Perhaps it was inevitable that sandwiched between last weeks bold, intense episode and a series finale that is sure to be more of the same that this weeks episode would be a little subdued. Despite that fact that as usual, dozens of people died, The Dead and the Dying felt a little lackluster, a little tired and as a result, not very memorable. In this episode Spartacus seeks retribution for his fallen brother Crixus by hosting games featuring his warriors and Roman prisoners. It was quite nice to see the series come almost full circle; in the first episode Spartacus is a slave, fighting for his life for the amusement of Romans and now he is having Romans fight for the amusement of himself and other slaves. While the concept was cool, in reality it fell a little flat.Something about the fights this episode felt tired and flat where they should have been violent and exciting as they usually are. There should have been a more electric energy to these scenes. Better use of incidental music which was largely missing throughout this episode would have perhaps been helpful in making the dull fighting scenes have a bit more life. In the Roman camp we see the largely absent Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus make his presence known through a second army of Romans and a requested meeting of Crassus which Spartacus and his men take advantage of. The Roman story line fell mostly flat. The best part of it is usually the dynamic between Tiberius and Caesar but after last episode, Caesar is now afraid of Tiberius and thus largely agreeing with him so that dynamic is lost. Without that dynamic and without Caesar being exceptionally crafty in his way of getting back at Tiberius, he comes across as very boring and forgettable in many scenes. A major problem of this episode was that it looked like they ran out of budget, time and needed to fit everything into it that they wanted to put in neither the last or next episode. The use of archive footage from last episode was quite jarring, the episode felt smaller than it should have been and Tiberiuss death seemed completely rushed. While it is understandable as they have many people to kill next week and only so little time, it would have been nice to have seen a better planned out death for Tiberius and perhaps a few more scenes between himself and Caesar or Kore to really show how Tiberius terrorizes them.
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The weirdest thing that happened in this episode was Agron. It looked as though he had died last week though he is shown alive briefly this week only to be crucified. Doing so seemed like a cruel move by the writers to have him alive so briefly only to have him die again but the crucifixion was a more dramatic, fitting death for a main character than him falling randomly in battle. This however, is undone as he is alive at the end of the episode and back with the rebels. The emotional impact here is just bizarre. Agron is dead and then he is not two times over. Aside from this, him being crucified would have been a serious, dramatic moment showing how ruthless the Romans are and how horrible of a death it is. By having Agron be alive and mostly well at the end of the episode, it loses some of its weight and drama. The Romans appear merciful and crucifixion appears as something you can just walk away from after a couple uncomfortable hours. The best part of the episode was Crassus. Throughout the episode Simon Merrells acting really hit the mark and he was for the first time in a long time, the most interesting character on the Roman side. His last scene with Kore, though very short was exceptionally poignant, him shifting from warm and loving to cold and frightening so fast youll get emotional whiplash. This episode simply felt off. The direction was poor, the tone was not right, most of the scenes and moments fell flat where they should have popped. Basically everything that was done brilliantly last week was lacking this week. This plus the emotional manipulation that the writers added intentionally and probably unintentionally left me feeling a mixture of sad, happy but more than anything, rather annoyed. Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.