Fugitivus - Recap

The scene opens two months after the fall of the House of Batiatus – it opens pretty violently with Spartacus kicking some Roman butt, in style. There is a lot of digital bloodshed accompanied by slow motion fighting! Spartacus and his fellow gladiators fought for their freedom (along with the slaves of the House of Batiatus) and have achieved it after a lot of struggle. Spartacus is still pissed at the fact that,the Romans are the reason his wife Sura is dead, and on his way to quenching his thirst for revenge; he leaves a mark on one of the dead soldiers he (and his comrades) kills. Their next target is now Roman magistrate – then military commander – Gaius Claudius Glaber. He’s shown having moved up the ranks now and is staying in Rome until his father-in-law Senator Albinius sends him back to Capua to deal with Spartacus, and he decides to take his pregnant wife Ilithyia along.

Ilithyia is fun in her own way. She is shown as being a spoiled brat and plays it well. Meanwhile, Spartacus and his men come back to their underground hideout in the cisterns. There we see Auelia (widow of Varro) and Spartacus’ lover Mira. One thing that is obviously apparent is, Mira’s love for Spartacus. But Spartacus is driven by… vengeance, and he makes it amply clear! Crixus’ men – all Gauls, along with he being a Gaul himself come up. They come back with food and Spartacus forces them to share with the rest of the people in the underground hideout, much to everyone’s consternation. They get angry about Spartacus telling them what to do and tell Crixus about the incident. He comes in. Crixus and Spartacus sound like they are reciting Shakespeare but talking about the Romans, but back to the story… Crixus’ goal in life is to find Naevia – who was sold earlier. He has a lead he wants to follow and asks Spartacus to come with him. Where is this lead? At a whore house.

So we see a lot of sexual acts going on – threesomes, a strap on, oral sex, and MSM sex – and lots of skin show is exhibited, including the parts of the male and female anatomy. Then we see the naked men getting killed by Spartacus and his men. So we see lots of naked bodies and blood squirting out of them, a truly gruesome bloodbath. Crixus finds his target as the target is peeing on a naked prostitute (she’s crying in horror). He turns to see Crixus wanting to talk to him and then gets stabbed by the naked prostitute, he doesn’t die immediately. Crixus is determined to get the information out of the guy and tortures him to get the information out. This is a pretty gruesome, as we see organs being pulled out. Back to Glaber and Ilithyia going to Capua…They stay in the House of Batiatus. Glaber said that was the best place to hold the fort. She goes into a room to pout.

We then see a flashback of her sexual encounter with Spartacus from the earlier, and during this flashback, Ilithyia is shown turning around and screaming. Glaber and his Romans come running and what do they see? Lucretia. She has survived! To everyone’s amazement… but Lucretia has gone mad and forgotten the events that happened during Spartacus time there. She calls for Naevia and has forgotten that Ilithyia killed Licinia. Glaber and his men decide to use Lucretia as a symbol of survival against Spartacus and to show her to the people of Capua – the next scene cuts to her being washed. Spartacus and Crixus come back to the hideout. Crixus finds a lead where Naevia might be and it’s south of where they are. He wants to go and hopes Spartacus comes with him.

Spartacus, of course, wants to help Aurelia, since he shares a brother-sister relationship with her and gives her money to go far away from the Romans. He hears that Glaber will be speaking to the crowd in Capua, so he wants to attack them. Everyone is against it because Glaber brought an army of Romans with him, and thus it wouldn’t be prudent to attack him at this point. Mira tries to convince Spartacus to go south with Crixus, and it seems like he agrees; some passion ensues, as they have some sexy time. Next day, Crixus goes to Mira to find Spartacus, but much to her dismay; Spartacus left before she woke up. Where did Spartacus go is what she is left wondering. It turns out; he went to check out Glaber’s meeting announcement with the people of Capua. He is subsequently surrounded by a violent crowd that is talking about beating Spartacus. The Romans are powerful and they bring out their symbol, Lucretia. The people become visibly excited and talk about how it’s a blessing from the Gods.

Lucretia spots Spartacus, but is speechless, as she is taken aback for a moment. But she ultimately says, “He’s here,” but everyone thinks she’s crazy anyway and don’t pay heed to her comments. She’s clearly frightened, but is helpless in the face of people ignoring her. They also bring out another symbol, Aurelia (badly beaten, bruised and barely alive). They found her and Spartacus’ men and plan to kill her in front of everyone. Spartacus jumps out and fights a bunch of Romans to get to Glaber, much to everyone’s surprise. They fight and Glaber gets cut on his arm. They surround Spartacus, but just when you think it’s over, Crixus and the gladiators come and save the day. They retreat when the Roman army starts to outgrow theirs. They manage to successfully take Aurelia back to the hideout. She ultimately dies, but not before telling Spartacus it’s his fault that Varro is dead and she herself is dying, and hence tells him to stay away from her son.

This causes the guilt ridden Spartacus to realize that, he needs a bigger army if he is to fight against Glaber, and emerge victorious. Therefore, he agrees to go South with Crixus to get Naevia and free slaves to recruit them for his own army, as this would be an important step on his way to forming an imposing army. During all this, we do see Oenomaus (aka Doctore) hidden from the crowd, watching and estranged from Spartacus and his gladiators. He still feels shamed from losing his honor as Doctore by turning against Batiatus. There is also a reward for his head. Although, it seems highly improbable that anyone could ever catch him, primarily because he brutally killed three men who tried; proving is invulnerability to a great extent. The encounter is swift and bloody…bordering on gruesome. We are also introduced to new characters in the series for the first time, in this episode – the Sparing siblings – Seppius and Seppia.

They are shown as being the children of the current heads of Capua (they are shown sitting in the head area during gladiator games). The viewer is given the feeling that they’ll be seeing a lot of them in the coming episodes. Seppia is definitely going to be a conniving character from the looks of it. The episode ends.

Written By David Sibert

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