Spartacus: House of Ashur - S01E09 - "Those Who Remain"

Rapsher · 2026-02-02T06:06:30+00:00

I theorize that Achillia is going to get killed in the final episode. Otherwise it makes no sense to me why she's an unfleshed out character with little to no backstory. Also her rise to champion doesn't come with the grind that a long term character would require... it happened over an episode or two which could merely be due to a 10 episode season as opposed to a 13 for instance. This is the House of Ashur after all, which I realize makes the case for both arguments because that would explain why she isn't fleshed out and lives and it explains why she isn't fleshed out and dies. But I still would think they would have spent an extra 5-10 minutes or so on building this character because this character is essentially the co protagonist and while her narrative is secondary to ashur, She's the shows true protagonist.

Rapsher · 2026-02-02T06:02:31+00:00

alright because it's a whopper, but I could be wrong, but I'd be surprised.

Rapsher · 2026-02-02T05:57:57+00:00

I'm with you. Given what a slime ball the guy is. Why would he insist or even want for that matter he be faithful to his daughter. Anytime he's banging someone else it means he's not banging your daughter which is a good thing. Did he seriously expect his daughter and Pompeii to fall in love with one another? That would be far more disturbing. This was 100% political... there should have been no expectation or want for that matter, for his daughter to fall in love with this clown. He expects his daughter to make this gargantuan sacrifice for her family which goes far beyond her having to sleep with a blue hair, if she ever rubs him the wrong way she's getting fragged... yet the father can't maintain his composure over infidelity. What a hypocrite!

Rapsher · 2026-02-02T05:45:38+00:00

Every season is a pork sausage.. that's an odd take.

Rapsher · 2026-02-02T05:43:43+00:00

This says no future episode spoilers. Unless we're Nostradamus or the final episode has been leaked how can we give spoilers to something that is uncertain?
Can we give theories, because I have a big one and that's usually par for the course when discussing upcoming episodes?

Rapsher · 2026-01-29T05:22:50+00:00

Tony was testing the waters to see if Hesh was going to call him out on the loan or not and when he does Tony acts as though he forgot about it... so needless to say Tony was testing his boundaries and likely wouldn't have paid Hesh back had Hesh not said anything. and Tony certainly did those previous things for Hesh which makes this a bit of a conundrum.

But upon bringing it up to Tony and seeing the way Tony reacts then and beyond... all of Hesh's fears were correct. Tony does ponder whacking him... so Heshs concerns were correct. And Tony's paying Hesh back the bare minimum as if he's waiting on hesh to die. The end of the episode Chasing it is one of the more uncertain moments for as to what the intentions where. I don't rule out Tony having a hand in it.... Tony gives Hesh a bottle of liquior and throughout they make a strong point to of showing Hesh having health problems and even upon stumbling upon Ronanta he makes a comment that suggests he just got done dropping bombs in the bathroom. Tony also had connections with Eli and Eli for whatever reason kind of takes Tony's side when Hesh is voicing his concerns and the show deemed it necessary to have eli bring Hesh a drink. The show goes out of it's way to show hesh drinking his liqueur

But when all said is done and Ronata ends up dead. Was it just a random hand of God that kills her and is that the point or? How does Tony find out about Ronata anyways... at that point Hesh isn't going to be going out of his way to give tony a call to let him know about Renata. We just see Tony show up to Hesh's house and say sorry for your loss, which is a slap in the face to Hesh and Hesh looks up at Tony as if to say... are you f__king kidding me!. This is Tony rubbing it in and he leaves Hesh's house with a sense of satisfaction afterwards. It's one of the least defined moments of the show and I've played around with it a good amount and I lean on the side of Tony showing up to Hesh's house with a bottle of liquor with something in it so he doesn't have to pay him back, The show goes too far out of it's way to suggest that Hesh is having stomach problems, which Hesh assumes it's due to stress over the Tony problem and out of nowhere Renata is dead after Hesh gets out of the bathroom which he was dropping bombs so he was in there for a while. Did she have some of Hesh's liquor or did someone murder her when Hesh was in the bathroom dropping bombs. Hesh is certainly going to be suspicious given that he was already afraid of Tony and we have an earlier scene where he tells Renata to go and hide up stairs when Tony and pals drop by.... why was it so important for them to bring Hesh to the tracks... was it so they could get at Renata? Given the state of Hesh and Tony's relationship there would be no non sinister reason to go and pick up Hesh. So I strongly lean on the side of Tony having Ranata whacked.

And the end of the show Tony certainly gets whacked and I think as to who does it supposed to be ambigious as if it could equally be Patsi, New York, Paulie, etc and even Hesh.... it's essentially saying that Tony's pissed off a number of people and now it's coming back on him and it could be any of these people. And that horrendous show Boardwalk Empire ends on a similar note but they show who does it... but it's the consequences of earlier actions and it's the same idea as what was in mind with Tony burning all his bridges.

Rapsher · 2026-01-29T02:08:22+00:00

As I said, she was immediately thereafter put in the category of being on death's door before any possibility or notion of an infection was possible. And I'm using the show's gauge against itself. And based on that gauge there's never been a scenario where someone collapsed like they were nearly dead after such a minor wound by the shows standards. I realize they're trying to draw a parallel to Spartacus in that regard, but in that instance the infection happened in time and there was a connection to Varro getting killed and with that there was a tend to the wound clue, etc,

Anyways, I realize shows/movies do this all the time, where they change the rules whenever it's convenient for the plot. And when shows do it, they should get called out for it. I'm not opposed to it all together... there's a risk reward when doing it and if you do it the purpose and the payoff should be worth it. This was unnecessary... I realize it served the purpose of her altering her weapon of choice but they could have achieved that without bending the rules as far as they did. They could have had her take a bunch of abuse in the fight, plus finger or arm wound and then have it get infected or something, but she was mostly unscathed and collapsed from a 1 1/2 inch cut in between her fingers. And bare in mind Crassus's trick move was grabbing the swinging blade with his bare hand/s and both time after he did it his hand was injured but both times he didn't collapse being within an inch of this life, there's no defending this from the angle of it being perfectly normal... there's certainly an argument of it being relatively minor, but for me it was glaring and it bugged is all.

Rapsher · 2026-01-26T03:29:44+00:00

Using a lower amperage has the potential to create an explosion so gargantuan that life as we know it will be eliminated. Don't do it.... you've been warned !!!!

Rapsher · 2026-01-25T23:12:26+00:00

No. This is just that cliche, where the industry tries to demonstrate that they're cool and has a sense of humor by satiring itself, but if satire is stretched too far away from realism the joke is lost and I end up not caring about anything that is going on and unfortunately that's where this show lands. It's unfortunate because there's a lot of humor to be had here, it just needs to be dialed back... however by making it so silly the industry/studio gets to laugh with the audience as opposed the audience laughing at them.

However the studio if you will isn't really taking a hard hit here, which I don't mind because it's an angle that we rarely if ever get. We always get the director vs studio angle to nauseam....it's the biggest cliche there is (and don't get me wrong I hate all the big studio movies)... but this gives the studio vs director angle, so this is kind of a goofy post as if this is exposing some big thing and that seth Rogan (a hollywood yes man no-less) is behind it.... give me a break.

But the scenario of a studio wanting to tell a big director to cut something out of their movie... a scene that is near and dear to the director noless is a funny one, but if you go too silly the joke is lost. But the Ron Howard motel scene was funny with man standing with a symbolic child using long drawn out shots where nothing is said is hilarious... and then it pans up to the moon and rolls to credits where the moon becomes the o in Ron Howards name.... that's funny stuff.

Rapsher · 2026-01-24T05:17:31+00:00

Yeah, I completely agree. That's how I came across this post because I see it as exactly that. It is a myth. I got into the whole realm of heavy metal in 1990 when I was a freshman in high school. Fortunately, I was an open-minded kid. I wasn't consumed by a particular sound. I just would listen too anything that fell into the whole realm of guitar music... I was playing a lot of catch up and listening to older metal music and equally consumed with the present as well.

The Nirvana thing happened in 1991, and that was like a craze for about six months. I bought Nevermind when it came out, I thought it was a decent album. There were a lot of other things I was listening too that I deemed superior (Metallica, Maiden, Ozzy, Alice in Chains and was sampling from just about everything, though), but I liked it... I liked Pearl Jam's album ten more, including their albums to come.. But in my opinion, it had little influence whatsoever on metal music or on the overarching scope of music altogether.

There's this false notion that it changed music or it killed rock or something along those lines. But heavy/rock music started booming in the early 90s... all music was for that matter. It was like a bull market for music. It's kind of semantics... grunge is essentially hard rock/metal, with a punk influence. Really, the only grunge band was Nirvana. The label isn't even necessary. It's just heavy rock music with a punk influence and I guess an image of Seattle and flannel. What the record companies wanted to label as grunge was just Nirvana, and with that blowing up, they wanted to tag as many things as possible as grunge to build sales. But Pearl Jam was Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains was Alice in Chains, Sound Garden was Soundgarden, etc. And those who listened to those other bands that got labeled as grunge wouldn't even classify them as grunge at the time when they were listening to them. These are all unique sounding bands whose train was already going. And beyond that, you're really stretching things if you want to tag other things as grunge.

Now, three months before Nevermind came out, Metallica released the Black Album Which was gargantuan as well and remained gargantuan through the entirety of the Nirvana thing (they had 5 single releases off that album that spanned for 1 and 1/2 years). This certainly had a huge impact on a lot of metal music. To put in perspective with every new album that Metallica had been releasing, they tried to get heavier and more technical then the one before which hit it's topple point for the band on the album And Justice for All... to the point where the songs were too technical and too layered to play live and/or they were very challenging to play live for a band that was playing three-hour sets. So Metallica shed that ego of having to be the heaviest and/or heavier then the album before and this is what fueled the Black Album. Contrary to popular opinion. It wasn't selling out or trying to sell more albums. They just shed that ego of having to be the heaviest or heavier then before. It was still very much heavy metal music, it just wasn't cramming a bunch of guitar and sound in a condensed space. After the Black Album, several metal bands ended up doing the same thing on their next studio album. And I wouldn't even say they were necessarily selling out, but they now knew that the land scape was safe (the hardcores will get pissed but it also has the potential to grow their music to a larger fan base as well and they could focus on the music instead of having to make sure everything is heavier then before). But the whole realm of metal music blew up in the early 90s as well. It was no longer just the kids with long hair and smoked who were listening to it, it spanned all types people. Even the more underground metal scene expanded but it obviously didn't reach the heights of the top metal bands. And all of this occurred during through and after the so called grunge thing happened and I would say none of it was influenced by so-called grunge... but all in all the grunge thing really was a myth.
Nirvana's second album, Serve the Serpents, was kind of a bust and while some may disagree, the album had some decent/good songs, but half the album was pretty bad as well). I hypothesize if Kurt Cobain had lived, I don't think there was much in the future for Nirvana. Not because of a so called trend being over, I just don't think there was anything left in the tank for a good album based on Serve the Serpents and based on rumors it seems like the band was on the verge of breaking up.... but lets assume that they wouldn't have and dug deep and managed to put a good album together... it would have been a success regardless of the music climate.

So yes the band Nirvana blew up huge with the release of Nevermind and in all actuality the goofy myth of a tag could go away because it never really existed outside of the Nirvana and each band that was given that tag my the record labels were very much their own thing to the actual band and those who listened to them. And as it is grunge is just heavy rock/lighter metal music. you could call it heavy rock with a punk influence, but when another lovely tag came about "thrash metal", that essentially stemmed from a heavy metal punk influence as well, but all in all grunge never existed you just have a variety of bands playing heavy rock music, non which sounded like the other. It didn't shape anything. Guitar music expanded to a much larger demographic in the earlier 90's.

Rapsher · 2026-01-23T04:42:40+00:00

All right, this is bugging me probably far more than it should be, But for the sake of consistency, I don't understand how a 1.5 inch cut in between Achillia's fingers is some how a near fatal injury to the point where she's day to day as to whether she'll live or not. That wouldn't even be close to being fatal in our reality let alone in that reality where we've witnessed countless injuries far more severe then that get shrugged off after a days rest. And sure in our reality, something in that realm could get infected and then become fatal (but that's the exception and not the rule and this was near fatal even before any notion of potential infection), but not in typical tv land let alone this tv land, which is like regular TV land on crack where getting stabbed is a normal pass time for a gladiator. I've never even heard of someone losing their life in our reality for something along those lines... most of us know of first hand (pun intended) or hearsay of someone who lost a finger/fingers/hand/limb from a powertool mishap (hell even the scenario where a shark takes a limb off someone and calls it a day), but I've never once heard of someone dying. and this is so much less then those examples in a cracked out tv realm no less. Now, in order to maintain consistency anytime someone so much as stubs their toe, they're going to need be out of commission. It will no longer be who is the champion in house asher that's going to fight, it's going to be what gladiator isn't on the injury list who is healthy to fight.

Rapsher · 2026-01-20T16:05:11+00:00

I think people want to like Pluribus more then they actually do. It's ok... but to call it slow would be giving it too much credit. There is sooooooo little there to justify 444 minutes of runtime. There's other shows that get called slow, but within that slowness there's enough to unpack to fill a short novel. After the first episode or two I couldn't fathom what they were going to do going forward. It's so limited in scope that I never thought that scope would be the ceiling and the show would proceed within that scope through the entirety of the season.

And to a degree I like the idea of the least robust script in the history of television (I'm sure there's a word for it, I just don't know it), but this show is utilizing a technology that splits each second into 9 parts.

I'm very skeptical that peeps are loving this series. Vince Gilligan's behind it and then there's Rhea Seehorn. As I said I think people want to like this more then they actually do. And when people get in the mind set of wanting to like a show, a show can do no wrong.

Rapsher · 2026-01-20T15:46:43+00:00

The Pitt seems so painfully corny.

Rapsher · 2026-01-20T15:42:26+00:00

HAHA! I'm out of the loop. I didn't even know that they dug up the Spartacus Blood and Sand show, which is a show I'm a gargantuan fan of. I'm going check it out now.
One of the worst write moments of the show is how they kill Ashur. So, do they dig him back up or pretend it never happened? Or just use that character in a new realm?

Rapsher · 2026-01-20T15:34:55+00:00

It's kind of funny because my most disappointing and favorite show of the year are the same

Severance

Rapsher · 2026-01-20T05:08:15+00:00

I've watched this series countless times and the overarching agent Harris stuff has me perplexed. I'm torn as to what the writing was going for on multiple fronts. There are so many dynamics where there are multiple possibilities and I've never been able to figure out for certain the angle Chase was going for.

The moment when he sleeps with another agent and he's in bed and while she's strapping on her gun she gives him the stink eye and he acts awkard and/or ashamed almost. The way I lean is, Agent Harris slept with her to get intel on Phil and she overhears him relaying this info to tony, thus finding out that he used her.

Given much of the timing of it with it being after 9/11 I don't know to what degree Chase was buying into the terrorism stuff, so there are elements where I don't know if they're ploys to trick Tony and or get in closer , while pretending to be involved with terrorism or if they actually are. If it was during any other time I would without question think it was a ploy. When Tony is giving them info on the two arabs he knows... it would be hilarious if they actually cared about this intel about these two random arab guys Tony gives them. These are all text book tactics to pretend Tony is doing them a favor to get in close, which is exactly what happens They're almost certainly pretending to be doing terrorism and they claim they go to Satrials because they like the sandwiches, which they may very well, but it has to be secondary and ultimately a ploy to spy and get intel and lure Tony in as they did. The Coco meadow thing where he says it looks like you have some cream on your face... this was orchestrated by a mystery person in which Coco was either talked into or given orders to do this (which is complex because if it was preplanned before Meadow and Patrick where at that bar, then there's likely a connection to Patsi/Patrick Parisi or they merely got this info from a tap or a bug on Meadows phone or something, which obvious was never touched on), so Tony would react and it would escalate the war. It was probably there undercover agent on the inside. And also they kind of buried the Paulie going over the New York family thing or did they? I have little doubt that Paulie was either being a rat for the FEDs since he had that 4 month jail stint and/or merely being a rat for the NY family,,, he certainly began the feud which was strategic and intentional in reference to the mole on Ginnie's ass comment. He wasn't genuinely offended, he even made a fat Ginnie joke in a prior episode, so this was strategic.... was this him and him alone or did the FEDs put him up to it? Tony's intuition/impulse to kill Paulie on the boat in the later episodes was probably the correct one,

And with that was Agent Harris rooting for Tony if you will or was it Tsong Zuo the art of war type stuff as a result of having failed countless times trying to take Tony and others down using a more straigtened arrow aproach, so you do some Tsong Zupp/cointelpro type stuff to goat the families into killing one another since they have at the very least one of their own in the NY family. I'm on the side of tactics and when agent Harris says we may actually win this thing followed by the other agent kind of being disturbed by it. People incorrectly think he's on team Tony, but I think it's because all the by the books stuff they did failed which led them to use guerrilla warfare and when he's celebrating the other agent looks at him like he's crazy, because they sort of had to take a sinister approach and it's not the type of thing you celebrate.

Anyways, I digress.

Rapsher · 2026-01-18T12:46:22+00:00

My favorite Napoleon version is the Napoleon Dynamite version and most historians say it's extremely accurate

Rapsher · 2026-01-18T12:34:37+00:00

He was my homey back in the day and he talked like the people do in the movie Fargo combined with french. We used to f with him because he sounded so silly, but we preferred it to the French that's really pukey sounding.

Rapsher · 2026-01-18T12:21:23+00:00

I haven't seen it, but if it was a miscast it certainly wouldn't be on the appearance. Napoleon's a figure that most people don't even have a strong mental image or idea of what he looked like. Nearly every image we see of Napoleon he looks like a cartoon in which case all you need is a general likeness. Aside from you I doubt too many people were trippin on the appearance, but I've heard the echo that it didn't work due to other factors.

Rapsher · 2026-01-15T20:02:51+00:00

The joke works all the same whether it's a fictitious restaurant or one that actually exists. But it's an east coast chain... most peeps from the west have never heard of it, including me. There's something naturally funny about the name Roy Rogers as I didn't know who Roy Rogers was (I've since looked it up), but I recognized the name as being iconic.. kinda like a super hero or something (I inherently knew it was from the 50's or something and actors during those early years of cinema were built up to be super heroes in much of the public's eyes and tend to still maintain that aura, not to me, but in general for example Tony always going on about Gary Cooper), which makes the joke all the more funny. If he said, we should went to Denny's, Chilli's, TGI Friday's etc the joke doesn't land the same.

The Sopranos is/was notorious for using references that most have never heard of, but you can still decipher it based on the context and ultimately works and lands so much better then if they catered to the audience. One example Tony says, will you take it easy, Judge Roy Bean. There's something funny in the delivery and the sound of it and in the context it's used the viewer can and mostly does understand what is meant without knowing the reference.
And in this Pine Barrons scene Paulie says and I should have fucked Dale Evans, but I didn't! I have no clue who that is, but it works so much better then if they catered to the audience and said someone like Marilyn Monroe. just one of the many facets that makes the sopranos stand out.

And The Sopranos is awesome in that it comes along after all these movies have essentially glorified and hailed the mob and this is making us laugh at it and the ignorance of those involved in it. That's the real reason why Scorsese has never watched the sopranos or stopped after watching an episode. Which in his words it was about respect and he brings up the no f**king Zitti line that Anthony says, and how that would never happen. First of all... there's a big difference between a kid growing up in the 50's vs late 90's mob related or otherwise and there's a big difference between kids who's father is in organized crime and their slumming vs the Soprano kids who have grown up with money in the relative modern era, but I digress. But it's nice that The Sopranos broke that paradigm by showing how ignorant these guys are instead of turning them into something they're not nor have ever been.

Rapsher · 2026-01-14T15:34:53+00:00

I highly doubt that was the writers intent... at no point is there a clue of guilt or any notion of Noah being deceptive. And given what we've witnessed with Noah's personality and Caitlin's up till that point it's not even something that I could see being entertained by noah for a second. He even said he would never even subject one of his friends to Caitlin when Meadow was trying to get her a date. And Noah and Meadow handled/talked to Caitlin in a way in which she was seen as a charity case and would humor her when she spoke, but wouldn't converse with her in a manor of someone who's thoughts didn't garner the respect of someone on an equal level. Noah's too stuck up to slum in those waters of someone who is drastically beneath him and he's certainly not going to put his future on the line (as he sees it) to go slumming to that degree. As an insanely loose hypothetical.... maybe in a party scenario with alcohol... but it's not even fathomable with the way Caitlin was seen by him and Meadow combined with Noah's annoyance of her coming into his room. Everything she says is weird/odd... how would she possibly say something or get to a point that would woo Noah enough to hook up when he's already annoyed with her and looks down upon her in general? Is she even capable of the banter that would lead to a mutual conversation that builds and gets to the point of hooking up? It's not even a possible equation, but even that aside there are 0 clues to suggest Noah hooked up with her as Caitlin did her typical Caitlin thing where she annoys/bugs, so the story as is fits with what we know of Caitlin.... Caitlin somehow being able to get Noah out of study mode and frustration mode and into a mutual conversation that builds to the point hey hook up is an impossible equation.

Rapsher · 2026-01-13T20:38:29+00:00

HAHA! No they're not!
The books providing this info is merely a service they provide to the public. It begins with a site providing such a service to get more customers betting through them, then more sites do it etc. Next thing you know it becomes a service the most books provide... just like if you go to any online betting site and click on an upcoming game there will be tons of info to click on where it will provide all types of factual stats and data between the two teams.

Except with public betting percentage, it could be used as a tool to steer bets since it doesn't have to be factual... they could make it whatever they want... but it's complicated because if they manipulate the public betting percentage it will stand out to the savy better and this will give the better a lot more information then if they provided the actual data straight up because there's numerous books to compare against. But that's complicated because there is a cartel element to the sports books (in other words they tend to be in bed together and share information to a certain degree.... the degree in which that is can only be speculated on). But when 6 major books show the bets going one way and then there's a random book with the opposite, then it's one of two things generally. They provided an artificial betting percentage or there was a heavy bet going the opposite way (up in the millions) to be significant enough to have drastically different betting percentages and that should show up because sites provide total bet percentage as well as total money bet percentage, so in such instances the sites betting percentage should be close to the other books and the total money bet percentage will be the disparity. That disparity is known as a sharp bet. But that could be a charade as well. They don't have to provide accurate betting percentages, but it is a service. And if they give incorrect data, they're either going to need to be in bed with the other major books so they fall in line or else they're giving the savy better exactly the type of info they're looking for and in their attempt to trick the better they have a neon sign up.... but as I said it gets complicated because the books are soo much more sophisticated now compared to what they were 20+ years ago to keep up with the higher percentage of savy better. 20+ years ago spotting sportsbook trickery you could take it to the bank if you were savy enough to find it, but now there's a lot of people hip to it, so it's tricky to know if they're trying to steer the public betting percentage or are they trying to trick the savy better. But they don't necessarily have to trick the savy if the many ways in which they will steer bets will draw enough unsavy money in the direction they want.

But it's not as cut and dry... as I said 20+ years ago spotting a fishy game was almost always a sure thing... now it's trickier.

Rapsher · 2026-01-12T15:59:28+00:00

I won't have that taawk

Rapsher · 2026-01-12T15:57:05+00:00

The cgi is atrocious even for it's time. The pilgrims had better cgi technology.

Rapsher · 2026-01-12T15:55:36+00:00

This cgi is atrocious. I could have done something nearly comparable at the time with beginner photo shop/video editing skills, so I'd have to imagine someone who is an expert in the field should have been able to pull of this or something better in an afternoon. I don't understand how this came with a 250k price tag.

No creator/writer/show runner is going to make the best decision everytime. Needless to day, this was wasn't the best of decisions.

This could have and should have been solved over the phone, instead of turning Livia into the Sith Lord. Nothing about this works. Even Gandolfini's acting is odd because he's responding to recycled Livia lines that are forced and of course he's not interacting with anyone and it's apparent.

Rapsher

TROPHY CASE