Lock Up Your Women

S02E08

Octavian taps Vorenus to oversee the transfer of Herod's bribe from the docks to Rome, and if it had gone smoothly, we really wouldn't have much of an episode this week. First of all, Gaia ends up killing not only the baby but Eirene as well. Nobody suspects, but obviously Pullo's in no shape to accompany the gold shipment, so Mascius goes instead. Maecenas and Posca are plotting to steal a cut for themselves, and when Mascius gets the shipment ambushed out from under him, fingers are pointing in every direction. The members of the Triumvirate suspect one another, but not as much as Maecenas suspects Posca and Mark Antony of double-crossing him. He takes his scattershot revenge by spilling a double handful of beans: Antony's still screwing Julii Cooper, and Agrippa's been screwing Octavia all along. Prig that he is, Octavian puts his mom and sister under house arrest, exiles Antony to Egypt, and cuts Agrippa a break. Agrippa dumps Octavia just before learning that she's pregnant (by whom, we don't yet know). Also, Octavian is about to marry a young woman named Livia, who is already almost as scary as he is. We still haven't found the gold, though, have we? That's because Memmio stole it. Vorenus knows this; now he just has to find the leak in his organization. They think it's Mascius at first, but when one of Vorena's little wicker totems pops up at an opportune moment, Vorenus realizes that his daughter has betrayed him. They have a wicked fight, and Vorenus ends up inviting himself along to Egypt with Antony rather than trying to fix things at home. He leaves Pullo behind in charge of both the family and the Collegium. Memmio buys off the other captains to get them to join him against Pullo and the Aventine, and in a climactic battle scene, Pullo ensures that Memmio's smooth-talking days are over, as is Omnipor's weaving career. But we won't know until week how everything else turns out on that front. Finally, Antony arrives in Egypt, and it looks like he and Cleopatra will be together again for the first time.

At his villa, Octavian is delivering a lecture to the upper-class women of Rome that's all about how, while Roman men were strong and powerful in the old days, it wasn't until they had wives to civilize them that the culture began its rise to greatness. He credits female virtue and morality with making Rome what it is today. And of course, his unwitting hypocrisy is underscored by shots of Mark Antony screwing Julii Cooper (so, clearly, they got back together), Agrippa screwing Octavia, and Gaia leaving the apothecary's shop with the evil, fetus-killing herbs tucked into her dress. I can't tell you how glad I am that this storytelling technique was not available to news reporters years ago when Newt Gingrich was going after Clinton for having extramarital affairs. Octavian promises to make laws rewarding fertility and punishing all forms of sluttery. Legislating morality, in other words. That always goes well.

Afterward, there's a reception going on the courtyard. Maecenas rescues Octavian from having to schmooze some old women, quietly telling him that the audience "bought it wholesale." "I mean every word," Octavian protests tightly, but Maecenas isn't cursed with Octavian's sincerity. "I suspect the women of old Rome were a parcel of whores and termagants," he remarks. Octavian pompously lets the subject drop, just in case you still thought there was anything he couldn't do pompously. Maecenas points across the courtyard to a young woman, and Octavian declares her "very presentable." And about fifteen. Maecenas assures Octavian that she comes from good stock, and has already proven fertile; she's got a son named Tiberius. "Introduce me," Octavian orders. They head over, Maecenas makes the introductions, and Octavian's first words to the girl, Livia, are, "Tell me -- how would you like to be married to me?" And here we thought Octavian had no game. Livia and her mother can't believe their good fortune, and Livia's smile reveals her as something of an orthodontic heir to Brutus. She says that would be awesome, as long as her husband doesn't mind. Octavian asks who that is, and upon being told it's Claudius Nero, he says there shouldn't be a problem, what with the Neros being a "patriotic" (i.e. Octavian ass-kissing) family. "See to the details," he orders the women, and he and Maecenas move on. Octavian expresses his approval of Livia before they move on to the real business of this episode, which is the huge bribe that's expected from Herod any time now. Apparently the ship with its twenty thousand pounds of gold is waiting offshore at Ostia. Maecenas says that he's planning to have our good friends of the Aventine Collegium oversee the delivery. Octavian's cool with that, but he wants Maecenas to make sure he has plausible deniability. If they get busted, he wants Antony to take the fall alone. So splitting everything three ways has its limits, I guess.

By M. Giant

I don't know what Timon told his family after getting home from accidentally killing his brother, but it looks like they're moving now. As they walk through the crowded Roman streets, Timon's pulling a cart loaded with down with all of their worldly possessions, and if that's not an incentive to pack light, I don't know what is. One of Timon's daughters asks if they can expect to see Levi when they get to Jerusalem. Jerusalem? Timon plans to pull that cart all the way to Judea? That's an incentive to pack nothing but food and water, which, looking at Timon, may be what he did. Let's hope the walk is mostly downhill. Timon's rather cagey on the subject of Levi for now. Mrs. Timon gives her husband a little speech about what a good man he is; she knew it the moment she saw him, and he never proved him wrong. What, even that time he showed up for breakfast looking like Carrie at the prom? "Papa, are we there yet?" one of the daughters asks, and everyone laughs. Was that ever not funny? I take that back; when they're lost and starving and two hundred miles out of Fuckall, Greece, it probably won't be funny then.

The cart passes by a jewelry store where Posca is just about offering to buy out the place for his young wife, Jocasta. He sends her inside to browse, looking worriedly at a litter that's just approaching up the street. He goes to meet it and sticks his head inside the curtains, where a topless woman is making out with some form of androgyne. I'd be a little embarrassed if I were Posca, and more than a little worried that I'd gotten the wrong litter, but they're only putting on a little show for the entertainment of the litter's third passenger, who is none other than Maecenas. Posca bitches about Maecenas showing up in such a fancy ride, and is told, "This is my third-best litter. You're quite nondescript enough for the both of us." Still, Posca insists that Maecenas's floor show give them a little privacy, even though Maecenas assures Posca that the performers don't speak English (or whatever). Once it's just the two of them in there (and the crack pipe Maecenas confiscated from the "girls"), Posca says that they can't be too careful; they're planning to steal from their bosses, after all. Now he's careful, after cutting his wife loose in a jewelry store to spend his squealing-on-Antony fee from last week. Maecenas calls it not stealing, but "a small commission for services rendered." I'm sure their bosses will see it that way, too. Posca is pretty worried that Maecenas is going to get them both busted and killed, but he also likes money, so he outlines the plan: the gold will be delivered to the Temple of Saturn at night, and the two of them will be alone with the gold until day. Good plan. I'm certain nobody will suspect either of them when some of it turns up missing. "Bring slaves you trust," Posca begs. Just then, Jocasta pops in, giving them both a fright. "Why on earth do you travel in such a garish litter?" she asks Maecenas, who obviously hates her as much as Julii Cooper does. "I thought sure my husband was intriguing with an actress or some such trollop," flutters Jocasta, making herself comfortable and jangling her new bling quite a great deal. "So where are we going?" Maecenas sits there wishing he'd brought his eighth-best litter.