Rome 2x05: Heroes of the Republic

[vaznetti]

I liked this Octavian because he is so clearly evil in all his scenes, but especially with Octavia and Cicero. He appears to be quite soulless, which strikes me as quite right, especially at this point in his life. Was that just me? It's hard for me to tell, because I really do despise Octavian, so he always seems a little loathsome to me. But tonight it seemed like other people might have thought he was loathsome too.

The rearranged a bunch of events here, but that's OK: 43 was a busy year, and they're just trying to tell the story, more or less. I kind of liked the sense that Octavian was pressured into the alliance with Antony, and am pleased that they remembered that Lepidus existed. Except that really, I am very sad that this will not be the miniseries with the two-man triumvirate, which would never have stopped being funny.

Oh, Cicero. I love that you never give up on the Republic, even long after everyone else has given up on it, and on you. I hope you get your death scene.

And TIRO! They put in TIRO! I had a little moment of happy geekery, right there.

The thing with the orgy totally cracked me up. AN ORGY!!!! Just when you think that the show might pass on a cliché, it goes for the throat. Next, I suppose we'll have people vomiting in a vomitorium!

So yes, the orgy was hysterical, and the writers have decided that Octavia can stand in for Julia as well, since she ended up married to Marcus Agrippa and ran afoul of her father's moral legislation. Which dates to 18 BCE. Really, the moral legislation wasn't even a gleam in Octavian's eye in 43 -- he was too busy committing adultery himself, according to report. I don't really care about Agrippa's crush on Octavia, and am rather sad that the writers have decided to make her a drug-addicted incestuous lesbian. The real Octavia is laughing in the afterlife about it, I'm sure. Well, not about the lesbianism, which probably seems like a good idea after Marcellus and Antony.

So, Vorenus. I think that queenofthorns put it best then she described his as the most embarrassing father ever. And also, the extent to which he has no idea of what's going on around him is quite impressive. I really do like the fact that his children hate him -- of course they blame him, not only for their mother's death, but also for what happened to them. And Vorenus has no idea that he needs to do more than simply say that the past is past, and can't really explain that he didn't exactly kill their mother, just because she threw herself off the ledge before he could do it himself. All of a sudden, the elder Vorena is becoming an interesting character, too -- it's her doing, I suspect, that the other two are alive, and I wonder what she had to do to keep them all together.

Last year, around this time, I predicted that Vorenus would make it into the Senate (although I didn't expect it to happen quite so fast, or end quite so badly); this year I suspect that he'll die at the end of the season. I do love the message he made Pullo carry to Octavian, although it makes me wonder how on earth a man with so little common sense survived to adulthood.

I also really liked the scene with Vorenus and Pullo's discussion of Octavian -- "your boy"! But not only do Vorenus' own children want him dead, but he's pissing off everyone else around him, and he won't want to live in what Octavian will make Rome into.

Pullo, as usual, is entirely wonderful. "You're half his weight," indeed! But Eirene's not wrong -- he does love her, truly, but he's bound to Vorenus.

To be honest, the episode felt slow -- alliances forming and re-forming, families being patched together (and whether or not the patches will hold, who knows) -- and everything in that moment of silence before the storm of triumvirate and civil war.


It occurs to me, as I type this up, that I'm not sure who the title refers to -- Octavian? the fallen consuls, Hirtius and Pansa? Brutus and Cassius, waiting in the wings? Pullo and Vorenus? Antony and Lepidus? Not, ironically, to Cicero himself -- the singular hero, not the plural. After Mutina, one can't really speak of heroes or of the republic, I suppose.

Comments

[se-parsons.livejournal.com]

I don't like new Octavian as well as Pirkis. I never got the impression that the guy was actually entirely soulless. And Pirkis rode that fine line that let you think that maybe there was a person in there, not just a machine calculating odds of success, though he was always doing that, too. You could see him sucking it up to make himself do things that went against his impulse as a human being, and you could see him actually get mad and react emotionally within the bounds he'd set for himself. I found that more interesting than somebody who really is empty and a sociopath, which is how newguy is playing him.

And, yeah, I didn't like him. I think,it's because I find that viewpoint uninteresting. And I truly DO believe that even the most evil person believes they're a hero.

We're seeing that more interesting stuff with Vorenus right now. That blithe clueless doing what he MUST, Rah rah rah. So you can watch him do these horrible things and go, "yeah, I can see that." Even when it's totally stupid and setting himself up for ruin.

[vaznetti]

See, in my world, being blinded by rage whenever Octavian opens his mouth counts as good characterization, so I can't really judge. He does lack the humanity of the younger actor, but then, he's about to launch into some really horrible things, so it makes sense to me.

I didn't get the sense that he didn't think he was a hero, though. I really thought that he believed he was doing what was necessary.

[se-parsons.livejournal.com]

He does lack the humanity of the younger actor, but then, he's about to launch into some really horrible things, so it makes sense to me.

See, I think you have to be more human to do terrible things as a rule.

Again, look at Vorenus.

[cleverthylacine]

I really shocked a friend of mine who also has done a lot of reading in history by saying that I knew Pirkis was a great actor because he could make me sympathise with Octavian, whom I've always loathed with a passion.

I agree that Simon Woods has the loathesomeness down just so, but I'd have liked seeing a bit of how Pirkis' Octavian turned into Woods' Octavian.

[vaznetti]

I really shocked a friend of mine who also has done a lot of reading in history by saying that I knew Pirkis was a great actor because he could make me sympathise with Octavian, whom I've always loathed with a passion.

Yes, I feel the same, actually. I read The Roman Revolution at an early age, and it scarred me for life.

[cleverthylacine]

In my case it was a zillion biographies of Cleopatra--I saw the Liz Taylor movie when my age was in single digits and had a giant stupid crush on her :D

[cleverthylacine]

And then later I read about all the moral reforms. Growing up in the Bible Belt did not give me positive feelings about men who wanted to clean up society particularly when they wanted to do it by making women be faithful wives and mothers whether they wanted to or not!