Not only did I not hate this episode, I actually rather enjoyed it. It helped that there was a real sense of something at stake following the sacking of Cilicia, while the final moments, in which Paris faced off against Menelaus, were both tense and – following Litos’s intervention – enjoyably menacing.
The Trojans
Things took a distinct downward turn for the Trojans as their attempts to open up a grain supply from Cilicia were thwarted by Achilles’s attack. It was an assault that at least one person knows is, however inadvertently, Helen’s fault. In fact, it’s looking particularly dicey for both the former Queen of Sparta and her new husband after Odysseus decided not to look a gift priest in the mouth, thus making it clear to Paris that he has been cursed from birth, and what’s more, pretty much his entire family knows it. There was a little glimpse of light amid the relentless bad news, however, as poor Andromache, mourning the death of her father and the destruction of her birthplace, discovered she was pregnant. Although, again, given the way things are panning out, that’s probably not something that I’d waste too much time celebrating.
The Greeks
The episode’s central plot line revolved around the different reactions of Agamemnon and Achilles to the sacking of Cilicia. For Achilles, killing is simply a job he happens to be good at. He does it efficiently but with little pleasure. But for Agamemnon – played by Johnny Harris with just the right amount of repressed misery – violence is increasingly the only way of justifying the sacrifice he made: he needs not simply victory, but a particularly blood-drenched form of it, so that every one can suffer as he has done. The Spoils of War nicely brought his growing madness sharply into focus, firstly through his initial reaction to the priest’s daughter Chryseis, whom he clearly saw as a sort of substitute for his own dead daughter, and then through his use of rape as a terrible way of dealing with both that death and Chryseis’s refusal to wipe away his sins. By contrast Achilles, a man permanently one step away from his very own existential crisis, just wanted to take some time out building his budding poly relationship on the seashore. And frankly, given the amount of in-fighting and insurgency among the Greek forces, who could blame him? At least Patroclus and Briseis don’t spend their time shouting at him and insisting that he’s not all that.
The Gods
The one thing that this drama has persistently got right is the relationship with the Gods. The series’s most haunting moments come from the realisation that these are terrifying deities capable of extracting a very real price from those who defy them and that was never more obvious than this week when Litos, former high priest of Troy, stepped forward to deliver judgment to Paris. What mattered here wasn’t whether or not Litos was correct in his reading of the omens (although I think the show very much wants us to accept that he was) but that everyone gathered believed the high priest’s dramatic denunciation, including Paris himself, who notably only escaped with the help of his own divine protector, Aphrodite.
Additional offerings
- Joseph Mawle’s Odysseus wears the long suffering look not only of a man who is a smarter than everyone else around him but also of an actor more nuanced than the show he finds himself in.
- For every decent bit of writing there was still a terrible line such as “Agamemnon’s tumbled off the sanity cliff and Achilles isn’t fighting. By my mind we’re half way to Hades” which is just trying far too hard.
- I was mildly amused by Paris literally banging his head against a pillar, thus bashing out the few braincells he possesses.
- It’s a little worrying that I care more about the fate of the doves and horses than that of the Trojan royal family.
Omen of the week
This was a pretty omen-heavy week. From Hector’s nightmares of bloody doves to the poor horse slain to ensure safe passage to the underworld for Andromache’s father and the poisoning that struck down the Greek soldiers after Agamemnon defiled the daughter of Apollo’s priest. The best, however, was saved for last as that old ham Litos announced in gloriously doom-laden tones: “The Gods have cursed you Alexander. They place your life on the scales and Troy on the other end,” before finishing up with: “Your own family tried to kill you. You have brought them nothing but death.” To which the only possible reply is “Er, thanks.”
Epic declaration of the week
“The years will drag by, our rations will sink and our men will die. The city needs us to stand strong – if we lose faith in each other then Troy will fall.” Are we sure that Cassandra is the only one in the family with second sight because that sounded like a pretty accurate summation by Hecuba.
So what did you think? Was this a better episode or is it too little too late? How will Helen survive in Troy without Paris and what will Paris himself do on the run? As ever all speculation welcome below …
