I really like the young actor Max Pirkis, playing Octavian. Kid’s finally growing a spine! I’m going to keep my eye out for other work he does, he seems a natural. Not bad looking either, although much too young for me.
Cicero is a right weasel, isn’t he?
I’m ashamed to admit it, but I wouldn’t mind a “roll in ze hay” with Pullo.
Quintus, the fictional badboy son of Pompey, who was the one who tried to kill Antony immediately after Caesar’s assassination at the beginning of the episode ( Pompey did have a real son who survived Caesar, his youngest Sextus, but he was in Sicily at the time ).
His other big role was in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.
Okay…this is a pickup line I am damn sure going to use sometime in my life:
“I know I didn’t get us started off on the right foot, killing your man and all, and I’m sorry for that but…vah…I’ll just come out with it, I’ve got a question to ask you.”
He’s quite the silver tongue devil, isn’t he?
Bona Dia! Fantastic. Exceeded my expectations from last season. Vorenus has lost everythhing and now Pullo is on top of the world. The politics is great, and the one liners just keep coming-- I think most of them have already been cited.
I loved the look on Mark Antony’s face as he walked out of the biggest bluff session of his life with the Julii clan.
Bravo. Bravo!!
Beats me. But she’s so damn gorgeous that she can just stand around in the background and it makes any scene better.
Another great moment was Octavian pushing his mothers buttons to get her to do what he wanted. “But if we leave, then SERVILIA will be the richest woman in Rome…”
And so… what was Passover about? Passing over from life to death or something? Passing over from Julius to Octavian? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
In the Jewish tradition, it’s the Angel of Death passing over the houses of the Jewish families and not killing the first born sons. The Angel knows which houses have Jewish families because they smeared lamb’s blood outside of the doorway. The sons of the Egyptian families are killed. How does this fit into the episode of Rome? Not sure…
Just a guess, but the title might have something to do with the time frame. March 15, 44 BCE (The Ides of March) just happened to coincide with Passover that year. The finale of season one was entitled “Kalends [first day] of February,” so I’m guessing that “Passover” is in keeping with the chronology but that the writers might have wanted to avoid the obvious 'Ides of March" and go with one that was chronologically correct as well as somewhat evocative of death, Good Friday, etc.
Which brings up an interesting question. If episode 12 of Season 1 took place on Feb 1st, then it would appear that this episode took place on Feb 2nd (plus maybe a day or two afterwards). We see Vorenus cradling Niobe right after her fall, and we see Caesar’s body taken for burial. I don’t see how these events could have stretched into mid March… does anyone?
Quite curious.
The whole episode, I was wondering, “how are they going to do it?”
I was getting revved up to see Antony whip 'em into a frenzy. They even showed Brutus getting gussied up, and then they just cut to Brutus hanging his head, and we got the second-hand account later on.
More than anything, it felt like a cop-out to me; it just seems like too pivotal a moment to cut out, but maybe my perception of its importance is too colored by Shakespeare.
I was disappointed they left it out. You get a guy like Purefy to play Antony and then just leave him hanging. Disappointing.
Speculation on Pullo & Vorenus: do they take over as some kind of mob leaders?
I haven’t watched last season’s finale since it aired but I seem to remember that it only began in February but unfolded over several weeks until it culminated in Caesar’s assassination on March 15. It’s just a quirky historical coincidence that his assassination happened to occur on Passover but the events of the season 2 premiere actually are set during Passover.
I thought the way they played it, with the mob henchguy telling us about the speech in some detail, worked out pretty well. If nothing else, it kept them from having to try to meet fairly ridiculous expectations of one of the great public speeches in history.
You’re right. And I should’ve thought of that myself since I re-watched last season’s finale just before the new episode last night. Episode 1.12 does take place over some short period of time, and although it isn’t clear exactly how long that time is, it could easily be several weeks. (Of course you’d never know by looking at Vorenus’ daughters that the whole season took place over at least a year since they don’t seem to age at all from begining to end. 
)
I was also wondering how they planned to handle Antony’s speach, but I’m not surprised they skipped it. For one thing, they couldn’t just use Shakespeare’s version, and it would be hard to do anything better.
But the main reason I wasn’t surprised is that the series has skipped over major events before. The main one that jumped out in the first season was Caesar’s defeat of Pompey at Pharsalus. There was a lot of build up to the battle, but we only saw brief glimpses of men fighting and then Caesar’s return to camp. Although this is a historical drama, it’s much more concerned with character than with history, so the choice to skip the speach is understandable.
I have to agree with y’all. I complained last year because they cut out the whole battle between Caesar and Pompey. But this time, I was bracing myself for the inevitable embarrassment that I would feel for the actor who had to deliver the lines written for MA. I was glad they just skipped it.
For those with more knowledge of the history: Is there evidence to support portraying Cicero as a total tool? He generally gets handled very respectfully in popular histories.
What’s up with the old guy who was chanting “Kalends” to Vorenus and then head-butted him? I thought he was some kind of priest, but then it looked like he picked Vorenus’ pocket.
True, but I believe they were budget-limmited wrt the battle scene they could show. Personally, if they had to choose, I’d go with the way they did it-- no big battles, but **lots **of detail in the sets. I can always watch the first 20 minutes of *Gladiator *when I want some juicy Roman battle scenes.
Yeah after Lord of the Rings theres just no way you can put a mediocre “epic” battle on screen without getting laughed at. You either have to go balls out and try to outdo the last epic battle or don’t bother.