Rome “De Patre Vostro (About Your Father)”

And so, Rome comes to its shortened end.  The sudden cancelation created a historic rush that jammed as much as the producers could to tell as much of the story as they were able to.  And these last few episodes were the result.

But now they’re over.  Oh well.

After everything that’s happened, the show more or less wraps up the stories of Marc Antony and Cleopatra.  A bad loss at sea ends with Antony doing the sort of thing he usually does, which in this case is retreat into debauchery.  Octavian’s order to surrender is ignored, and a suggestion of one-on-one combat is also ignored.  Maybe if he drank less and attended to less orgies, he’d be in better shape.  Mentally, I mean.  Well, physically too.

But Octavian knows a thing or two and sends a separate message to Cleopatra while trying to get Vorenus to open the gates.  Vorenus is loyalty personified, so of course he won’t.  But Cleopatra will do stuff to save her life and the lives of her children, so she fakes a suicide note to Antony, who then kills himself, and then she gets told off by Vorenus.  Vorenus was loyal to Antony.  He has no problem outlining to Cleopatra exactly what will happen to her and her children.  Heck, she even more or less admits Pullo is Caesarion’s father, so she knows that kid needs to get out of town.  Having Vorenus smuggle Caesarion away, Cleopatra meets with Octavian and learns…well, that everything Vorenus said is more or less true, so she also commits suicide with that asp to the breast.  Probably the sexiest suicide in modern television right there, folks.

Octavian was a bit surprised.  He tried to be his most charming when he met with the Queen of Egypt.  Who can possibly say no to those serial killer eyes of his?

Oh well.

Much of the rest of the episode deals with Pullo meeting up with Vorenus and smuggling Caesarion out of Egypt and into Rome.  Caesarion believes he’s an incarnation of a god, and that gets the trio into trouble since he can’t pass a checkpoint quietly.  And Octavian would love to see the boy dead as a rival son of Caesar.  Telling Pullo, who believes himself the lad’s real father, to go kill the kid?  Not a good idea.  As it is, Vorenus is badly wounded in a scuffle and Pullo manages to get his friend back to Rome before he dies, and Vorenus’ children even manage to forgive him.

Plus, you know, Octavian is crowned Emperor.

The show ends with Pullo and Caesarion wandering the streets of Rome, and after Caesarion once again swears vengeance against Octavian in the name of his father, Pullo gives this somewhat amused last line, “Listen, about your father…”

And that’s that.  Apparently, if there is every anything more that gets done, the producers say Vorenus would have lived.  That’s not too surprising, considering the historic Atia was long dead by this point herself.

And thus ends Rome.  Overall, this was good stuff, aside from the rushed finale.  Nine out of ten offscreen battles.

But wait, there’s more…

This experiment has been a bit of fun for me, so I have decided to keep it going.  Starting next Monday, I’ll be doing write-ups for a new show.

What show?  Well…

Yup, with all the regular coverage I gave to shows that are mostly finished, I missed out on this.  So, yeah, Stranger Things coverage starts next Monday.