Last night's episode of Spartacus had a lot of
everything, and left little room for air. Between the fighting, the plotting,
the pirates, a couple of steamy moments and some seriously gory ones, it's
going to be a bit trickier to step back and take a look at where everything
landed when all was said and done. Spartacus may have won what barely qualified
as a battle, but this war is far from over.
The episode opened with an uplifting moment as we see shackles being melted down and turned into swords. It's a great way to approach the story, as we see slaves continuously turned to soldiers as Spartacus' army grows. But there are problems at Sinuessa en Valle. While Spartacus has his hands full with his own responsibilities, the prisoners are starving and they're not being tended to by the most compassionate people.
Granted, Gannicus, Crixus, Naevia and
the rest of the soldiers are pretty anti-Roman, but it was hard to watch Crixus
send a baker and some other guy into a make-shift arena to fight to the death
for some scraps of bread. The baker, who got into the initial scuffle trying to
get some carbs into his pregnant wife, ended up winning the fight, just barely.
Crixus turned his back to walk away, generally dismissive toward the whole
thing, and that's when the baker lunged. He was either going for the sword or
the bread. It wasn't entirely clear, but Naevia determined that it was the
sword and she quickly put hers through the man's hand.
Now, Naevia and Crixus haven't ever
really been the life of the party. Sure, before Naevia was subjected to torture
and abuse, she was a smiling, kind, good-natured woman, but present Naevia is
serious to the point of severe. Crixus has always been kind of subdued, at
least by comparison to the more garish Gannicus. But these two seem to be
pumped with rage these days. Maybe it's all the fighting and blood. Or maybe
the down-time they're getting inside the walled city is making them irritable.
Either way, I didn't love seeing Crixus forcing two men to hurt each other for
food, or Naevia's quick and violent reaction to what might have been a threat.
Naevia's distaste toward the kindly
looking baker turned out to have to do with associations she had with nice guys
who turn out to be not-so-nice at all. During her imprisonment, she was taken
care of by a nice man - a husband and father - who fed her and took care of
her, then carried her off in the quiet of night and did horrible things to her
with tools. The glimpses of the flashbacks were enough to demonstrate and
remind us of the damage that was done to Naevia on both a physical and
emotional level. So when she sees a nice baker, she's reminded of a man who
looked nice, but was anything but. And maybe that made it a little easier to
slice half of his hand off.
But what about Attius? Naevia
believed he was betraying them, so she tracked him down, provoked him, fought
and killed him. Sure, Attius' betrayal seemed kind of inevitable. He's already
proven to be an opportunist, willing to work for the highest bidder. But his
death looked like another demonstration of Naevia's short fuse. And that could
be a major problem in the future.
What wasn't a major problem?
Tiberius. Poor kid. Talk about the worst timing ever. When a Roman brought word
back to TIberius that Spartacus' army was in Sinuessa en Valle, Caesar brushed
it off and killed the man, but Tiberius decided to pursue the lead, in spite of
the fact that his father said not to engage with Spartacus if he found him.
Had Tiberius found Spartacus In the
city, his army might have had a better shot at orchestrating an attack or, at
the very least, cornering them. But he happened upon Spartacus and his men when
they were outside the walls, meeting with a bunch of pirates to do some
business. Spartacus' dealing with the pirates were already strained and
tentative on both sides, so when the fighting started, there was a moment's
hesitation when it seemed like maybe the pirates betrayed them. But as soon as
they saw from which direction the weapons were coming, everyone turned around
and began fighting Romans.
And then the lead pirate signaled for
the canons and demonstrated just how well ships can fight from the shore. The
bloodbath turned into a fire and melted skin bath, which is about as gross as
it sounds. Romans retreated, Tiberius got his side slashed open but managed to
escape, and Spartacus' men returned to the city, minus a few soldiers but
appearing relatively unscathed.
It wasn't all bloodshed and
screaming, burning Romans. There was time for love. Agron and Nasir got it on
after one of the pirates hit on Nasir (and Agron responded by pounding on said
pirate). And then there was the sweet, innocent woman who wanted to
"thank" Gannicus for saving her life. Saxa saw an opportunity to give
her man a gift and brought the woman back to their house to dress her in sheer
fabric and present her to a drunk Gannicus when he returned from the pirate
orgy that was taking place nearby.
Gannicus refused the virginal looking
woman, but not after staring at her intently and seemingly admirably. I'm
thinking it was far less about him not wanting her as it was knowing she's
young and probably very innocent. I sometimes wonder if I read too much into
Gannicus and his choices, but just as I think he refuses leadership because he
knows he can't handle the responsibility of having other people's lives on his
hands (and conscience), I think he refused this girl because he could see it
was too serious a situation. Too big of a deal for her, maybe. I'm not even
sure, but I think it was less about him having a physical preference for more
experienced women as it is about avoiding anything serious or potentially
life-changing for someone else. I'm just waiting for that to catch up with him.
It seems like it has to. At some point, he'll end up with a burden heavier than
his sword. But right now, that seems like that's the only thing he's willing to
carry.
And that about wraps it up for the
night. Tiberius is injured. Is it fatal? We don't know yet, but that injury
might slow him down from getting word back to his father of Spartacus'
confirmed whereabouts - assuming Caesar's not already doing that. And at the
very least, Spartacus knows they know where he is. He has other issues to deal
with, like the prisoners and the issues inside the city. He let Laeta out of
her confines after she helped him and he kept her from becoming a pirate's
slave. Laeta's now left to tend to the needs of the prisoners - a role someone
needed to fill, given how things began tonight. And I'll be interested to see
if anything further develops between Spartacus and Laeta, who seemed to find
some common ground tonight.
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