Like all Spartacus seasons, Spartacus: War of the Damned, the final season, begins weak and ends incredibly strong. Initially the narrative felt like a rehash of Season 1’s Crixus & Spartacus dynamic with Gannicus as a welcome palate cleanser, but as the season continued, it became a love letter devoted to each character, each character’s love for each other, the innate dignity of all human beings and the genuine sorrow and loss felt by each character. The show doesn’t abandon important themes of evils of rules without being informed by the heart, the horrors of slavery and the corrupting influence of past trauma in one’s vain quest for justice. I do not recommend the show because of excessive violence, sex & nudity, BUT unlike the third season (or maybe because of my overthinking of depictions of sex and nudity in the media after Robin Thicke’s Blurred Line videos), I actually have to applaud the show overall in the midst of its excessiveness. Whether the couple (or more) regardless of gender pairing is engaged in consensual loving sex, lustful sex or rape, the depiction is not ambiguous. That clear delineation is actually quite welcome for an audience who may come for titillation, but will not be able to say that enthusiastic consent is an alien concept.