*FULL SPOILERS FOLLOW*

This episode of Spartacus reminded me a whole lot of the finale of season one, Blood and Sand. It starts off with Oenomaus, Crixus and Rashko facing death in the arena Ad-Gladium…. at the hands of Gannicus and several other gladiators. Yes Gannicus is back and the episode begins with him and Oenomaus exchanging sword blows and then the screen cutting away to days earlier as the Blood and Sand finale started with Spartacus and Crixus fighting before it showed us events of the day previous. I always thought that was a very cool aspect of that season and I am glad to see they brought it back in this season. However let’s not see that it gets overused or anything.

One storyline that I thought wouldn’t come to a head so soon was that of the game being played by Illythia against her husband Glaber. Thanks to the crafty machinations of Lucretia and Ashur, Glaber comes to find out that Illythia’s plans to abort their child and her further plans of dissolving marriage to get with Verinius soon follows. It’s clear that Glaber isn’t going to let this pass and it would seem even with Lucretia playing both sides, for the moment she will help Glaber out to somehow get back at Illythia. I still think that Glaber is going to get with Seppia after sufficiently humiliating Illythia and Verinius. Glaber is actually becoming a proper villain thanks to his “loving” wife after what he did to her father. I couldn’t help but laugh a little at the moment when Glaber told him that he wasn’t the fool that him and his daughter believe him to be. I believe this leaves Illythia in a bit of a tight spot after revealing her plans to Glaber. TOO BAD!