Epic, beautiful, and tear-jerking.

The legend of Spartacus has been told countless times with every generation coming up with another story or film that captures the imagination. This retelling by Starz network had more blood, swearing, and sex than any other, but it felt more true to form for the era and times. Slavery is not a dead concept of the ancient world, even in today we still have slaves, whether it is in the human trafficking in Africa, the sex trade in Europe, Asia, and Americas, or in the domestic households of the US, UK, France, and other 1st world nations. It has soften from the era of Rome, but the same captivity and hopelessness remains.

The story of Spartacus speaks to those people and it also speaks to everyone as well.

I freely admit to sharing libertarian principles, even though I have grown increasingly conservative over the years.

The ideals of freedom is summed up with Spartacus' theme: Eat, Drink, Fight, Fuck, and do what makes you happy. Then, you must defend those freedoms with your life.

The story of the finale is very straightforward, with homages to Kubrick's Spartacus and a climatic battle sequence that was epic in scale. The human stories behind the battle were handled breathlessly and tragically. We all knew the conclusion was a bloodbath for the rebels, but everyone had a share of tragedy. Crassus is displayed in a far better light than he has been in any modern telling of Spartacus, in this version, he genuinely does seem to like Spartacus and even admire his ideals. However, he must defend the Republic at all costs. He's a reflection of the late Roman Republic's politics, something our own politician today should be warned of as they are following the path of Rome. Crassus was defending the roman freedoms, but those freedoms existed the ugly concept of slavery and inequity. Even he can see that Rome's way can be horrible, but he steadfastly defends it. He's not just 1% guy beating up the poor and slaves, who flock to Spartacus' army, he is defending Roman Republic and its ideals despite its flaws.

On the flip side of the coin, Julius Caesar comes off as a cunt and douche bag, who corners Gannicus in a corner rather than fight him one on one like Crassus had done with Spartacus. Historically, Caesar was far better tactician than he was a warrior, reading his De Bello Gallico in school I can see why DeKnight and other producer chose this depiction.

In the end, Spartacus nearly beat Crassus, but is killed by common Roman soldiers. Historically, according to Plutarch and Appian at least, he did die in the battle, but his body was not recovered, so they stayed true to the Roman histories rather than Kubrick's film version of his crucifixion.

Lugo made his final Cry of batt, "I WILL FUCK YOU MOTHERS" as half his face is on fire and he swings his battle hammer at oncoming Roman troops until two spears kill him. (Come on, it's a bad ass way to die)

Naevia dies in a low key moment, where she is stabbed in the neck. Her final look was peaceful like she had finally found her peace after her lifetime of sufferring from her Roman gang rape to the death of her beloved Crixus.

Agron and Nasir, our favorite gay couple, survives the war and head up to Germania (Wonder if Germany was open to gay warrior bonds back then). However before that, they were by Spartacus side talking about how his legend would live on even after the fall of Rome. It's true, but his dream of freedom has not been achieved completely either despite the laws and treaties that we have created.

However, the dream of freedom is far more important than the failure of its execution or the rebel defeat at Roman hands. Remember that you could lose a war, but an ideal can never be killed once it is conceived.

We are all Spartacus!

I give it 5 out of 5

:lugh: :lugh: