Review: Rome

Bloody and sexy and undeniably epic, Rome is another win for HBO. It's not Deadwood or The Sopranos, but it's a tremendous achievement nonetheless. "Not the best HBO has to offer" still means "better than almost anything on television."

The first episode is a little hard to follow, what with the vast cast of characters and all their sinuous political motivations to establish. The pace is just slow enough for you to catch all the details you need, while still sweeping you up in what will apparently be the central story of the series, the clash between Julius Caesar and Pompey Magnus. Caesar has been away from Rome for eight years, conquering Gaul ("Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres," don't you know), and has won the hearts of the lower classes with his frequent shipments of war spoils back to the city. Magnus, the Senate leader, is himself of the lower classes, but despite his frequent defenses of his long-time friend Caesar to the Senate, secretly he resents Caesar's popularity with the masses, and plots against him, should he ever return.

Their battle promises to be huge and devastating, but for now it's all intrigue at a distance. I liked the deliberate pace of the episode in setting things in motion, though other reviewers (who have had a chance to see more episodes than I have) complain that the momentum never increases, making the pacing feel ponderous instead. (Though I have to question the attention span of the Slate critic in particular, when she makes such a simple factual error as claiming that in the first episode "a topless woman bathes in bull's blood during a ritual sacrifice." If I must nitpick, I must; the fact is the woman is wearing a gown — a flimsy one, but still: not topless. Perhaps it was an honest mistake on the critic's part, but it's a mistake that coincidentally reinforces her stance that the series contains more blood and nudity than she prefers.)

Magnus and Caesar's story is epic in nature, but so far the two of them (especially Caesar) have yet to become real, humanized characters. Of more initial interest is the developing friendship between Centurion Lucius Vorenus and Legionnaire Titus Pullo. At the beginning of the episode, Vorenus has had Pullo flogged and imprisoned, awaiting death, for breaking rank during battle (the hot-headed Pullo went all Braveheart and jumped into the thick of battle rather than remaining in his place in the shield wall). When they are enlisted to retrieve Caesar's personal standard, which has been stolen, they have to come to terms with each other, and their relationship is very interesting, with soldier's duty and loyalty scarcely restraining what begins as disdain (on Vorenus' part) and fierce resentment (on Pullo's).

Article Author: Tom the Dog

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