Re: Spartacus Full Episodes
Anahí Keoshia
Spartacus is an American historical epic series created by Steven S. DeKnight, who served as an executive producer alongside Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert. The series tells the story of a Thracian warrior who leads a rebellion against the Roman Republic. Initially the warrior, whose name is not given, agrees to fight alongside the Roman army to help defeat barbarians from a rival tribe, but he returns home to defend his village when a Roman general decides to abandon the warrior's village and ignore the barbarians to pursue glory elsewhere. Captured by the Romans as a deserter, his wife forced into slavery, the warrior is taken to Capua to be put to death by gladiators before the public. Here the warrior proves his worth as a fighter and is sent to the House of Batiatus to be trained as a gladiator, earning the name Spartacus (Batiatus names him after a 'legendary Thracian king').[1] The series premiered on the Starz Network on January 22, 2010 and aired its final episode on April 12. 2013.
For the first season, the role of Spartacus was played by Andy Whitfield, who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma at the completion of the first season.[2] Although in June 2010 Whitfield was reported to be healthy and cancer free,[3] in September his cancer returned[4] and he died on 11 September 2011.[5]Australian actor Liam McIntyre took over the role of Spartacus from Season 2.[6] A total of 33 episodes of Spartacus were broadcast over three seasons. A six-part prequel miniseries entitled Spartacus: Gods of the Arena was also broadcast between Seasons 1 and 2 (in 2011).
On Friday's Spartacus: War of the Damned, the rebel forces parted ways... permanently. Spartacus (Liam McIntyre) led the fugitives north toward the Alps and the promise of freedom, while Crixus (Manu Bennett) took his group westward towards Rome and ultimately, to their death. And although Crixus' defeat was disheartening, it was to be expected. "Well, historically, it was going to be the case anyway," Bennett tells TVGuide.com. "Anyone who went onto Wikipedia knew."
It's a bittersweet ending for Bennett, who is the only actor to have starred in all three seasons of Spartacus and the prequel series. That means that he's one of the few who has worked with both of the men who portrayed the series' titular hero: the late Andy Whitfield who died of non-Hodgkin lymphoma after portraying Spartacus in the first season and McIntyre, who took over the role in the second season onward.
"We had a lovely moment [in my final episode] where I said to Spartacus, 'I once said we could have been as brothers,'" Bennett says. "It was a homage to a similar moment I also had in the first season with Andy Whitfield. So that was a very poignant moment for me in terms of going full circle with this television show." Bennett had also been a vocal supporter of the Kickstarter campaign to raise money for Be Here Now, a documentary that chronicles Whitfield's battle with cancer, and called his former co-star a "great, great man."
Bennett: They treated it beautifully. ... Most bodies just flop to the ground in this kind of unceremonious splatter of blood that is very dehumanizing to the spirit of most characters that get killed on our show. Whereas they didn't show that mortal end for Crixus. They decided to make it poetic and shoot into the eye of Naevia. ... It made it somehow just an emotion, much like a lot of his story line with Naevia was. It was almost semi-romantic.
Bennett: They did. Funnily enough, it came back looking nothing like me. In fact, it looked like one of our stunt guys. We were all laughing. ... I still haven't seen the following episode when it's presented to know whether or not it looks like me.
Bennett: Crixus keeps trying to say to Spartacus, "Why are we turning from the Romans?" Spartacus is always saying, "Because we're trying to free these people, not get them all killed." And Crixus is like, "We can use them as an army and wipe out the Romans forever." Crixus made a decision to take who he could, and Spartacus took who he could. In any historic reference to battles where forces are divided, they don't actually end victorious. You can see that the division of numbers can be also critical.
What do you make of Naevia becoming the most bloodthirsty rebel of them all this season? She chopped Ulpianus' hand in half when he reached for bread, and she killed Attius (Cohen Holloway) for a crime he never committed!
Bennett: When it came to the Ulpianus (Charlie Bleakley) hand-slicing moment, she unraveled yet again. ... Reading all the blog sites, I saw there was a lot of venting against Naevia, saying, "What's she doing? She's crazy! She's going to drag Crixus to his death." With her newfound bloodlust to take vengeance against Romans, she veered Crixus off into the same direction. He knew that he'd either hold her hand in some sense of eternal love, whether it'd be running off into the sunset or turning towards the gates of Rome. He always knew it was one or the other. Crixus was hoping for a more romantic end to his scenario with Naevia.
Bennett: Unfortunately, there's little Tiberius behind me with his spear, so that Crixus is brought down by this child, which is quite profound. He's brought down by the symbolic youth of Rome, the future of Rome. ... He can't overpower Rome because symbolically it's got that ongoing force that's going to go on for centuries to come.
Bennett: At the time, I went up to [Spartacus executive producer Steven] DeKnight, intrigued, and said, "Why am I taking this sword?" No one had given me an answer on it, except, "That sword comes in later on in the season." So we shot this scene where Crixus did examine this sword, and it was the harbinger of his own demise further down the line.
Bennett: Well, because I finished two episodes out from the end of the series, I ended up heading off to L.A. and whatnot. We got this email saying, "For those of you who are interested in acquiring things from set, don't even ask because it's all being shipped off to Starz to be auctioned." It was lousy. I really wanted Crixus' outfit from the last scene. But the thing is, we were recently in New York for a promo, and I nicked one of the swords there. [Laughs] We were ringing the NASDAQ bell, and I made the suggestion that we have swords, and they said, "Oh, that's a good idea," so they flew all of these swords down to New York from the Starz headquarters. Then I had the sword in my sights. ... I kind of snuck out the back door with it.
This episode was so awesome. It was character driven rather than plot driven, and it just hit all the right fucking points. Well done, Starz. Well done. I think this may be my favorite of the Gods of the Arena episodes. So much mind-fuckery happens. I should stop blabbing about how good it was and just review it yes?
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