Summary
Spartacus: House of Ashur returns to the sands of the arena in “Horizons” and delivers a big stake-raising character death for good measure.
Spartacus: House of Ashur, after a week off, returns to the sands of the arena and, of course, provides a mandatory late-game character death to up the stakes on the way to the finale. It had to happen, and it’s obvious that it’s going to happen from about the midpoint of Episode 8, “Horizons”, which once again finds Ashur on the back foot, thoroughly humiliated and beaten, personally and professionally. But that doesn’t make it any easier to witness, since the idea of Tarchon outliving Celadus doesn’t sit especially well with me.
And it’s all Tarchon’s fault, in a roundabout way. We don’t spend a great deal of time in the ludus, but it’s enough opportunity for Tarchon to force his father back into the arena as champion by once again aggravating Achillia’s hand injury. Since Proculus, still extremely bitter about two-thirds of the Brothers Ferox having been butchered, turned up to take Opiter’s medicus away, Achillia isn’t fit to fight until the wound heals. Celadus, now no longer Doctore after Korris’s return, has to step in.
Tarchon annoyed me all the way through “Horizons”. He’s supposed to be annoying, I’ll grant you, but I think the performance is being pitched on just the wrong side of things, coming across as needlessly antagonistic to the extent that I can barely justify his own father tolerating him for as long as he has. He refuses to entertain Achillia’s genuine efforts to reach common ground, completely distances himself from Celadus, and just comes across as spiteful, reactive, and arrogant, especially since he hasn’t done anything to really warrant being so arrogant. For the split second when it looked like Ashur might push him off a cliff, I was pretty excited by the prospect.
No luck, though. Not only does Tarchon get to fight in the games – an event mostly organised by Gabinius for something to do – but he’s victorious, and somehow manages to finesse a scenario in which not only is his girlfriend’s abusive Roman master killed, but he gets to take credit for avenging the death. I know I’m not supposed to be, but I’m sincerely hoping something pretty bad befalls Tarchon in the final couple of episodes.
One has to imagine Ashur feels the same, but to be fair, he has enough concerns, since nothing in Spartacus: House of Ashur Episode 8 goes his way. Achillia’s inability to fight in the games loses him face, Cornelia continues to embarrass him in his own house, he loses his best fighter in Celadus, is repeatedly mocked by Proculus and Gabinius, and alienates both of the women in his life. Hilara turns on him slightly when he – rather gently, to be fair – tells her that his heart belongs to someone else, since she was still convinced that he was in love with her after their opium-fuelled liaison, and Viridia pushes him away because she has been arranged to marry Pompey as part of Gabinius’s long-term political strategy. She would quite clearly prefer to be with Ashur, but the distance between their respective stations won’t allow for it, and she doesn’t really have much of a say in her future, such as it was for women of the time.
But the big moment of “Horizons” is, undoubtedly, Celadus’s death, which is also another short-term win for Proculus. Even Satyrus manages to kill one of Ashur’s gladiators and remain alive, despite Korris taking every opportunity to torment him about what happened to his brothers. But it isn’t Satyrus who kills Celadus. That honour instead goes to a gigantic female Scythian who has become Proculus’s trendy champion, once again seeking to one-up Ashur by stealing his gimmick and fielding a woman even more deadly and compelling than Achillia. The fight between her and Celadus isn’t even especially close, but he does, to be fair, spend most of it looking back at Tarchon through the gates.
It’s pretty clear what’s happening here, I think. There’s going to be a big showdown between this nameless woman and Achillia, who will be simmering to hear of Celadus’s untimely demise after sharing their most intimate moment yet. And that showdown will offer Ashur an opportunity to get one over on Proculus and hopefully regain some social standing. But his problems are seriously mounting. Now that Hilara, his staunchest ally, is having second thoughts, he may well be betrayed within his own house, Tarchon definitely can’t be trusted, Viridia can’t see a future with him, and Cossutia, while she helped set up the Brothers Ferox – which Proculus quite clearly knows about – is only out for herself. Things aren’t looking good, and even Ashur might not be able to talk his way out of trouble this time.
