Spartacus S03E05 – Blood Brothers: much like last season’s 5th episode – was brilliance. Spartacus and the Roman Military Leader Crassus have been engaged in a mental chess game match all season. In this one Spartacus made all the right moves and yet was still out manuveured by Crassus. On the action front this show continues to set the high bar on action sequences with swordtacular battle scenes. Again and again.
And like last season’s show shifting 5th episode which saw the gladiators leave the arena and their slavery behind forever, Spartacus has lost the city. Just as he was poised to draw out and divide Crassus’s forces. To the hills they must flee!
Crassus has gained the upper hand in battle while at the same time the rift between he and his son, Tiberius, has now become permanently irrepairable.
The foreshadowing irony of Caesar stabbing Spartacus in the back was most delicious indeed.
Brilliant, brilliant writing.
I’ve taken stabs at fiction writing here and there but never have I experienced that AHA! moment when unrelated items have coalesced into a new and unique idea that other writers talk about. Part of my problem is that I have read so many takes on how to write the process has become overwhelming plus my own unintentionally created roadblock of wanting to write something big and epic so that it will move people. A bittersweet story much like Frodo sailing off to the Grey Havens after saving Middle Earth.