"Attendance is compulsory," Atia's slave advises her master, regarding an invitation to dinner with the family over at Octavian's.
And it's indeed a dinner you wouldn't want to miss, culminating in a confrontation between Octavian and Antony - that Antony loses. A nobler Roman than Octavian, Antony is nonetheless no match for Octavian in political maneuvering. He retreats to Alexandria, rather than risk being made a fool of, over his wife Octavia's affair with Agrippa.
And it's indeed a dinner you wouldn't want to miss, culminating in a confrontation between Octavian and Antony - that Antony loses. A nobler Roman than Octavian, Antony is nonetheless no match for Octavian in political maneuvering. He retreats to Alexandria, rather than risk being made a fool of, over his wife Octavia's affair with Agrippa.
"Attendance is compulsory" - and you wouldn't want to miss what happened in the Aventine tonight, either. Pullo's wife is poisoned by Gaia, and laid to rest. Vorenus is robbed of the shipment of gold entrusted to his protection - betrayed by his oldest daughter. He will repair to Aegypt with Antony, as Pullo gives Memmio what he has coming. These scenes were among the very best in the entire two year series.
Octavian takes a wife, and Antony reaches Alexandria and Cleopatra, at last looking as utterly captivating as we expected and hoped.
Command performances all around tonight ... especially Kevin McKidd as Vorenus, James Purefoy as Antony, Simon Woods as Octavian, and Lyndsey Marshal even briefly as Cleopatra.
There will be more of this to come next week ... attendance is compulsory.
3-minute podcast of this review
another blog post from me: Good Sex on HBO's Rome, Bad FCC
Rome - The Complete First Season
Rome: Music From the HBO Series
I, Claudius 1977 BBC-HBO series
6 comments:
You hit it, Paul. More detail: The little, cute Livia is a brilliant surprise. Not topping "I, Claudius"'s Livia or "The Soprano's"'s Livia, but expanding the Livia genre.
legatus - great to see you here! - yes, Livia was delightful, a good addition to the roster of Livias you mention (did you see the promo for The Sopronas with Livia ... a face like Medusa!)
Paul, I can't believe you didn't make special mention of Simon Woods's performance this evening. He more than held his own with the amazing performance of James Purefoy. The two of them have incredible screen chemistry.
Kind regards,
Nomad
Nomad - you're completely right - in fact, when I reposted this review over on my tvguide.com blog, I added Simon Woods, and intended to come back here and do the same, but got distracted somewhere in the wilds of the Web ... but I'm doing so now...
Are you joking? Antony a noble Roman?
Also, Cleopatra's beauty is a flaw in my book. She was supposed to be not beautiful, but captivating and alluring though her charm.
No, j, I'm not joking - Antony in many ways was the noblest Roman of all, if only because of the way he carried himself in the immediate aftermath of Caesar's murder - but also because of the way he inspired his troops and many of the people (this was well depicted in the show in Antony walking in the streets with Octavia after their marriage).
As for Cleopatra - yeah, I know the history, and revisionist history as well as you do - but there is no real proof of how she looked (the coins are poor evidence) and I'm quite content to think of her as beautiful.
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