Rome Season II (1 Viewer)

[Mikah Cerucco]

In defense of HBO, "Rome" does lend itself to a built-in shelf life. In fact, from what I remember, it wasn't initially supposed to be a series, but rather a miniseries like From The Earth To The Moon or Band of Brothers. I'm happy they decided to go for a Season 2.

 

[Qui-Gon John]

And Six Feet Under they allowed to go to a pre-determined conclusion. Also, looks like they're doing the same with Sopranos.

Now they did screw the pooch on Carnivale.

 

[John_Lee]

And Pullo's 'Captain Morgan' stance when he finds out wifey's 'plegnat,' is the highlight of this year.
Felt good to laugh out of humor, character development, character affinity and general all-around happiness.

 

[Chris]

This weeks episode was great. The acting in this show is phenomenal.

 

[todd s]

The actress who plays Gaia (the one Pullo "punishes" over a table) is the same actress who played the girl on The Lone Gunmen. She is hot.

 

[MarkMel]

Don't forget, Pullo's wife wants him to 'beat' Gaia once a month. Plus it looks like she's going to sabotage Pullo's baby with her visit to the pharmacy.

 

[Hanson]

So it's offical -- I accidentally got my wife hooked on the show. I finally got around the watching season 2, and my wife joined me halfway into episode 2 and didn't leave. When we got to episode 5, she had to go to bed. I offered to wait and watch the rest with her, and she accepted. So we watched 5-7 last night. Throughout, I gave her little tidbits of history gleaned from textbooks and a lot from this thread, and she slowly got sucked in. When I mentioned that I, Claudius takes place after the events of season 2, she suggested we rent it. I already have season 1 on DVD, so she may watch it when she has free time.

I find it interesting that the creators are so exacting about the minutae of times but take great liberties with the macro story. It's oddly historically dead on and wildly off the mark at the same time.

Anyway, just want to say I loved season 1 and I actually like this season better. And this thread is very informative and really fleshes out the story. Thank you all.

 

[JonZ]

I thought S1 was just ok and think this season has been much better.

 

[Ty Zucker]

Some great lines from this week's episode. My favorite was "Now, that's an exit."

 

[Yee-Ming]

Not just that, Mark Antony and Octavia lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, then Antony goes "well, it is our wedding night", and Octavia matter-of-factly tells him to do as he pleases, then he matter-of-factly asks her to roll over. Just hilarious. Antony, or rather James Purefoy, has been the source of some really great moments in this series.

Servilia doing herself in was something else. And Atia's later realisation that the curse might be taking effect, on her daughter and lover's wedding night, was another great moment.

A lot of voyuerism this episode, Octavian watching presumably Atia and Mark Antony (ugh, watch your mom bumping uglies ) -- I didn't think he was watching Octavia and Agrippa -- and Memmio watching his man going at Vorena. Nobody watched Pullo and Gaia, but someone certainly could have walked in and I was wondering if Eirene would.

And it'll be interesting to see what happens between Eirene, Pullo and Gaia. Poor Eirene, she's just stuck in the middle of it all and it looks like Gaia's using Roman RU486...

Antony marrying Octavia skips over Octavian first marrying Antony's step-daughter, but that would require introducing a new character and explaining who she was etc. I guess jumping straight to the "settlement" where Octavian took the West, Antony the East and Lepidus Africa (Treaty of Brundisium), with Octavia married to Antony, was more straightforward, and doesn't really affect the historical narrative anyway.

I just acquired "I, Claudius", partly because of watching Rome. But being a BBC series about 30 years old, somehow I get the feeling it won't compare favourably to Rome, with its modern (and expensive) production values, saucier scenes, although the stellar cast no doubt can act as well as, if not better, than the cast of Rome.

 

[PhilipG]

Ha-ha, don't you believe it!

Once you get beyond the creaking sets, that is. I, Claudius is the daddy.

 

[Yee-Ming]

That was my concern. Then again ST:TOS compares favourably to TNG and is better than Voyager, so hopefully you're right. Indeed, I probably underestimate the power of that cast, a lot of stellar actors there: Derek Jacobi, John Hurt, Brian Blessed, Patrick Stewart, Sian Philips... (ironic that Stewart and Philips would also appear together -- sort of -- in of all things, Dune)

 

[Greg Hoffman]

Someone NOT to underestimate-Sian Philips's Livia!

 

[RyanTSI]

Man Mark Antony always has some hilarious lines.

"Those lions you brought me are useless! They wouldn't pull my chariot for shit, and they bit the arm off a perfectly good groom!." -Antony

I see you're still the same crude letch you always were." --Octavian
"That's right! And still f**king your mother!" --Antony

 

[JonZ]

Yea Antony has been great this season.

Last nights episode was one of the best in the 2 seasons of this show.

Sad to see Pullo loose his wife Eirene and Vorenus gone to Eygpt after things fell apart with his children.

Ill say it again - this season has blown away the first IMHO.

 

[Dave Scarpa]

Isn't 10 episodes it for the series this , it's last season, if so would that make the series Finale next week?

 

[Jeff_CusBlues]

After last night's episode, the previews said there were two episodes left.

 

[Mark Maltais]

:frowning:

 

[todd s]

One thing that bothered me with Vorenus' wife killing herself. Is how she could do that to her kids? She was shown to love them very much. But, she kills herself knowing how crazed Vorenus was. Know maybe it was the custom...But, still she could have condemned them to death by her actions.

Also, with regards to things coming to a head with Vorenus and his daughter. She thinks Vorenus threw her off the balcony. I was hoping Pullo would tell her that it wasn't Vorenus.

And that sucks about Eirene...I hope to see some come-uppence for that chick that did it to her.

And I was surprised how much Antony really loved Attia. Antony generally seemed upset by having to leave her....Although, when he saw Cleopatra he seemed to forget her pretty quick.

 

[MarkMel]

Well when you consider what they really looked like via this coin; http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17157862/

they look like they were made for each other.

The coin ruined the illusion for my wife.