Spartacus: House of Ashur

While early episodes are heavier on “300”-style bloody fights and full-frontal male and female nudity – sometimes in the same scene! — the franchise’s delicious character drama amps up a few episodes into the season. This is the good stuff that makes “Spartacus” more than the sum of its arguably gratuitous parts.

Spartacus is one of a kind. It is stylized and soapy and smart; it revels in brutality and bloodshed but it cannot be discounted as a cartoon (it actually does employ subtext, sometimes quite deftly). It nimbly avoids being a slog, but it does weigh the cost of the suffering caused by greed and exploitation as it surveys a decaying Rome on the verge of civil war (any resemblances to the times we’re enduring seem entirely intentional). This show is not for everyone, and would that more programs would try for that kind of unashamed distinctiveness. But the drama is for anyone willing to understand that Spartacus absolutely knows what it’s going for and why.

House of Ashur’s surface-level outrageousness shouldn’t be mistaken for laziness or sloppiness. On the contrary, it’s undergirded by surprisingly sturdy storytelling.

Tarabay plays him as if he is a shadow that has come into the light. Also coming out strong is Davis as Achillia, enslaved but willing to be a gladiatrix if it means freedom. .... In making Achillia a woman who is scarred both physically and emotionally, creator, showrunner/executive producer Steven S. DeKnight and his writers have fleshed out a character who could have just been a plot stunt into one that is a welcome addition to the storytelling.

Overall, “Spartacus: House of Ashur” is a dynamic follow-up to the previous chapters.

Spartacus: House of Ashur essentially pulls off the miraculous, leaning on the mythological extravagances of ancient Roman belief to rewrite history and give a character a new lease on life. It's clever, and it works.

Everything is a matter of taste, and most people know what they like. .... The series takes its melodrama seriously, with evident dedication to its staging its complicated fight scenes, of which there are many. .... And yet so extreme is it in its violence, and so resolute in its naughtiness, that I also find the series kind of hilarious.