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

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

Octavia does occasionally manage to sound like Atia in a rage, and I guess the drug excesses are meant to mirror Atia's madness for sex in some way, so maybe Livia will mirror both of them. Atia more, I hope, because Octavia is so boring. I'm just so fond of Atia. I couldn't even be put against her overseeing Servilia's torture and rape because the entire fight had gotten so over-the-top and cartoonish.

(If Timon thinks changing his mind *after* whipping and raping Servilia means she won't tear him to pieces, he's a fool. If he's lucky she won't murder his wife and children first.)

I would really love to see a Rome vid all about the women.

Do you think Vorenus knows that he's horrible in bed?

I don't think he cares. I expect he improved a bit after Pullo gave him the useful advice about the "button" and once he and Niobe learned how to communicate with each other, but for anyone else--and it seems likely the woman whose name I've never caught is not only the first woman he's slept with since Niobe died but the first woman he's slept with besides Niobe ever, given what he said to Pullo in S1--he sees it as a business transaction/self-punishment/punishment of the woman because she isn't Niobe.

I don't think Vorena will cut her father's throat, either; she'd have tried for that first if she'd been foolish enough. She has some of her mother's pragmatism, I think. But eventually Vorenus is going to be forcibly unblinded, and I expect it to relate to his death in some way, if only in contributing to suicide.

[vaznetti]

I figure that Timon is basically dogmeat at this point in the story. If he's lucky, Servilia will forget that he exists (or be killed before she can do anything about it), but he's probably not that lucky.

I'm sure you're right about Vorenus and Vorena. I like how much she's like Niobe, actually, both in looks and in her demeanor.

I guess the drug excesses are meant to mirror Atia's madness for sex in some way

Oh! Somehow I had missed that completely, but it makes a great deal of sense.