there?"

The two find the standard...when they find Octavian, who was captured during his trip by what we assumed were Gauls. What follows is probably the worst scene in the episode. Octavian immediately spells out, in tedious detail, exactly what is happening. See, Caesar doesn't care about the standard. Caesar knows Pompey cares and will consider the theft a sign of weakness. This will tempt Pompey to strike first, which gives Caesar the moral high ground to fight back.

Oh, and it turns out Pompey sent some of his slaves to steal the standard. Caesar discovers this and is overjoyed, as it plays right into his hands.

We are supposed to be impressed by Octavian's intelligence and insight, but this comes off far less as the explanation of a politically shrewd observer and more as a writer's device for spelling out the plot.

There are some other elements to this episode, which I'll briefly discuss in the notes. However, "The Stolen Eagle" illustrates exactly why pilots are so difficult. You have to introduce your audience to your characters, your stories and your world, and you have one episode in which to do it. Corners are cut on character development, and so you're left with Pollo baldly explaining his mentality and Octavian getting an unrealistic, unearned moment of brilliance in place of actual, demonstrated intelligence.

The pilot episode of Rome falls short on just about every front. It was, perhaps, a necessity for a show set in as large and complicated a world as ancient Rome. But it simply is not an entertaining hour of television.

Notes

• The other significant storyline here is Atia convincing her daughter Octavia to divorce her husband and marry Pompey. Octavia is adamantly opposed, and is then convinced with 20 seconds of persuasion.
• The scene where Atia introduces Octavia and Pompey is utterly creepy in all the right ways. Octavia's makeup and hair look utterly clownish, and Atia explicitly whores out her daughter ("You can take your groom's right immediately. Right now, if you wish.").
• Of course, it's all meaningless, as Pompey ends up marrying another noblewoman. Turns out he decided to turn on Caesar the moment Julia died. Octavia shouts for Pompey's head, which is an amusingly severe and quick shift in personality.
• An imprisoned Pollo calls his jailers "Piss-drinking sons of circus whores," which should probably make its way into Obama's next press conference.
• There's a scene in the Senate where Pompey defends Caesar. The show does a great job catching the stilted, mannered gestures of the Roman Senators. 
• Cato, on the other hand, is not nearly as interesting as the severe, fanatical ascetic he was in the real world. 
• I suspect that's not the only unnecessary scene of Atila having sex we're going to be presented with, is it? 

The Glory That Was Greece, The Grandeur That Were "Rome" Reviews

I mentioned the other day that I intended to watch and write about some recent, well-regarded shows that, as a productive member of society for the first time in my life, I now have access to. There's no reason at all to delay that, so starting tomorrow I will be watching and reviewing HBO's Rome.

HBO has a few more critically acclaimed series available; I can watch The Sopranos or The Wire right now. So, why Rome? 

I was a classics minor in college, and while "Classical Studies" was pretty much just code for "History, But Greece and Rome," the latter has always been by far the more intriguing subject to me. I was always more of a "Fall of Rome" guy than a Caesar guy; like Ken Levine and George R.R. Martin, I find something extraordinarily fascinating about watching the collapse of something that once was great.

But, of course, the creation of the extraordinary is also of tremendous interest, and there's no lack of drama to be found in the stories of Caesar, Antony and Octavian. The story of Rome is an exceptional one, and not easy to tell.

I am most interested in seeing how Rome, a series, however generously funded by HBO for its two seasons, that still dealt with all the limitations of the television medium, strikes a balance between the larger picture of the Roman Empire and the smaller bore stories of its characters. I will go into this question in more detail later, depending on how the show develops, but it will suffice to say that stories of massive historical events that attempt to focus on in-depth character studies, so as to provide the larger context with color and meaning, can miss the grand sweep of history that makes the stories so fascinating in the first place.

But we'll get to that soon enough. Look for the first review in this space tomorrow. The schedule after that will likely be a little sporadic, but I can promise reviews will appear at least once a week.