12 Main Character Deaths That Killed Great TV Shows
3. Batiatus (Spartacus)
Episode Of Death: S01E13 - "Kill Them All"
Like Ben Linus in the previous show, Batiatus, played by John Hannah, was one of those villains that you just love to hate. Or hate to love. Or any variation thereof. The important thing was that his presence in Spartacus made the show better.
Moving seamlessly from joviality to ruthlessness and back again, Batiatus comes from the Joffrey school of power, ordering the deaths of women and children at whim, but, unlike Joffrey, our insight into the deeper, more complex nature of Quintus Lentulus Batiatus made the proposition of his death a tricky matter.
From his upbringing by a domineering father to his relationship with his equally conniving wife, Lucretia, Batiatus made his plans and took his beatings. By the time we first meet him in Spartacus: Blood and Sand, Batiatus has been a trader and trainer of gladiators for many years. Inured to cruelty and ambition, he seeks to shape his new acquisition, Spartacus, into a perfect tool for the arena; even going so far as to have Spartacus' wife murdered to remove any distractions.
What Batiatus couldn't have predicted was Spartacus' indomitable spirit, and, of course, the role he was destined to play in the Third Servile War. Leading an uprising, Spartacus comes for his former master. Batiatus meets his end with his usual foul-mouthed determination: his home drowning in blood, his wife lying wounded at his feet, fearful but unbowed, he defiantly offers his neck, justifying his actions with his dying breath. It's the mark of a good villain that the writers feel unafraid to let him speak. Peter Ustinov may have won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor playing a version of the character in Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus, but Hannah's Batiatus is arguably the most dynamic, the definitive.
It's telling that the show's producers chose to give Hannah's character his own prequel/spinoff, Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, when the show's lead, Andy Whitfield, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma (which would eventually lead to his death). Liam McIntyre took over the role of Spartacus for season two, Vengeance, but the show was never the same, not only because of Whitfield's absence but the lack of an antagonist the caliber of Batiatus.
Spartacus is more or less certain to dispatch each of the series' villains one by one before meeting his own historical demise at the end of next season, Spartacus: War of the Damned, but, while many pose more of a physical threat to him, none of his adversaries can get under his skin the way Batiatus did.
As thrilling as hyper-adrenalized and high-def goats of arterial blood might be, there's no substitute for compelling characters. Spartacus is a suitably heroic impressive figure, but, as he rampages his way across the Roman Empire, we can't help but wish that Batiatus had managed to worm his way out of it.