I just, finally got around to watching the second season of Rome (at least the first episode of it). I’d forgotten how brilliant this show is. Five, maybe ten minutes in, I was right back there, and by the end, I was Titus fuckin’ Pullo, savage, bloody, unbeaten, enemies at my feet. This show makes […]
I just, finally got around to watching the second season of Rome (at least the first episode of it).
I’d forgotten how brilliant this show is. Five, maybe ten minutes in, I was right back there, and by the end, I was Titus fuckin’ Pullo, savage, bloody, unbeaten, enemies at my feet.
This show makes me want to snarl and roar and swing a sword.
God dammit, where’s my slave girl, my wine skin, my blood-spattered tunic. I’m ready. Get me a goddamned time machine. This man isn’t just a character like I want to write; in my head, he’s the character I am. To steal a quote from an entirely different place, I had the rotten luck of being born in the wrong century.
I should have been a roman. I should have lived in a time when you were invited to an orgy, not a cocktail party. Where you wake up and send for a slave girl (“Go get that German slut from the kitchens, will you?”, as Atia says), where you can solve a problem by spilling blood. Fuck therapy, let’s try killing.
That world makes sense to me. Far, far more than does this one.
I can’t wait to delve further into this season; though as with Sopranos and Deadwood, I think I’ve resisted the watching because I don’t want it to end. Such things need, emotionally if not dramatically, to run off into the horizon. I do not want them finite, even if they’re better for ending before we’re ready.
Pullo can’t die. Ever. The curtain may fall on him, but he must remain, bloodied, but unbroken. Rome may fall, emperors may die by the knife or the sword, but Pullo needs to stand at the end. He’s just that kind of character.
*shakes head*
I hear the coffee was lousy back then. And Dean & DeLuca was just a start up.
You do have to take that sort of thing, plus (lack of)indoor plumbing and (prevalence of) pestilence, into account.
Not to say I haven’t conceived similar, cough HFDU, cough, thoughts myself……
hugs, E
Don’t finger-fuck me with details, E. Though I would miss the coffee.
There are so many ways to go with that reply, that I’m really just better off backing….out….of….here……slowly. *checks over shoulder*
E, you know you’re always safe (well, no, you’re never safe) choosing ‘dirtist possible response’ when you’re around here.
Remember we’re going for a X rating, no more PG 13.
Warren Ellis wrote about the second season from time to time over at his site, including here: http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=4045
He says, in part, “Pullo, I think, completes his own journey from half-animal to fully human.” Earlier in the season he had written something about Pullo to the effect that Pullo was an animal with an animal’s appetites but an animal’s sympathy, in contrast with Vorenus, a man with a Roman’s crushing duties.
I suppose it says something about me that I like the two Caesars best of all the characters: pitiless genius. I’m thinking of Julius Caesar’s response to Antony’s joking about the triumph and “playing god”: “I’m not playing.”
Warren, i’ll have to read that after watching the rest of the series But yeah, Ciarán Hinds performance as Caesar is breathtaking. It’s hard to imagine how season two will play without him.
I admire Caesar as a truly great character, great in teh sense of historic significance; but I identify more with Pullo’s raw energy and fearlessness. He’s a human character, he and Vorenus are the human heart and soul of the show; they give it a frame of reference we can’t get with enormous character like Antony and Caesar, or even with Brutus.
One of the things with this show, though, is that everywhere you turn there are amazing performances, even in small roles.
I love watching Ciaran Hinds chew scenery. There are actors who just exude power, class and sex, and he’s one of them. I loved the first season, and the only thing that kept me from watching the second was the fact that we got rid of cable.
Oh, and they may not have had coffee, but they had WINE. 🙂
I’m not Warren Ellis, just didn’t want to usurp credit for his insights.
Rass, may i say D’oh!
Kids, take it from me, rockstar and nyquil may sound like a good party mix, but it doesn’t go well with blogging.
J-girl, you’re right, wine, and slaves to pour it. They had the better end of that deal.
You would *never* get me out of that Colosseum, daddy.
(We won’t need coffee, E. Gladiatorial bouts will be all the stimulation we need!)
Blood being, as they say, thicker than…
Whoa! I thought the post was full of great quotes. Then I get here and I see such wonderful stuff like finger fucking and blood. What a wonderful decadent thing to be reading about from the beach! We all need more fucking. I’ll volunteer to be a slave or a slut!
Makal and I just recently started watching, we’re on disc 3 of season 1. I’ve loved Titus Pullo since the second episode, when he skewered the cheating gambler. The whole show is delicious, but we’re trying to savor it so we don’t go into sudden withdrawal.
I’m gonna have to post my own thoughts on the show sometime, as it’s certainly inspired a bevy of (lewd) ideas! 😉
Rome is an incredibly good show… I came to it late, and watched all of seasons one and two in one marathon weekend. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts after viewing the ultimate episode. It’ll blow your mind.
And yeah, totally with you on the german slut thing.
Merrick, doesn’t that show just make you want to fuck someone? (or have someone do that to you)
Simon, yeah, can’t wait to see the rest of it. My HBO crapped out in the middle of the third episode so it’s unwatchable. I’m gonna have to go rent the fucking thing now, after saving it for months.
*plucks her slave/slut devil from the comment section* Wow I came here and watched some marijuana redwings game shit and left with a sex slave and the warm fuzzy that I am not the only one lost in this era. Awesome.