HBO’s Rome, Episode 9

The boys are back in town and all kinds of mean nasty things are going on! Let’s see, where to start? Vorenus runs afoul of the local “mafia” type guy Erastes and just when I thought he and Pullo were going to make short work of the boss and his nine or ten henchmen, Caesar shows up to talk politics. He convinces Vorenus to run for magistrate which appears to have upset Pullo.

Pullo, in the meantime, has his attention on the slave girl Eirene so I was right, she is his love interest. Apparently the reason she hadn’t talked before is she didn’t speak the language. Unfortunately for Pullo, she didn’t appear too thrilled at the attention.

They skipped the whole African campaign except for the suiciding. Exit Cato and Scipio, stage left. Octavian was back and up to not nice things at all. First, he blabs about Evander to Octavia as she’s trying to uncover Caesar’s “affliction” at the instigation of Servilia and then, and then, he allows himself to be seduced by Octavia while she’s still trying to uncover Caesar’s secret. We finally made it to incest! Nudity, fornication, adultery and homosexuality weren’t good enough, we got all the way to incest! That was too much even for Atia who got Timon and company to waylay Servilia, murder off a number of her servants, cut off large chunks of her hair and generally humiliate her on the streets of Rome.

Things aren’t going well for Servilia. Aside from being dumped by Caesar, assaulted at the instigation of Atia and apparently losing her gay lover Octavia, her relationship with her son Brutus is a bit strained. What I was confused about last week is explained this week, perhaps Servilia would have preferred that Brutus returned on his shield rather than pardoned by Caesar.

No sign this week of either Cleopatra or Antony, BUT, I did pick up on something at the tail end of Episode 8 this time that I missed the last time, the suspicion that Caesarion is actually Pullo’s son and not Caesar’s.

I got a good laugh out of Octavian’s theological viewpoint. In a conversation with Octavia he flatly states that “there are no gods”, a statement which I’m sure sent up red flags all over the place. In what was an obvious “patch,” he then quickly goes on to say something to the effect of there may be a “prime mover” (read that monotheistic Christian God) but nothing resembling the Roman Pantheon. You really needn’t have worried about it folks, I doubt anyone that would have been offended by the “there are no gods” statement, given the sexual content of the show, was watching.

Now for the really bad news, there are only three episodes left! That means a total of 12 in all. Is that it? Is that the end? What will I do for a bad influence without Rome? How will I make it until next season? Will there be a next season? Will the DVDs of the first season be out in time for Christmas? Will anyone think to buy them for me for Christmas? So many questions, so little time.