Critic’s Rating: 2.75 / 5.0
2.75
What came first: Rome or Westeros?
From the opening credits featuring heavy drumbeats and rivers of blood flooding a white marble map of Rome, it’s clear which show influenced For Those About To Die Season 1.
What isn’t clear is how this soapy and surprisingly gory show about the scheming citizens of Ancient Rome will compare with the success of its spiritual predecessor over the long haul.
It hits familiar notes of action, deceit, and inconsistent accents while being uniquely involving.
History Anchors Fantasy in Those About To Die
A great, silvery lion is the thematic stand-in for dragons in this sprawling story that plucks its main players from various geographic points of the Roman empire.
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However the action quickly settles in Rome, whose citizens are busy starving when they’re not betting on chariot races.
Grain shipment delays and the resulting food shortages are just one cause of the many riots the city sees almost daily.
Construction of an amphitheater “for the people” is siphoning money that could have been used for the Romans’ more immediate needs.
The Emperor Vespasian (Anthony Hopkins) doesn’t have long to live yet still hasn’t chosen which of his two sons will succeed him on the throne.
And Mount Vesuvius is spouting smoke.
This is the violent social and political maelstrom that a family taken from Numidia and a trio of horse-raising brothers from Spain find themselves dropped into.
But really, there seems to be little else that goes on in Rome besides chariot races at the Circus Maximus.
Core Characters of Those About To Die
The show centers on Tenax (Iwan Rheon), a businessman who mainly seems to run bets on the chariot races but is involved in all sorts of unsavory money-making ventures.
His friendship with star charioteer Scorpus (Dimitri Leonidas) is mutually beneficial and a lot of fun to watch as the well-matched men verbally spar and try to create their own racing faction.
Tall, handsome, and clever, Scorpus never loses a race. He likes wine and women, but not as much as he loves money.
Scorpus is a reliable source of levity for much of the season, but then his character takes a sharp turn toward the corrupt, which mostly seems to happen offscreen.
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This keeps it from being truly effective (or believable) after having him be such a positive character for so long.
That said, there are definitely no angels in this city of Rome.
Every character, after all, is flawed to varying depths.
It’s just that here, those depths are deep.
The unpredictable violence of this world quickly establishes how rare it is for the average Roman to survive any given day.
This helps us understand these characters’ moral flexibility and survival-first ethic, but as the series progresses, it becomes bleak in how truly terrible some of their actions become.
Tenax is introduced as ruthless, but he’s really more pragmatic than anything else. In fact, he turns out to be more of a softie than seems possible in this world.
While we all know Iwan Rheon can do menacing (hello, Ramsay Bolton!), he gives Tenax a full range of emotional beats here that’s exciting to watch.
Aside from Domitian (Jojo Macari), none of the rulers or adjacent elites are particularly memorable. Anthony Hopkins is onscreen so little that his Emperor barely registers.
Storylines That Resonate in Those About To Die
It’s easier to get emotionally invested in the major storylines that we spend the most time in (although there might be a few too many chariot races, even for a chariot race show).
Tenax and Scorpus, Cala and her daughters, Kwame and his gladiator friend Viggo: their individual stakes are clear, and we see enough of them to care what happens.
Tenax is a solid central character because he is involved in so many different enterprises in Rome that span class and wealth.
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His tragic backstory that comes up later in the season is almost unnecessary since we’re already rooting for him based on how we’ve seen him grow and change in the present.
Scorpus is a less diversified character because he sticks to the arena, the stables, and the brothel.
However, his exuberance and humor go a long way toward making him indispensable.
Up until he turns evil, at least. Before that, he was great!
Cala’s storyline is visceral: she’s trying to buy her daughters out of slavery and help keep her gladiator son alive while she navigates the physical and social dangers of a new city.
She’s smart, persistent, multi-lingual, and a gifted improviser. It’s no surprise that Tenax is drawn to Cala both professionally and romantically.
But how far can their association truly go? We’re left sort of believing that he won’t eventually kill her, but the past ten hours have shown us how quickly that kind of alliance can change.
Kwame’s storyline is perhaps the most heartbreaking in a show that almost implodes with tragedy. I was so very much hoping that he and Viggo’s last fight wasn’t going to take the shape that it did, but it seemed preordained.
Violence With a Capital “V” in Those About To Die
To say this show is violent would be incorrect.
It explores WHOLE NEW LEVELS of televised gore, dismemberment, and death.
Specifically the death of children, which was surprising.
The show’s historical frame might act as a shield or justification for this, but it caught me completely unaware, especially on a non-cable channel.
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As for the adult violence, it gets pretty inventive.
Although it was almost comical how many drivers (and horses!) died in EVERY chariot race, it’s not treated as especially dangerous beforehand, the way the gladiator fights are.
Much of this violence comes courtesy of Domitian, who wears his sadism like that gold leaf crown his brother Titus won’t just die and give him already.
Slow Stretches in Those About To Die
This show has a perfect eight-episode season buried within it.
It starts losing steam in the homestretch, where even the action set pieces of the last two episodes can’t erase the feeling that the show just didn’t need to be this long.
There are filler characters (like Tenax’s boyhood friend turned terrifying villain) and circular blackmail schemes that kill momentum and force us to spend time away from our favorite storylines.
And just like in Game of Thrones, whenever anyone is looking for anything, they’ve got to do a slow walkthrough of the brothel.
This clutter is frustrating because, despite occasional silliness and stilted dialogue, the show is entertaining and would have been much more effective at a much shorter length.
Verdict: Thumb… sideways?
Will you be watching Those About to Die? If you have already, what do you think?
Let us know in the comments!