I haven't commented on this episode as quickly as I did the others because I am becoming extremely disappointed with how the series is progressing (ending). Except for a few twists that give us glimpses of how things might have been different, I don't know why the series is going so far afield from the real story.

I am not all that bothered by historical discrepancies in many of the movies or shows that have come out about Rome or Greece or Troy. I am disappointed that the producers in this situation decided to turn the most expensive TV drama in history into what is quickly becoming a bad soap opera. Maybe it's a good thing we only have two more episodes. God knows where they would take us next.

I mean, come on! Octavian is shocked that Antony has sex with his mom?? Are we to believe that he had some sort of brain f*rt about what Antony and Atia were doing in prior episodes of the series?

Antony being driven from Rome out of fear that people might gossip about a sexual scandal in his household? This is simply laughable! And he meekly leaves town to become (wait, wait...) governor of Egypt, which was, of course, an independent kingdom. Pointless to say, Marc Antony really went to the East, one of the wealthiest part of the Empire with Octavia, honeymooned in Athens, and started organizing a campaign against the Parthians - Caesar's pre-assassination plan.

I think this episode jumped the shark. The "creative team" either had a collective stroke or they decided to turn the series into a historical comedy in which everybody has sex with everybody else and Octavian becomes a sadist with Livia a willing masochist? *sigh* Give me I, Claudius any day of the week over this re-writing of Augustus & Livia, thank you very much.

In the meantime, the most powerful men in Rome have to move their gold under secrecy after just having executed 3000 prominent Romans for opposition to their rule. Huh?

I read somewhere that the show was originally pitched to HBO as a western, but HBO said they already had one in the works (Deadwood) so the pitchers said, "Okay, how about ancient Rome?" Sort of make me wonder if that's what happened.