Rome 2x03: these being the words of Marcus Tullius Cicero

[vaznetti]

There was a lot of motion in this episode, but not as much momentum as last week. Does that make sense? Of course, the politics are complicated, but it didn't hold together quite as well as last week's -- although I have hope that next week will work well. It ought to have Mutina and Octavian's deal with Antony -- and in this case a two-man triumvirate, I guess, and you all do understand how funny that is, right? -- and perhaps the proscriptions.

Some scattered impressions:

Atia motivating the change of province: this is a longstanding trope, the notion that political events are motivated by female jealousies or whatever -- Atia not wanting to spend the rest of her life in Macedonia, in this case. Of course the points she makes to Antony are perfectly valid, but Antony would surely have already considered them. Whatever! Obviously, I have issues with the way Atia as a caricature or Roman fears about powerful women.

She does die around this time, as it happens. And it will make a nice break -- the alliance between Octavian and Antony, the break with the Senate, and (probably moved forward to this point) the marriage between Octavia and Antony.

Agrippa and Octavia: the historian in me could not stop laughing, since Agrippa's second (I'm fairly sure) wife was Octavia's daughter Marcella. But since Octavia's husband Marcellus is out of the picture, I guess there are no other options. The part where everyone but Antony wants to be sleeping with Octavia is pretty funny, though.

Cicero and Antony: I did rather like the way Antony motivates his own destruction here, actually -- that he so mistreats Cicero that of course Cicero will turn to Octavian. I still would have liked to see the scene where Octavian sucks up to Cicero, but instead we got the Second Philippic, which made me enormously happy! Hahaha! Antony, you should have known better than to piss Cicero off. The Second Philippic is long, but amusing, especially when Cicero goes on and on about Antoney's youthful vices.

Of course, with no onscreen meeting of Octavian and Cicero, Octavian's betrayal during the proscriptions won't mean much.

Meanwhile, in Bithyinia, we get our obligatory bit or Orientalism. And Brutus is now wearing the stubble of moral ambiguity, I see, and yet I find that I no longer care about him. Sorry, Brutus, but you were always kind of whiny and boring.

Pullo and Vorenus. You know, in a way that fight was the mirror of Octavian's fight with Antony in the previous episode, but taken that much more seriously. Oh, Pullo, taunting Vorenus until he's got not choice but to strike out because it's what Pullo knows Vorenus needs to do. I was a little less enraptured by Vorenus' self-destructive behavior, if only because of the way it spiralled out into the gang war on the Aventine (but as an aside, ah, Roman manhood, how simple you are in so many ways.) But Pullo, trying so hard to keep Vorenus alive, and blurting out the truth about Evander, which is exactly what Pullo would do.

Of course, when Vorenus finds out about Octavian's involvement, he'll have a grudge against him as well. Even if he didn't have to be Antony's man, he might well want to be.

I liked that Pullo left Vorenus. I didn't want him to, but I liked that he did it, if only because Eirene so obviously needed to get away from that place, and I like that Pullo saw that, and was torn by it. And I loved that he raced north to Mutina as soon as he learned that the children were alive.

And I want it to be next Sunday now, please.