Now that Spartacus and his men have conquered the seaport town Sinuessa en Valle, they must deal with the captured Romans and figure out how to live in their new surroundings.
The Romans are shackled, hungry, injured and scared, and the merchant’s widow Laeta glares at everyone. When bread is offered in exchange for coin, men scrabble for the food and are forced to fight like gladiators for the army’s amusement. The winner reaches for the dirty loaf, thrown in the street, but Naevia slices his hand, thinking he sought to wound Gannicus. Or so she says.
Naevia is a loose cannon. She tells Gannicus some of the horrors she experienced before her imprisonment in the mines, and we discover that there is more rage in her than first believed.
It’s becoming clear to me that the season’s title, War of the Damned, refers to all on both sides. All are lost souls, having had their humanity stripped from them, and now only shattered pieces remain.
Meanwhile, at the Roman camps, young and untried Tiberius learns from an escaped messenger that Sinuessa de Valle has been taken by Spartacus and his men. Tiberius and Caesar face off when Caesar slashes the messenger’s head in two, showering Tiberius in the man’s blood.
We move from bratty Romans to pirates, of all things. The Cilician pirate Heracleo offers to share drink with Spartacus and his men, but no one truly trusts him.
For the episode’s quota of nudity, we get a full frontal shot of a man walking by Crixus and Naevia, and there’s a steamy love scene between Nasir and Agron. I stand by my belief that either Nasir or Agron will die. Couples don’t last on this show.
Love and war are two sides of the same coin, and Tiberious, against the wishes of his father, decides to engage Spartacus. The Roman phalanx advances into the city, and we get slow motion battle sequences, and our heroes seem woefully outnumbered.
Naevia, not one to miss out on the fighting, uses the opportunity to quarrel with Attius. They fight, and she hammers the blacksmith’s head over and over , forging herself into a violent and merciless killer.
And yet the Romans advance.
But Heracleo and his men save the day, using fiery cannons to decimate the Roman numbers, lighting them up like, well, Roman candles.
Tiberius’ men retreat, but not before he is gravely wounded. And deservedly so, for disobeying his father. What a bad son. Speaking of his father, I found Crassus’ absence very noticeable in this episode. He’s a complicated man, and I want to see what he will do next. This was a far more exciting episode than the previous one, and I’m already enjoying this season more than the last one. The story is building up to an amazing conclusion, I believe.
The next new episode of Spartacus will air February 22 on Starz, and the first three episodes will replay this Friday, giving fans a chance to catch up before the season continues.