Is there no purpose beyond the blood?

Spartacus is about the flirtation between immaturity and immortality. Every word reversal that gets employed to remind the viewer that this is indeed olden days gets matched up with a willfully adolescent take on sex and violence. And for good measure, a shot of a disembodied head or a shaved scrotum. At the mid-season climax, Spartacus asks, pointedly, “Is there no purpose beyond the blood?” It’s directed towards Crixus, a fellow enslaved gladiator, who surely doubts any higher calling, but it feels like an aside. If you have to ask about the blood, you’ll never know. It’s another wink at the demographic that the show’s opening disclaimer is intended to scare off. Each episode opens with a title card declaiming that the “intensity of the sensuality, brutality, and language is intended to suggest an authentic representation of that period.” Not provide an authentic representation, but suggest that one could be created, should another, say, classier, producer so desire...