Spartacus Episode (season 1 Episode 1)
Autumn Pitz
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).
It's not that I was surprised to see Varro die, it's that I was surprised by *why* and *how* he died. It made me sit up and go "Illythia, you DICK!"
Because, I mean, that was evil, impressively so, in a way I simply didn't see coming until the second Batiatus told the kid to decide the loser's fate. Before that I was going "huh?" and thinking she was trying to make Crixus angry, or trying to get out from under Lucretia's thumb because she knew that the "insult" to Crixus would make Lucy go all Axe Crazy on the kid who was key to Batty's ambitions.
Illythia's scheme was brilliantly evil. It was a win for her no matter what happened. If Spartacus wins, he's forced to murder his friend. If Varro wins, he's forced to kill Spartacus. (If they balk long enough out of friendship, they both die.)
However it turns out, Spartacus suffers. That really was cunning.
I'd say that Lucretia better watch her back. She thinks she's got Illythia over a barrel, but if she pushes her far enough, Illythia will turn that vicious cleverness in her direction. (Okay, it'll happen eventually anyhow, but it'll happen that much sooner....)
Oh man. Your profile says you're a SUSE fan and that you think the worst critics of the US are in the USA, but, despite being crazy, anyone who'd sign up with a username of Sinanju, nine years ago, I must love.
So I love you!
(But yes. Her plan was *the perfect storm* of awesome for a manipulative Citizen. No matter the result, the person she hates suffers *and* cannot respond even if he figures out the source of the problem. And, for *real* bonus points, the exact method of her revenge fooled me until the few seconds before it happened, leaving me with reactions that went "What's she up to? Oh, she didn't. Fuck, she did. Crap, they're FUCKED", in about that speed - which makes for infinitely entertaining TV)
You know, I completely agreed that Varro was going to get offed, but it wasn't until this episode (what with all the blatant BFFing going on) that I actually became worried about it. I think I'd said it before, that until now, Spartacus has been to preoccupied with his own crap to really have much invested in his friendship with Varro.
I'm pretty sure my tweet when Ilythia saw them being BFFs was simply "Uh oh." Because that sealed it. (That she would seduce a 15-year-old to do it, I did not anticipate.)
I really don't have much of an idea what will happen to Ilythia now. A little part of me is imagining her and Ashur crossing paths. Seeing as she's got a secret, and he's profoundly good at learning things he shouldn't. And she's, well, profoundly good at fucking people up. I think their face-off could be pretty impressive.
All that being said: I AM GOING TO MISS VARRO'S STUPID BLOND CURLS ;_______;
Speaking of the seduction of the 15 year-old, I was amused by watching how they cut that scene to show us Illythia undressing in front of and seducing the boy without actually filming it. From the point at which she starts undressing, they start cutting back and forth, but you don't see them in the same shot again.
Oh, I'm absolutely certain of it. They can't have a 15 year-old boy in a scene with a nude woman. Not legally, I'm sure.
Which is why I was entertained by watching how they cut the scene the way they did. There's no doubt whatsoever about what was going on, but they could (and no doubt did) shoot them separately for most of it.
My thoughts exactly. I remember thinking briefly, after the episode was over, that there was totally an off-camera sex scene, and for this show that is WEIRD. But I am SO GLAD that's how they did it/had to do it. The scene creeped me out enough as it was.
A little part of me is imagining her and Ashur crossing paths. Seeing as she's got a secret, and he's profoundly good at learning things he shouldn't. And she's, well, profoundly good at fucking people up. I think their face-off could be pretty impressive.
Ooh, good call. Either they kill each other, or they get along like an evil house on fire.
I think I knew that Varro was a goner when he made up with his wife.
That said, I didn't catch on what exactly would happen until the kid picked Varro to oppose Spartacus. Illyria is *evil.*
Amphora? Or maybe a krater. That's a Greek thing, originally, but the Romans used picked it up. The krater was basically a punchbowl, if you were serving watered wine, but sometimes it was used like a champagne bucket (fill it with ice, put your amphora or whatever in it, and the wine stayed cool). I think "kratered" kind of has a nice ring to it. Or we could just say "jugged."
I always expected Varro to die, even at Spartacu's own hand. It was just the SUDDENNESS that shocked me. There was no "oh hey, he's totally going to die in this episode" giveaway. And for as much as he's underwhelmed me in the past, Jai Courtney did an excellent job with that scene.
Anyway, the episode begins with a trench full of dead. Two slaves are trying to climb out, and are impaled by the Roman soldiers manning the wall on the opposite side of the trench. Crassus is not Every Other Roman General we have come across. Crassus has the wherewithal to outsmart Spartacus. As the episode progresses, two camps develop in the rebel army, one favouring assault and one favouring a more patient approach. From this, as it has for the last two seasons, the episode gets most of the drama. Crixus and the usual suspects favour an all out assault, Spartacus a more nuanced route.
The second set piece is where the episode, and the writers, really let the show down. The trench and fort, we are told, were supposed to have an army of thousands stationed in it. Spartacus has a moment of clarity halfway through and realises that, much like the plotting of the series, it is an illusion. Cue the main characters assaulting the fortress we were told was impenetrable, taking it with ease and creating a route to escape the jaws of death with the rest of the rebels and refugees.
In any event, when she turns around, monstrous Getae are waiting for her. They manage to capture her, but before anything bad can happen, a sword flies through the air and strikes down one of the foes in a stylized, over-the-top explosion of violence that is normal for this show. Spartacus has arrived just in time to defeat all of them and he runs away with his wife. However, disaster befalls them at every turn. Their village has been destroyed by their rivals, left unchecked by the Romans.
Travel across the Apenines is not a trivial affair and it would make more sense for the ship to travel via the Aegean and the Straits of Sicily towards Campania. (In a third-season episode, Spartacus even says that he never saw Neapolis as he was shipped via the Adriatic, but why?)
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.
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