Summary
Any misgivings about Spartacus: House of Ashur reviving its titular character should be put to bed by “Blood and Bone”, in which he really excels.
A lot has been made of Ashur’s suitability as the protagonist of a Spartacus spin-off, but as of Episode 4 of Spartacus: House of Ashur, I’m starting to see the logic. “Blood and Bone” has a fair amount going on, but a lot of it requires Ashur to fulfill multiple different roles and modes. He’s determined one moment, smug the next, thoroughly embarrassed and desperate here, and totally supplicant and servile there. He won’t get any credit for it, but it’s a really good performance from Nick E. Tarabay, and the plot’s starting to move in a direction that’ll really test him.
On the subject of the plot, its various tendrils are less isolated here than they were in the previous episode, resulting in a few pleasurably knotty entanglements. We have our long-term shape — the House of Ashur competing in Gabinius’s upcoming games — and a number of small-scale conflicts to be dealing with in the meantime, including Achillia training to take on the Brothers Ferox, the attendant problems this causes between Tarchon and Celadus, Korris’s “fake” affection for Opiter proving more real than envisaged, the tables being turned on Cossutia, and then the same tables being turned on Ashur. There are even a few more threads twisted through all this, but all in good time.
The big looming spectre hanging over “Blood and Bone” is that of Crassus, Ashur’s patron, who randomly sends him a missive warning of his impending arrival but giving no further details. This sends Ashur into a frenzy of overspending so that he can give the right impression when Crassus finally shows up, but since there’s no date on the letter, it’s up to Hilara — whose responsibility I undersold last week; she’s actually Ashur’s vilica, and oversees his entire household — to constantly remind him that they don’t have the money to keep the ludus in the lap of luxury indefinitely.
This forces Ashur to put more pressure on the gladiators, since it’d be nice to have some accomplishments to show off and entry into Gabinius’s games would count, and also prompts two trips to the market. In the first, Ashur tries to antagonise Proculus and the Brothers Ferox — again, in an effort to gain position in the games — and ends up being embarrassingly pelted with fruit, which only makes him even more incensed at his own stable. But during the second, he happens upon a potential solution to all of his problems.
Which brings us to Cossutia. At least at the start of Spartacus: House of Ashur Episode 4, Ashur still sees cosying up to Cossutia as his only way to gain access to the games, which means pushing Korris to continue “feigning” affection for Opiter. Opiter’s already working on Cossutia with an endless supply of men and rumours of fine Egyptian cotton, but upon hearing of Korris’s injuries during the attack on him by Fides and his goons (which Cossutia organised), Opiter decides to visit him in person.
The twist here is that Korris seems to be genuinely into Opiter. He’s trying to keep him at arm’s length so he can uncomplicatedly do Ashur’s bidding, but the heart — among other things — wants what it wants. Ironically, this would probably have been less complicated if it had remained as-is, but thanks to later events, Opiter’s services are no longer required, meaning that if Korris wants to continue to see him, it’ll have to be on his own time.
The “later events” involve Ashur’s second trip to market, this time with Korris. While there, the two of them happen to stumble on an effort by Cilician pirates to kidnap Cossutia and her daughter, Viridia, an attack which also results in Horatia being very shockingly and messily brained. Luckily, Ashur and Korris arrive in the nick of time to save the mother and daughter, who are appropriately thankful and take Ashur to receive an appropriate reward from Gabinius. You can guess what that is — and just in time for Crassus’s arrival!
However, it isn’t Crassus who arrives — it’s Caesar, who, needless to say, Ashur gets on with significantly less well. That should be fun for us, if nothing else, but it’s unlikely to yield the outcomes Ashur himself was hoping for.
And Another Thing…
Another couple of notes on Spartacus: House of Ashur Episode 4 that didn’t fit into the main recap:
- Celadus is beginning to lightly befriend Achillia, but this is coming at the expense of Tarchon, who I somehow didn’t realise until now is his son. Tarchon’s ego is extremely fragile, so this is something to keep an eye on.
- Things are still very frosty between Hilara and Messia on account of the latter’s unrequited attraction to the former.
- I’ve only just discovered that Cossutia is played by Claudia Black, so I now can’t stop hearing Chloe Frazer whenever she speaks.
- I can’t help but think Ashur arranged the attack on Cossutia and Viridia so that he and Korris could save the day. It seems mighty fortuitous otherwise.
