<B>Rome</B>: Kalends of February

"Kalends"? Isn't Kalends one of Kevin Federline's kids with erstwhile paramour Shar Jackson? He's not? Oh. Okay.

We know that, going into this episode, Caesar is going to get shived like a prison bitch on Oz. We also know that the true parentage of Vorenus's "grandson" will finally get its day as a MAJOR PLOT POINT, and that things will most likely not end well for anybody whose name ends with an "a" or an "us". Or an "e".

I feel compelled to avoid a longish blow-by-blow in favor of bullet points. Which, for those of you who work in an office and have seen more than your fair share of PowerPoint presentations, should find familiar (if not particularly satisfying).

• The Julii
  
  
  
  • Caesar: After the execution that wasn't, Pullo and Vorenus are heroes to the people. Well, shit, I'd think anybody who could kill three men while sitting on the ground, or basically split a giant in two with his own mace, was pretty fucking superhuman, too. This presents a problem for Caesar, as his dead critic's killer goes unpunished, and he can't punish the magistrate who helped the killer escape execution. So Caesar, whilst appointing various Gauls and Celts and non-Romans to the Senate (thereby shoring support for himself), makes Vorenus a senator/bodyguard: "Who will raise a hand to me with the ferocious Lucius Vorenus at my side?"
    
    
    
    
    But where was Vorenus when Caesar found himself the bull in the middle of what was probably the world's first human bullfight? We'll get to that in a bit. True to the character of the show, Caesar's death was shown in exquisite, bloody detail -- Caesar trying to fight the senators whose knives are too fast and too plentiful. If you've ever seen, like, the last 20 minutes of Suddenly, Last Summer, then you know what I'm talking about. Brutus, as we all know, delivers the final blow, but not without the flashes of anguish that seemed to have plagued him ever since the plot to kill Caesar was first conceived.
    
  • Calpurnia: Girl, I know you tried to warn him, what with your creepy-ass dream and all. Still, though, way to get your husband killed.
    
  • Atia: Atia visits Servilia, taking Octavian along (no doubt for his superior glowering capabilities). They have a nice sit while Servilia informs Servilia of Caesar's assassination as they sit in her house. For once, Atia is struck dumb while Servilia promises that "[she] will make [Atia] suffer slowly and deeply." No matter where Atia runs and hides, Servilia will find her. I wonder if this is how Servilia got Caesar to get together with her in the first place? In any case, point, set, and match, Servilia. Atia can do nothing but thank her for the visit and leave as quickly and as quietly as possible.
    
  • Posca and Mark Antony: Way to not be there, guys. To be fair, they were prevented from helping Caesar not get shanked by the throngs of panicking senators, Cicero among them, as they ran away from killing. But Mark, aren't you a famous, particularly savvy soldier? You couldn't MacGyver your way into the building by making a human slingshot out of your toga to catapult you in? By the time Mark Antony made it in, the deed was done: bloody senators, some still slipping on the blood on the floor, and Caesar twitching against a wall. At that point, there was nothing for him to do but slowly and quietly back out.
    

• The Junii
  
  
  
  • Servilia: Well, you know what she's been up to. It was she who figured out how to get Vorenus away from Caesar, ordering her servant to tell Vorenus the truth about baby Lucius. Also, she prayed to the Junii ancestors for Brutus's success in his mission: "let his heart be filled with sacred rage." Very poetic, but kinda scary. I wonder if the degree to which you want to see your former lover die horribly is related to the amount of time you spent waiting for his ass to come back from eight years conquering Gaul.
    
  • Brutus: He did it. But not without a lot of tears and gnashing of teeth and wracking of brain and oh yeah, Cassius totally picking his knife up off the Senate floor and pressing it into his hand. And of course the wailed "NO!" after the whole thing is over.
    
  • Cassius & Quintus Pompey: They were nothing less than gleeful
    

• The Vorenii
  
  
  
  • Lucius: Fearing for his life after stopping Pullo's execution, Vorenus took Niobe and the children to the country so that a priest could bless the farmland to which they would retreat should they be sent into exile by Caesar. According to custom, he and Niobe totally do it in the dirt in front of everybody -- children, servants, priest even. I'm sure that, if he had known that this was the last time (as far as we know) he'd be making with the sex with his wife, he'd have done it somewhere else. I'm just saying. Then of course, he is made a senator, with no apparent clue that perhaps Caesar was relying upon him for protection as opposed to real political savvy. And he had to fuck that up, too. Just because your wife had a baby with your former brother-in-law, you had to run off and leave your boss unprotected while you went back and had a tantrum. I love that, as he's learning this informatiom Servilia's trusty servant, that scenes from previous episodes relating to the Lyde-Evander-Niobe triangle flash before his eyes. I guess that, taken together, it was pretty obvious to him then, but why couldn't he have figured it out sooner? Oh, right -- it's a DEVICE! Sweet.
    
  • Niobe: Niobe held up pretty well in her confrontation with Vorenus. It's not that I totally agree with having a baby with your sister's ex because you think your husband is dead while he's actually off kicking Gallic ass and being totally faithful to you, but I still felt bad for her as she inched away from Vorenus, knife gleaming in his unsure hands, and threw herself off the balcony. So if they hadn't lived in a second-floor flat, how would she have offed herelf? My guess would have been that kitchen knife, or maybe drowning herself in the river.
    
  • Vorena the Younger: Dude, good luck.
    

• The Pulii
  
  
  
  • Pullo: Immortalized in a mural commissioned by the merchants of the Aventine -- check. Escaped from hospital, thereby reopening wounds -- check. Getting shanked by Eirene -- not check. Making Eirene kinda jealous by almost pulling a sympathetic bird back to his cot -- check. Making amends with Eirene after a sincere prayer to the goddess Rusina -- check. Congratulations, Pullo, you're my pick for Rome character with the least psychological damage at the end of season 1. Here's hoping you fare as well in season 2.
    
  • Eirene: All I have to say is that if Eirene ever makes dinner plans with me, we're going out to eat instead of going to her place.
    
  
  

So that's it for the first season of Rome: less sex than The Golden Girls Sex and the City, more gore than Oz. In other words, a perfect 40-ish hour of television.