This episode of the third season sees the introduction of pirates to this season of Spartacus who stop by Spartacus’ newly taken city Sinuessa in relation to a deal they had with the cities Aedile. Spartacus moves to form a new deal which leads to the culmination of a meeting between two groups (rebels/pirates) both of questionable honour yet both meeting in attempt to show they may both be of honour but not all goes to plan when Crassus’ son arrives and interferes.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy5t9Kp6lIQ[/youtube]
Apart from the meeting scene and negotiations between Spartacus and the pirates there is some interesting new character developments and scenes in this episode pivotal to the rest of the season. It seems Naevia had gone mad or has she? Crixus to; they are both increasingly frustrated with the Roman prisoner/slave presence within the city due to their hatred of the Romans. Even though last season was entitled Spartacus: Vengeance it seems this season Crixus and Naevia still seek it, more so than others.
Crixus at one point forces two Romans to fight for a piece of bread as he once fought in the arena, when the victor is decided Naevia moves to strike and wound the Roman. After this the reason for their hatred is made clear and Naevia opens up about her past as a slave, which is strikingly similar to that of Crixus. They have had similar mistreatment from the Romans and still seek Vengeance. There is quite a large development of these two characters here and rape themes are heavy in this episode to make you understand their motivations. However Naevia comes across as someone long gone from sanity and is unlikely to ever recover from what happened to her. This is shown later between her confrontation with Attius the blacksmith (Cohen Holloway) in which I guess once you watch you can question what was right or wrong in the scene. Did you like Naevia this episode after watching? She’s quite different to the other seasons of the show.
As with the show as always everything was good though this episode is really just focused on Spartacus and the Rebels. There is not much of Crassus antagonising the situation except for his son’s foolishness at the end. It seems he still hasn’t learnt his lesson his father taught him with the gladiator back in episode one. With the next episode entitled decimation I’m sure his punishment just may be most severe.
