Spartacus Gods of The Arena

OK, I kid, but it almost felt as though with this first episode back, 'Spartacus' felt a particular need to get in our faces with its most outrageous or provocative content. There couldn't just be sex, there had to be lots and lots of sex of many different varieties; there couldn't just be violence, there had to be unusual beheadings and an extra helping of insanity when it came to the creative use of spurting blood.

All right, all right, we get it -- this is a show about people who use each other for any number of purposes, and the results aren't always pretty. And iff we didn't get the point that bodies are merely so much flesh to be sold by the pound, a couple of scenes were set in a butcher shop.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about the show's in-your-face tendencies; after a year without 'Spartacus' I would have beheaded someone myself if this show hadn't returned when it did. I just hope that, in the six episodes of this prequel season, the show can both hold on to its signature sauciness and dig into the characters in the ways that made 'Spartacus: Blood and Sand' much more than the sum of its blood-spattered parts.