Those About to Die Review: Peacock’s Overcrowded Roman Epic is a Bloody Bore

Famous designer Coco Chanel once said, “Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off.”  A maxim against trying to do too much, it’s advice that Peacock’s new series Those About to Die would have done well to heed. 

The Roman epic, boasting the same source material as Gladiator and a big-budget production team that includes Robert Rodat and Roland Emmerich, seems to have decided to put on as much as possible at once, neglecting to put in the basics of narrative and character work in favor of distracting blood and excess. 

The series is a full-on old-school sword and sandals epic, complete with a massive cast of characters, chariot racing, gladiator fights, political intrigue, and some seriously dodgy CGI for a show that costs this much to make per episode.

To its credit, Those About to Die is certainly trying something different, and the streaming landscape would be a better place if more networks greenlit more period dramas that took some risks in terms of subject matter and setting.

But, the result is a show that frequently feels like it’s trying to do too many things at once and, as a result, accomplishes almost nothing of note.

Those About to Die is set during the reign of Emperor Vespasian, founder of the Flavian dynasty who came to power after a year of political chaos that saw Rome embroiled in a civil war and four different men rise to power within the space of 12 months.

Vespasian emerged triumphant and immediately set about bribing the populace with a variety of (usually bloody) distractions to hold on to power for the next decade.

Though the Roman poet Juvenal wouldn’t coin this phrase until much later, Vespasian was an early adopter of the idea of “bread and circuses” — i.e. providing the plebians with free grain so they did not starve alongside free entertainment so they didn’t get bored, restless, or start an uprising of some type.  

The majority of this series takes place during such events, as what feels like an endless stream of characters participate in games and races, gamble on their outcomes, train to compete, work factional alliances in the stands, or engage in various other forms of social and personal intrigue.

Unfortunately, it’s even odds you’ll never manage to learn most of their names. Those About to Die is the very definition of overstuffed, featuring what feels like two dozen main characters and half that many competing storylines, several of which could probably have served as the foundation for this show on their own.

So much is happening at all times, it’s nigh on impossible to keep all the major players and their relationships with one another straight, and things like character development are a luxury this show has little time for. 

The series begins by introducing scheming games master Tenex (Iwan Rheon), who runs a gambling den in the basement of the Circus Maximus where rich and poor patrons alike try their luck betting on the chariot races and fights that take place upstairs. 

The existing racers are split into four factions, each owned by a different group of indistinguishable nobles. Tenex, who has a tragic backstory involving poverty and murder, dreams of social advancement by founding his own faction one day, something that hasn’t happened in nearly a century.

Scorpus (Dimitri Leonidas), Rome’s most popular driver, races for the Blue faction, which is headed by Marcus (Rupert Penry Jones) and Antonia (Gabriella Pession), a constantly scheming noble couple whose only personality trait is hating the Flavians. He’s a drunk and a womanizer who spends a lot of time talking about his success.

There’s a world where Those About to Die was satisfied with this set-up, using Tenex’s betting table, Scorpus’s racing exploits, and the scheming going on amidst the noble factions to carry the show. And I think it would have likely been better for it. 

Instead, the series decides to cram in so many additional subplots that it’s impossible to know precisely what sort of show this ultimately wants to be.

There’s a Gladiator–style story thread where Kuame (Moe Hashim) a hunter from the African edges of the empire, is kidnapped while trying to rescue his sisters from being sold to the Romans.

He’s forced to fight increasingly bloody, gory battles against an array of generally nameless, featureless foes, and the show revels in the bloodsport of it all. There are hacked-off limbs, sprays of blood, various animals eating an assortment of combatants, and lots and lots of death.

Elsewhere, Kuame’s mother Cala (Sara Martins-Court), who has followed her family to the capitol, works to rescue his sweet but comically underdeveloped daughters Aura (Kyshan Wilson) and Jula (Alicia Edogamhe) from slavery and the associated threat of sexual violence that comes along with it. 

There’s even a Game of Thrones-esque succession crisis, as Emperor Vespasian (Anthony Hopkins) must decide which of his two sons should rule after him.

Titus (Tom Hughes) is a famed military general whose love affair with foreign Jewish queen Berenice (Lara Wolf) is unpopular with the people. His younger brother Domitian (Jojo Macari) is a politician, whose constant scheming and obsession with vengeance make him seem vaguely (a lot) unhinged.

Unsurprisingly, the two don’t like each other much, and their father basically just seems tired of it all. Whether this is meant to convey how close Vespasian is to death or how uninvested in this role Hopkins is — sorry folks tuning in for his performance, his appearance here is fine, but it’s a much smaller piece of the ensemble than the show’s marketing may have led you to believe — is unclear, but it’s all stuff you’ve seen (done better) before.

THOSE ABOUT TO DIE — “TBD” Episode 101 — Pictured: Jojo Macari as Domitian — (Photo by: Matteo Graia/Peacock)

There are subplots about Vestal virgins and Andalusian horse traders, multiple love-at-first-sight romances, and brothels which are interchangeably used as sites for steamy hook-ups, naked plot exposition, or brutal murder (and sometimes all three!)

To their credit series cast is generally capable and does the best with what they’re given, but even the supposedly lead characters are paper-thin archetypes written with little depth or subtlety. 

Thrones alum Rheon gets the most to work with, playing his Tenax as an occasionally sympathetic anti-hero whose greed and ambition drive him to make frequently ugly choices. Macari’s Domitian is almost entirely one-dimensional, but he’s clearly having a blast playing the series’ primary bad guy. Hashim’s Kuame is probably the show’s most likable character, a decent, kind-hearted man forced to fight and violently kill others for no reason. 

But, in the end, almost none of these characters — save maybe Tenax, and a lot of that is Rheon’s doing — are all that meaningful or memorable, and if you stick around through Those About to Die’s ten-episode season it won’t be for their personal arcs. (However slim they happen to be.) 

Those About to Die is ultimately entertaining, but in the way that cotton candy is fun to eat — brightly colored, ephemeral, a treat that seemed like a good idea when you bought it but that you’re kind of regretting twenty minutes later.

There’s fun to be had in watching various gladiators fight for their lives against an impressive array of obviously CGI animals or drivers dodging flying horses on the chariot track. But it won’t leave much of a lasting impression at all. 

What did you think of Those About to Die? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Those About to Die is currently streaming on Peacock.

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