Three and a Half Torches (Out of Five)
Warning: The following review contains spoilers for the “Mark of the Brotherhood” episode of Spartacus: Blood and Sand.
So, the past couple of episodes have been real downers. Therefore, it’s refreshing that with “Mark of the Brotherhood,” Spartacus: Blood and Sand starts to return to form.
At this point, though it’s been shy of two months for us, time has marched along a tad quicker in the ludus, and Batiatus is ready for some new blood to bolster the ranks of his academy. He heads out to the market to bid on new gladiators, and after a brief bidding war with his rival Solonius, he ends up overpaying for a slew of fresh blood. He doesn’t mind, however, since he now has coin to spare, and he rather gets a kick out of showing up Solonius in public.
The new recruits arrive, and in an echo of the second episode, Doctore indoctrinates them into the ludus with his speech, only this time it’s Spartacus who provides the grace notes rather than Crixus. It seems old Sparty is really taking to his new identity as the Champion of Capua.
Ilithyia watches the goings on from the balcony with Lucretia and Batiatus, and by now her fetishistic enjoyment of the gladiators is so obvious that Lucretia suggests she becomes a patron to one of them. To further goad her, Batiatus orders all of the new recruits to disrobe, and we get a gander at what I imagine has to be one of the show’s notorious prosthetic penises. If I’m wrong, the actor playing the new Gaul slave has a lot to be proud of. A lot.
The major sub-plot running throughout is Crixus’ attempts to win back the favor of both Lucretia and Batiatus (though he uses very different methods for each, natch), and after seeing him bully around Spartacus and Varro for so long, it was gratifying to see him become the underdog.
In the scene where he challenges Spartacus to a fight, I was suddenly reminded how the show use to focus on heavy-metal-driven slow-motion fight scenes, and, in fact, that they were integral to its identity. But, as will happen, the show has evolved to focus more on the characters and less on the spectacle, so it was fun to see a bit of the old Spartacus return as Crixus and our champion threw down.
The show has also done a good job exploring the role of women in this society, and the bitchapalooza that ensued when Ilithyia brought her friends to the ludus was a fun, snarky diversion, while also setting up what will be an important plot point in the episodes to come.
I have to say, when the show began, I never imagined that Ilithyia would grow to be such a villain while her husband Glaber is largely absent, so the writers deserve credit for the ingenuity. The only character who is truly pure of heart is Spartacus, as many others, even Varro, have succumbed to ignoble desires, while Crixus, who began as a one-dimensional bully, is evolving into a sympathetic character.
The show deserves praise for taking chances, as much for its willingness to show the dark side of every character as its daring displays of violence and nudity. As I’ve stated before, it treads where other shows dare not. While it saddened me that Barca and Pietros are seemingly forgotten by every single person in the ludus, I guess I have to move on and realize that for those living in this world, an untimely death is as common as the sun rising in the morning.
Spartacus remains a kick-ass show. And wait until you see the next episode …
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Okay, so last week’s episode was a bummer. We know that.
I didn’t realize how emotionally attached I had become to Pietros. Seeing him wandering around the ludus, a lost soul who believes he was abandoned by his one true love, was bad enough, but then on top of this he becomes the favorite victim of another gladiator, one who routinely beats and rapes him. When he started appearing with swollen black eyes and cuts, it set off every protective instinct in my body.
To be fair, it does set up nicely what I imagine might be a future storyline, in which Doctore discovers the truth behind Barca’s “departure,” but I’ve seen the next two episodes and that doesn’t factor into either of them. But I will say this — the next two episodes are pretty awesome.
Yeah … so …
When Sura’s cart arrives, Spartacus is distraught to find his wife has been attacked on the road, and she dies in his arms. Even more disturbing is the fact that Batiatus arranged her death.
The hook of this episode is that the Magistrate is interested in using one of Batiatus’ men in the main event, or Primus, of his latest games. One fighter has already been chosen, belonging to Batiatus’ rival, Solonius.
This ep had an incredible character moment for Illyithia, a character who had so far been shown to be little more than a flighty airhead. She is the wife of Glaber, the main villain, and we caught a glimpse of the power she wields when she and Lucretia summon Spartacus and Crixus to their chamber for a private viewing.
The power play between the genders is fascinating. We have a notion that in the ancient world, women were automatically subservient to men, but the scene in which Lucretia and Illyithia are ogling Crixus is interesting because even though he could kill them both with his bare hands in seconds, he has to do everything they say.
A: No, you’re remembering correctly. The movie originally came out in late 1977, but the director, Steven Spielberg, was unhappy with the edit, as he felt he’d been rushed to make an early release date. The studio, Columbia Pictures, agreed to let him do a re-edit which they would re-release, but only on the condition that he shot new scenes for the end, featuring the “inside” of the ship. They figured this would be a great way to get people who’d seen the film already back into theaters.
As in the Disney version, poor Aladdin is recruited by an evil sorcerer to retrieve a magic lamp from a booby-trapped cave and is double-crossed by the wizard, trapping him inside. Aladdin accidentally summons a genie by rubbing a magic ring, not the lamp itself. The genie helps Aladdin escape.
So what of the other much-talked-about aspect of the series, the show’s vaunted sex scenes and female and male nudity? How real are those?
As to which actors did or didn’t wear it, “We can’t give away our trade secrets,” Robert Tapert told reporters.
Depending on your point of view, the latest episode of Spartacus: Blood and Sand will either be your favorite episode so far, or you will want to take a nail to your corneas in an attempt to scratch the images out of your body.
To put it another way, if the gladiator arena is Wrestlemania, the pits are barbed-wire-laden backyard wrestling at its most disgusting.
ground-breaking thing is that the show treats it as a non-issue, in that it’s just another part of Roman life to the characters. Just one more example of how this show pushes boundaries in all the right directions.
That having been said, it’s still getting four stars, because this show takes serious chances, and goes places other shows don’t even dream of daring to go.
Q: What ever happened to Andre the Giant, who played Fezzik in The Princess Bride? — Tom, Shoreline, WA
In fact, I consider it a cheat when a book or movie has a “prophecy” that, through “courage” or mere stubbornness on the part of the hero, doesn’t ever come true. I think it’s one of the (many) flaws in The Return of the Jedi: Darth Vadar, the Emperor, and even Yoda spend half the movie confidently talking about how that’s it, it’s over, Luke’s going to give into the Dark Side of the Force — only to have it turn out that, nope, that was just the Emperor’s wishful thinking!
Warning: This review contains spoilers for the “Red Serpent” (premiere) episode of Spartacus: Blood and Sand.
The Thracians are only working with Romans to help defeat a common enemy, but it turns out Glaber really only wants to use the Thracians as muscle to fight off another enemy contingent of Greeks. When the plan becomes obvious, Spartacus (who is actually not named Spartacus, but we’re never told his real name) and his men give the Romans a sick beat-down, and head home to protect their villages.
Spartacus is taken to Capua, a city in the Roman Empire, where he is forced to become a gladiator. He fights off four armed and armored gladiators with just a sword, wearing only a loincloth. But this is Spartacus, the champion of men! So hearing his wife’s voice in his head, he obliterates his would-be killers, the crowd goes wild, and a star is born.
The bad: