Spartacus: Gods of the Arena: "Paterfamilias"

Quintus' tenure as lanista for the House of Batiatus is experiencing some growing pains.

The Assyrians haven't truly earned the mark of the brotherhood, so the rest of the gladiators don't accept them. Oenomaus isn't comfortable commanding the men who were so recently his equals, limiting his power as Doctore (he can't even crack the whip yet). Crixus is still green. And all of the devious back-door dealings are slowly unraveling.

In fact, it's hard to decide which of the developments in "Paterfamilias" is going to be a bigger thorn in everyone's side.

One is the return of Quintus' father, the titular "Paterfamilias." Titus Batiatus has credentials, he's bona-fide, and the first thing he does upon returning to Capua is walking in on his son cavorting with Lucretia and Gaia (Jaime Murray is now 3/3 for nude scenes!). He's a hard-assed, unforgiving father straight out of Lost and he isn't taking a shine to how Quintus is running things in his absence. He's so disappointed, in fact, that he immediately goes to smooth things over with Tullius and Vettius, removing Gannicus from the primus in the process. It's an act that gets Titus immediate heat - Batiatus is a slimeball, but Tullius and Vettius don't deserve apologies.

Maybe it's a good thing that Titus dragged Batiatus from the ludus for that meeting, because he misses the episode's other big development. Varus returns to the ludus, bringing his pal Cossutius with him. Cossutius heard of the show Gannicus and Melitta put on, and now he wants part of the action. Batiatus has yet to learn the slippery slope of lessening one's standards. Once you whore out two of your slaves, you've got to whore all of them out. It's up to Lucretia to play damage control, and that's how poor young Diona loses her virginity to an unwashed gladiator - and simultaneously loses another kind of virginity to Cossutius. If any of you had a DP scene on your Spartacus bingo card, mark it down!

Things don't turn out too badly for Batiatus in the end, though. Varus spares the life of one of his gladiators, thanks to his hospitality, and Crixus proves his worth in the arena. Even Titus can't help but show some approval for his son. But that doesn't mean that Batiatus won't inevitably kill him a few episodes down the road, as the ending intentionally foreshadows.

"Paterfamilias" wasn't a bad episode but it was more devoted to introducing and advancing storylines than deepening characters or doing awesome things for the sake of awesomeness (compared to the season premiere, the fights in the arena were pretty weak). We're halfway though the season and the endgame is still a tad ambiguous. The climax of Gods of the Arena can't be too earth-shattering, since we already know where most of these characters will be five years later. Gannicus is the presumed centerpiece of the prequel but we still know little about his character. The brilliance of Blood and Sand was how in its final third, it took upwards of eight episodes worth of plotting and brought everything together. Gods of the Arena only has six episodes to work with, period. The clock is ticking.