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Rome, episode 3
You know, now that I think about it, what's the point of a spoiler cut for a show like this? I mean, I have no sympathy for people who don't know how Caesar's story ends. Bring on the ides! But for the squeamish and the uninterested, I will cut:
Remember how I said after the first week that they'd gotten the casting wrong? That they'd somehow managed to switch Cato and Cicero, since Cicero is Pompey's age and Cato is relatively young? It works if you switch the dialogue, as well. The exchange between "Cato" and Pompey about leaving Rome was pure Cicero and Pompey -- Cicero is all "are you insane?" at the thought of abandoning the city and Pompey's response is basically "Hello? Which of us is the military genius? That's right -- not you!"
It's not like you can't find all this stuff in Cicero's letters. I suppose the writers might have glanced at those, but you wouldn't know it.
We spent the whole episode thinking that the man Pompey sends to get the treasury was supposed to be Curio, and laughed like maniacs because we thought that, if it was Curio, he'd take the gold and head for Caesar's camp, and that would be a neat way of putting Curio back into the story and getting a sense of how he did Popmey over by switching sides. Sadly, no.
Instead, Titus Pullo ended up driving off with the girl and the cart full of gold! How sweet was that? I loved it!
And this is the thing. I really like the story of Pullo and Vorenus, and I like those characters. Atia gets some good lines (although I have issues with the representation of unrestrained female sexuality in Late Republican Rome, and will have to write something about why that's a problem). But the political history is just careless. I keep having to take deep breaths and say "not for me, not for me." It's very frustrating, because I love this stuff, and I think it could be very dramatic, and I hate the way it gets short-changed.
Not wrtten for me. Words to live by, you know?
Remember how I said after the first week that they'd gotten the casting wrong? That they'd somehow managed to switch Cato and Cicero, since Cicero is Pompey's age and Cato is relatively young? It works if you switch the dialogue, as well. The exchange between "Cato" and Pompey about leaving Rome was pure Cicero and Pompey -- Cicero is all "are you insane?" at the thought of abandoning the city and Pompey's response is basically "Hello? Which of us is the military genius? That's right -- not you!"
It's not like you can't find all this stuff in Cicero's letters. I suppose the writers might have glanced at those, but you wouldn't know it.
We spent the whole episode thinking that the man Pompey sends to get the treasury was supposed to be Curio, and laughed like maniacs because we thought that, if it was Curio, he'd take the gold and head for Caesar's camp, and that would be a neat way of putting Curio back into the story and getting a sense of how he did Popmey over by switching sides. Sadly, no.
Instead, Titus Pullo ended up driving off with the girl and the cart full of gold! How sweet was that? I loved it!
And this is the thing. I really like the story of Pullo and Vorenus, and I like those characters. Atia gets some good lines (although I have issues with the representation of unrestrained female sexuality in Late Republican Rome, and will have to write something about why that's a problem). But the political history is just careless. I keep having to take deep breaths and say "not for me, not for me." It's very frustrating, because I love this stuff, and I think it could be very dramatic, and I hate the way it gets short-changed.
Not wrtten for me. Words to live by, you know?
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I LOVE that Titus stole the gold. Hee hee! He really IS a pirate, isn't he? Also, Titus's advice to the lovelorn is priceless (and makes me think he got a long way by sweet-talking, not just by paying and pillaging, you know?)
The politics? I kinda close my eyes a little. And focus on dishevelled Antony ;)
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It turns out the guy with the money was called "Durio." Too bad.
Mostly, the stuff with Titus and Lucius saves it for me. I love that he went back for the girl and ended up with the whole treasury. That was wonderful!
no subject
Hee! I think the third year of high-school Latin may have killed that for me. Although there was a recent bio I was thinking of reading, if only I could remember who wrote it. Do you know what I’m talking about and if so was it any good?
It turns out the guy with the money was called "Durio." Too bad.
THAT was a cheap trick!
Mostly, the stuff with Titus and Lucius saves it for me. I love that he went back for the girl and ended up with the whole treasury. That was wonderful!
Yeah, I’m pretty much really watching for my piratical husband and his honorable sidekick ;) And the occasional lounging Antony.
no subject
I know! Although I guess if it had been Curio, he would have taken the gold to Caesar, and Pullo would never have gotten it. Which would have been sad.
I like their Brutus, too, probably because I've always suspected that Brutus was a total waste of space. And because he's cute in a foppish way.
Re: here via coffee_and_ink
no subject
In the end, I do love Pullo and Vorenus.
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::sigh:: I like it, really. I'm just a nit-picker on this stuff.
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TITUS PULLO IS A GENIUS. We kept rewinding his love advice scene. "Attend to that button." ::dies:: And he goes to rescue the girl! And finds the gold! And briefly has broken oxen but makes them work and heads off into nowhere with gold and girl!
...Oh, no, that doesn't mean he's gone now, right? Oh please no. I could not do without Pullo. Although over-the-top Atia and Octavia squabbling over who would kill whom in which order was fantastic. (Oh, poor Octavia. I'm still a horrible sap about her losing her husband.)
I'm beginning to get a soft spot for Lucius Vorenus. Poor man. So earnest. Such a twerp. Tries so hard. Doesn't understand why the rules he was taught aren't actually the ones that work. Awww.
no subject
And Sempronia, sitting to one side. "No thank you, I'm sure we can manage on our own." So funny!
I'm sure Pullo isn't gone, although I think he may have some fast talking to do when the army catches up with him!
Poor man. So earnest. Such a twerp. Tries so hard. Doesn't understand why the rules he was taught aren't actually the ones that work.
This is why I like him -- and it's a good way of capturing the kind of bind that Roman citizerns found themselves in -- things weren't supposed to turn out like this, you know? But at this stage I can't say whether that was purposeful or accidental.
I suspect that someone just decided that political history was too hard to explain -- which I can kind of see -- I just don't understand why they've made the specific changes they've made.