Season 1, Episode 3
Date of airing: February 5, 2010 (Starz)
Nielsen ratings information: 0.858 million viewers, 0.4 rating/1 share with Adults 18-49
Written by: Brent Fletcher
Directed by: Grady Hall
”Can he do it again? Make him do it again!”
The survival of Spartacus still hinges on political and financial motivations. Batiatus just cannot afford to see him slaughtered in the arena because he continues to hope for coins from the Thracian's success in the fights, even though Spartacus definitely deserved to die here and there, with his brutish and animalistic behavior derailing everything Batiatus has been working toward. And after his showing in the arena against Crixus, he lost all the good standing he had with the crowd when he dispatched four of Solonius's men in the premiere episode. Why would Batiatus want to put his eggs in Spartacus's basket after this episode? Why would he want to keep this specific slave, who has caused nothing but trouble for him, alive and breathing in the ludus downstairs?
Spartacus losing the fight against Crixus also reminds me of a very specific rule in television writing: Have your hero lose their first fight against the villain, so that the second fight during the climactic episodes will come with a bigger and more earned victory. I learned that lesson while watching BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, and that lesson could be applied here, with Crixus being Spartacus's biggest foil. However, that is not true, and Spartacus does not know it yet. It is not Crixus whom Spartacus should defeat in the end, because the two are in the same boat: They are slaves abused by the system the Roman Republic created to keep power and punish those who dare to strike them. In the way the narrative is currently spun, Crixus is the one person Spartacus needs to overcome to get to his goal (reunite with his kidnapped and enslaved wife Sura), which, according to the rules of TV writing, means that Spartacus had to lose the fight, so that he could win the next one. Only to come to the conclusion that Crixus is not the one person for him to overcome to get to his goal.
This episode also introduced the more intimate aspects of a gladiatorial school: Muscle-packed slaves have sex for the pleasure of a watching audience who have enough coin to pay for such a show. Ilythia seemed especially pleased by Varro's performance, although her above-quoted line suggests that she has no idea about the male stamina during intercourse. Then again, the rich folks do not care about what slaves can and cannot do (and if they cannot, they usually get killed and replaced by a slave who can). By the way, I would love to know what Ilythia is still doing in Capua (or why she returned). She should be in Rome with her husband Glaber, but for the sake of the narrative, she is involved in the schemes of the House of Batiatus, without the writers explaining why.
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| Varro is delighted that he doesn't have to fight against Spartacus any longer. |
