Rome Episode 11: The Spoils

[Jeff]

If G.R.R. Martin had written tonight's episode of Rome, Pullo would be dead. But we have HBO to thank for keeping him around. What did his humming mean? It was such a nice sad thing. And his beetle prayer was moving, too.

Some questions: Were those Senate robes that Vorenus was wearing in the previews for next week? They looked like it, but I can't imagine him being elevated as a result of his actions tonight. Second, do you think Brutus' conversion made sense? It didn't seem quite right to me. I don't think Caesar gave him sufficient motive for such a complete conversion. (I know history gives us more. I guess I wish a little more of this was brought in.)

All in all though, a great episode.

Jeff

[Jeff]

An iconic shot

[Jeff]

My favorite line from last night went something like this:

"Moses, you need law? . . . Number one justice, right here, right here! . . . Take me boss, top lawyer, top lawyer . . . I could get Media acquitted."

There was pretty stiff competition though:

Caesar: "I wasn't aware he existed, until he didn't."

Erastus: "Best mouse in the city. They do 'em savory."

[Betterout]

I'm such a sucker. My emotions are easily manipulated into conforming exactly to what the show's folks have in mind for its audience. No objectivity at all on my part.

I'd like to say, for instance, that I wanted Pullo to pay for brutally murdering an innocent in the last episode. But, I have to admit, I didn't really. So, I was almost in tears when the first few gladiators surrounded a defenseless Pullo. And then, watching him valiantly tear gladiator after gladiator to pieces in the arena, I was saying, "Hell yeah! Thirteen for life!!!" I so feared he was going to take a stray sword blow, and that'd be the end of him. A fitting end, perhaps, but that's just not what I had in mind for him. I want him to come out on top in the end of the series, redeemed and retired somewhere in the hills, a wise fool with the same lust for life that defines him now. Thus, when he survived the onslaught, I was so happy. BUT... when the big guy with the skull-shaped mace stepped out, my heart completely sank again! Just the shot of that guy entering the arena: Camera up close on an upside down skull emerging from the darkness to an utterly drained Pullo among a sea of corpses. Ack! Now he's really dead, I thought. Enter Vorenus--"Not on my watch!" Woohoo!!! Jeez, what a roller coaster ride the episode was!

See, I'm just putty in the hands of these guys (and gals, of course).

As for the conversion of Brutus, how excellent that it occured over the game board. But, you're right, bro. It was too easy. In fact, I thought Brutus was a fool for not taking the post in Macedonia. He's so conflicted, and this would have been the perfect out for him. "Caesar may die in my name, but I'm clearly not involved from afar. If he lives, I can return home as a former governor, with increased power. If he dies, I can return home and assume the role the people think I played in his death--again with more power. It's a win-win." And, of course, this is what Caesar was offering (though motivated ostensibly for other reasons--he is after all afraid of but a friend to Brutus...otherwise he could have killed him and Cicero outright). So, I guess it was a forced hand, and I guess it makes sense, but I still think Brutus made a bad call, and as such, he is less than fully motivated to step up to the plate.

[chris]

I just got around to watching it on On Demand, and holy Zeus, that was one of the best episodes yet.

I have not seen many moving pictures that can rival the sheer visceral fear and thrill of the arena scene. I was right up there with you Justin, although I am probably more willing to like a murderer (fictional, mind you) than you are. But as soon as Pullo started throwing down and chopped the guy's head off (which I rewound and watched again), I literally jumped up from my couch and cheered. "Thirteen for life," indeed. And that big badass stepping out with that club, only to get brutally dispatched with it by Vorenus (in a most deliciously gruesome manner). Classic.

I didn't even note the humming until you mentioned it, Jeff, but it is interesting. One of the more fascinating aspects of Pullo's character is his spirituality -- sometimes it seems hodgepodge and selfish (i.e., praying when he's in trouble), but then he often acts with such loyalty and selflessness that you can sense his morality. But what can we make of the fact that he was fully willing to sit there and die until the gladiators started dissing the 13th? It reminds us that the second half of this series' first season can be boiled down to a story about three veterans (Pullo, Vorenus, Caesar) and how they adjust or don't adjust to post-war life, "The Best Anna of Our Lives" if you will.

I share your opinions about the growth of treachery in Brutus. I think what's missing from the equation is that we don't feel the sense of dishonor that his character is supposed to be feeling. I blame the writers more than anyone else; we get tastes of the shame he feels at the judging gaze of his mother and the taunts of the graffiti, but there needed to be something else that evolved over the course of the past several episodes. We are supposed to believe that asking him to run Macedonia was the last straw for him, but it's tough to buy. As it is, as Justin points out, it just looks like a dumb move on his part. Yet Brutus is an honorable man...

And by the way, my vote for favorite line is: "I could get Medea acquitted." Priceless.

[Jeff]

Leave it to me to misspell MEDEA, but I was distracted. I can't even think that name without thinking of a Woody Allen joke:

Woman: Don't tell me you're jealous?
Alvy: Yeah, jealous...a little bit...like Medea.

[Jeff]

I remember hearing the humming three times: at each of Pullo’s murders and while he was awaiting his own execution. Interestingly Pullo was not the one humming at the second murder. Rather, it was his companion, and the humming annoyed Pullo. So, at first I thought that the humming was just a general symbol of impending death, a kind of musical foreshadowing of Pullo’s execution.

Then I thought of the arena scene, where Pullo is like a god of death and war. It is what he does, and with great skill. But it is not what he wants of himself. He wants to marry Eirene and farm some nameless tract of land in familial anonymity. But he brings death wherever he goes. Even when he prays something has to die. I think the humming is a metaphor for Pullo himself.


Because the Bee may blameless hum
For Thee a Bee do I become
List even unto Me.

Emily Dickinson