Rome is such an intelligent series, developing the politics of the time with precision. The only thing lacking is a better sense of timing and of waiting. I suppose, with what we know, keeping the series interesting while having it take place in a timeline resembling real time would have been quite boring, and they would not have even got to Caesar (Ciaran Hinds)'s assassination before they had to cancel the show, but there are some moments where I feel like things have happened too fast.
Regardless, the show does develop other things perfectly.
James Purefoy's Mark Anthony continues to show himself as both an impatient ass and a brilliant strategist...though sometimes a little caught up in his own wishes. While it was hard to imagine the Mark Anthony in the first few episodes taking up Caesar's mantle, by the end of episode 9 the cleverness shines through with the ruthlessness, and his priorities are straightened out a little.
Titus Pollo also got to have a great deal of fun. He killed the lover of his best friend's wife, proving himself the best friend imaginable. He also showed a sensitive side in the affection he is developing for their slave girl. Too bad that he's now sunk back into a depressive bender...Still, I have hope for him.
After all, as Caesar pointed out, Pollo and Vorenus have great and powerful gods watching out for them. Not Triton, mind you, but someone able to protect them from him. It made it a whole lot more believable that they would have survived that storm to think of it that way; at first, I had a hard time suspending my disbelief about it.
But regardless of the delight I get from how complicated the politics and wars of the men are, they pale in comparison to the women. I can't help but feel bad for poor idiotic Octavia (Kerry Condon). Atia (Polly Walker) should have left her married to her husband. She would have lived a happy and uninteresting life, but instead, she's getting herself into all kinds of trouble. Being seduced by Servilia (Linsday Duncan) and then seducing her younger brother, Octavian (Max Pirkis), she's a mess. And she is really not cut out for all this intrigue like her mother.
Atia, on the other hand, handled the situation brilliantly. Despite the fact that we know she had Octavia's husband killed (which I think backfired since if Octavia was happily married, she'd be out of the way), she was utterly believable when she told Octavia it was a lie. And despite her own personal hatred and war with Servilia, I can only believe that the horribly beautiful extent to which Atia went for vengeance was not for the injuries Servilia caused to her own person, but for those she caused to her daughter.
Atia is many things, and very vicious in all of them, but the humiliation she forced Servilia to suffer is one that has mama bear written all over it. What remains to be seen is if Servilia has it in her to retaliate, but even if she does, I can't see her winning. Atia has a ruthlessness that is coupled with what she considers necessity, while Servilia's anger is based in violent, angry grief.
Put it proves the rule that, while men can be violent and deceitful, they have nothing on women.
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