HBO’s Rome, Episode 10

Bah, I think someone should check calendars and such. I’m supposed to buy that the little kid limping behind Vorenus became the love interest for Eirene who was a full grown woman in the same episode? I think not. What a DUMB twist.

So now, after Pullo kills the kid in a jealous rage, he and Vorenus are at odds. It looked like the objective was to make everyone feel sorry for Pullo, Vorenus keeps climbing the ladder of success, the 13th Legion won’t let him march in Caesar’s triumph and now he’s lost the love of his life. The problem is it’s a little hard to feel sorry for anyone that bashes people’s heads in! Now the teaser at the end of the episode is that Pullo will go to work for Erastes who still has it in for Vorenus. Hmmm, I wonder where this is going in the last two episodes?

On the historic front, we have Vorenus getting a lesson in practical Roman politics from Posca, which he doesn’t look all that happy about and the introduction of Cassius. I have to compliment the casting director on the actor playing Cassius. He certainly, at least so far, seems to be putting an adequate amount of oiliness into the portrayal.

I found the whole Vercingetorix thing a little confusing. First he gets executed at Caesar’s triumph, then he gets dumped with the trash and finally his body is rescued and given an honorable funeral by, what I assume were, loyal Gauls. None of this struck me as either historically accurate or particularly important to the plot. More important might have been where the hell is Cleopatra and when is Antony going to meet her?

I’m also having some trouble figuring out the whole Octavian and Octavia thing and where the hell Atia is coming from in all this. I’m having this impression that the script writers sort of ran out of ideas.

As far as I can tell, Atia is absolutely reveling in Servilia’s misfortunes. Misfortunes Atia has helped to bring about. Not only is she reveling in them, she’s actually rubbing Servilia’s nose in it because, given Caesar’s position, there’s not much Servilia can do about it. As a result, Servilia’s directs her anger at Brutus going so far as to forge a pamphlet critical of Caesar and sign her son’s name to it.

In the meantime, it’s Octavian that rescues Octavia from the Temple of Cybele and anoints Caesar for his triumph. Like I said, where does this all end? I suspect it will be with the Ides of March, but I’ve been way off before on where this series is going. Do you think the various authors had a plan or that each just made up the next episode as they went along?