“Mors Indecepta” showed the best and worst of Spartacus. At its best, we had the continuation of the thrilling chess match between Spartacus and Crassus, with Spartacus’s catastrophic attempt to assassinate Crassus followed by his stunning turnaround: conquering the trench and building a bridge out of hundreds of fucking corpses.
At its worst, the episode shined a light on the patchy characterisation that the show’s been guilty of this season. Crixus and Naevia are an example of characters from the show’s beginning who’ve each been reduced to one note – angry. The character of Naevia has been weak ever since her change in actress in season two, a combination of weak writing and weak acting, but Crixus seems to have followed her into all-consuming anger with none of the complexity he demonstrated in the past.
I’ve generally been impressed by the show’s ability to develop all the new characters this season, but I wasn’t convinced by the Kore plot in particular in “Mors Indecepta.” I can understand her motivation for joining Spartacus’s camp, torn between Tiberius’s abuse and Crassus’s paternal love, but to commit murder? This came as a surprise to Crassus, but shouldn’t have been a surprise for the audience.
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Crassus could become irrational with her leaving, will be interesting to see. I did love the back and forth with strategies between Crassus and Spartacus 😀
Yeah, I’m sure the Kore subplot will pay off in interesting ways, but it felt a little clumsy the way they got there. I’ve seen it suggested that they’re trying to establish Crassus as someone who succeeds on the battlefield at the expense of his family, which is a reasonable arc – I just wish they’d fleshed out Kore’s motivations better. The battle between Spartacus and Crassus is definitely good stuff; good to see the show finally provide Spartacus with a worthy opponent.