If you were going to be killed, you’d want Pullo to do the job.
Kind, he is. Efficient. Precise.
Compliments your garden. Gives you a moment to make your peace to the gods. Lets a foolish slave live when he could easily smite him.
He even says nice things about you after you’re gone.
In this week’s episode of “Rome,” Niobe shows off her new dress, Vorenus bribes and blackmails an old friend, and Caesar and Brutus meet for a round of checkers.
What I’m trying to say is that this episode is one of the finest hours of television ever made, one that sealed my devotion to the HBO series and its makers for all time.
You want to know why I’m still writing about this series 15 years after it debuted? This episode is the best example I can cite. It’s astonishing.
It’s like every column of the New York Times’ “Modern Love”:
You go to the Registrar of Slaves, take a number, wait your turn, present your documentation to a bored clerk, and walk out with the emancipation papers for the slave you want to marry.
Mark Perigard 