TV review – “Rome” season 2

The old gang are back for another round of fun and games – excepting of course Ciarin Hinds’ Julius Caesar, who’s bought the farm. He’s missed, actually, but there is plenty to keep you interested, as Octavian and Marc Anthony battle over Rome. Ray Stevenson is a bit softer and more human in this version – he only does one really mean thing (strangling someone) and even then the person deserves it. OK, two (an execution) but that person deserves it too. Kevin McKidd’s character is a bit tougher – he goes through a bad patch and is a really neglectful father. I didn’t find the story lines between these two as involving in the second series: watching soldiers adapt to peace time was interesting in season one, but here they’re basically a band of thugs running the water front, which does give plenty of opp for sex and violence, but gets a bit wearying. (These two characters aren’t “ordinary people” or even Rosencrantz and Guilderstern – they’re super heroes.) Far more interesting are the shenanigans at the palace: Octavian growing into a leader (I like the way he grows up weird, cold and a bit unco), Marc Anthony getting out of control, Brutus going through a mid life crisis, Atia and Servilla still engaging in their cat fight to beat all cat fights, Octavia still the dopey rich girl experimenting with everything under the sun (in this series it’s drugs, orgies, flings with her brother’s est friend, then arranged marriage and motherhood).

Maybe I’m just getting used to the tone of the series, but it seemed Season 2 was a bit softer. There’s more humour, Atia is a lot more sympathetic (she gets her heart broken), there’s actually a decent upright character who has an important role (Agrippa, Octavian’s best friend). There was only two really gut wrenching OMG moments – finding out the fate of McKidd’s children at the end of Ep 1, and the execution of Cicero. That doesn’t say the rest of it lacks power, though – there are some awesome scenes such as the last moment of Marc Anthony (James Purefoy really steps up to the plate and marks himself as a possible star), Ray Stevenson doing a tending-a-death bed scene (the first one, not the second or third – two too many). Some odd detours here and there – why all the time spent on the plot about Timon, and why not clarify what McKidd’s fate was (perhaps to keep it open for a possible Season 3?).

Interesting responses to the challenges set up by Shakespeare – Brutus and Marc Anthony’s funeral orations are not shown, the Battle of Philippi is shown (in expensive glory) but Brutus and Cassius do not kill themselves they are killed instead), Cleopatra is a coked up sensual creature who is still quite cluey. Makes you wonder if they’d done a Season 3 how they’d go up against Robert Graves.