Pour one out for…uh…let me look up her name…Licinia, Crassus’ niece. There was only ever room in this town for one viperous catty female lead, and Illythia ends this episode by literally bashing her rival’s head in against the floor.

Because fictional narratives are, almost by definition, constructed, it can make it hard to feel like a good rug sweeping event can be earned, but in this case the writers succeed just because there are so many plots and wheels turning that it serves as the distraction to make the trick work. We’re so busy paying attention to Illythia discovering that Licinia is using the House of Batiatus’ “special” gladiator service (i.e. arranging discreet sexual encounters between noblewomen and gladiators), her demand to partake and get Crixus, and Lucretia’s machinations to punish her for wanting to sleep with Lucretia’s beloved Gaul, capped off by one of the hotter sex scenes in the series and then by the reveal that Illythia has been having sex with Spartacus, not Crixus, complete with Licinia there to laugh at her, that we barely notice Illythia has been backed into a corner, brought down to her lowest possible point.

And so while we maybe shouldn’t be surprised that she explodes in rage, it does catch us completely off guard, and then driven home by the show’s characteristic brutal gore as she kills Licinia. 

I do want to pause here and note that, while Spartacus has a fairly well-established rep for sex and violence, it’s episodes like “Whore” that lift it past the stereotype that it’s nothing but sex and violence. This episode is a really thoughtful examination of all sorts of different sexual dynamics in the ludus. We learn that a noblewoman would be ruined by being discovered sleeping with a slave. We learn that the gladiators, despite all the “glory in the arena” talk, have no authority over their own bodies—that they can be rented out for sex by the lanista at will. Spartacus seems apprehensive about this, but he proves Batiatus’ right when he knuckles under.

But even that isn’t enough for Lucretia, who has to make sure he doesn’t finish too soon if he’s to bed Licinia (this is before she launches her Illythia revenge plan). So she sends Mira (Katrina Law, introduced as a nude mannequin for Licinia’s mask choosing at the start of this episode) to have sex with him. And while Spartacus is willing to suppress his misgivings for Batiatus, he’s certainly not going to have pointless sex with another slave.

But, ultimately, neither he nor Mira get that kind of control over their lives. Mira is sent back to him, with a threat on her life if she fails, and Spartacus has to at least let her spend the night for appearances. 

Meanwhile, Crixus, who remains blissfully unaware of how central he is in the upstairs plot, loses his freaking mind when he discovers that Naevia is flirting with Batiatus’ guards. As always seems to be the case with the Naevia and Crixus relationship, he’s extremely in the wrong here and worsens it by automatically assuming the worst, which is that Naevia is apparently a sex-crazed woman who will sleep with anything that moves, a character trait she’s definitely displayed before. Crixus may be carrying the idiot ball here, but it works because he’s been established as kind of a meathead who flies off the handle for little things. Naevia is, of course, flirting with the guard so she can filch his keys off him, so that she and Crixus can have more sex.

Again, this show really does seem to be juggling too many balls, but it’s hardly noticeable. In my notes, I’ve written we’ve also got Agron and Duro plotting against Crixus for showing them up during training, Ashur tries to return from inactive duty to the ludus, but Batiatus refuses to make him a gladiator again, Varro learns that his wife and child have disappeared and freaks out, giving Ashur a good, earned, beating before getting locked up, and Doctore confides in Crixus that he does not view Spartacus as a champion of honor and is looking for the Gaul’s return to the spotlight.

Except for Ashur’s storyline, which results in a payoff when he pretends to defect to Solonius, only for it to be a trap to attempt to get Solonius back for trying to kill Batiatus (all the way back in Episode 4!), all of that just whooshes right by. I’m lucky I wrote it down in my notes, because I remember literally none of it. 

But because the main plot is so good, and we get an episode where Spartacus is a participant, but not necessarily the driver of action, all of that is forgiven.

And the show ends on a rather upnote, if you’re Batiatus or Lucretia. They’ve been trying to secure Glaber’s patronage for the entire show to this point, transferring their hopes to Crassus when Licinia showed up looking for sex, but Glaber has never seemed more attainable as they leap to cover up Illythia’s murderous outburst by dumping the body over the cliff. The episode ends with Lucretia cradling Illythia, pledging to take care of her, followed by a close-up on Illythia’s horrified face to discover she’s not only committed a terrible murder, but she’s also completely in Lucretia’s thrall.

Sex!

The masked sex climactic scene is just a good scene. It’s a little ridiculous if you stop to think about the idea of the villa clearing out so two people can set themselves up across the courtyard and then walk to each other, but it’s undeniably hot, with the addition of anonymity and masks and body paint to make the two participants literally gods (Apollo and Diana, maybe? Seems a little…incestuous). 

There’s also a scene where Lucretia watches Batiatus have sex with a slave (apparently he likes his nipples twisted? Weird things we learn) and another with Crixus and Lucretia, where he lets her willfully misinterpret a remark about the woman he loves.

• Man butt: 4 
• Lady butt: 5
• Frontal nudity (men): 1
• Frontal nudity (women): 20

Stray observations

• Does no one check the base of the cliff for bodies? It seems like you’ve basically got all of the House of Batiatus’ literal skeletons down there. If I were Solonius, I’d be down there every day looking for who got tossed off it this time for blackmail purposes.
• Duro really sucks at fighting. It’s sometimes hard to gauge how “skilled” each fighter is, since they’re frequently pairing someone we know, for plot reasons, can’t be as good as Crixus or Spartacus, with one or the other of them.
• I’ve got to be frank, given how much time she’s spent lusting over Crixus, I’m surprised that Illythia wasn’t immediately like, “wait, this isn’t Crixus.” Andy Whitfield and Manu Bennett are both in extremely good shape, but they’ve got completely different body types.
• That cutthroat gets some good work out of Batiatus, I’ve noticed. 
• Lucretia on Illythia’s desire to have sex with a gladiator: “You are a woman. Our needs are vast.” 
• Illythia Putdown of the Week: This time from Licinia, on Illythia’s foray into owning gladiators, “Pity. Perhaps you should buy several next time until you get the hang of it.”