SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for the entire first season of “Those About to Die,” now streaming on Peacock.
In the underbelly of Rome in Peacock’s swords-and-sandals epic “Those About to Die,” you can call Tenax (Iwan Rheon) many things. Bookie, fixer, faction leader, patron saint of orphans. But by the end of the Season 1 finale, he’s assumed one more title, whether he likes it or not: emperor killer.
It all goes back to his messy alliance with Domitian (Jojo Macari), the youngest son of the late Emperor Vespasian (Anthony Hopkins), who never quite accepted his older brother Titus (Tom Hughes) succeeding their father on the throne. In addition to running the betting den for the Circus Maximus races, Tenax has found himself becoming the chief muscle for Domitian’s efforts to disrupt his brother’s reign –– a precarious job Tenax takes in order to get Domitian’s approval to start a new faction of charioteers. Tenax wants power, fortune and respect, and he can get it by hitching his horse to Domitian’s chariot, so to speak.
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But in the finale, Titus is made aware of Domitian’s plans to interrupt imports to Rome, which could cause chaos among its citizenry. After they preside over the bloody and arousing opening day of the Flavian Amphitheatre –– what we now know as the Roman Colosseum, built under their father’s rule –– Titus drags Domitian out to hear the evidence against him, a betrayal he says is punishable by death. What Titus doesn’t know is that Domitian had already instructed Tenax to orchestrate his assassination, a plan that falls apart so spectacularly that Tenax has to kill Titus himself to save his meal ticket Domitian from facing the blade.
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While Tenax orders more than a few deaths over the course of the series — which was created by Robert Rodat, based on Daniel P. Mannix’s 1958 novel — killing the emperor is, appropriately, a rubicon he can never uncross.
“For Tenax, it’s business,” Rheon tells Variety. “It is always business. In order for him to be able to operate in this big league that he has stepped into, every choice he makes is life or death. He is constantly a step away from being killed at any time. So everything he does is for survival. It is not that he wants to do these things, and he even says it. At no point does he want to kill an emperor, but he’s faced with no other options.”
By handing Domitian the crown, though, Tenax is putting Rome at the mercy of a man who won’t be as practical and clear-headed about what drives him. This, after all, is the same man who mere minutes before watched with glee as his former lover was executed. The method of execution? He was strapped to the bow of a ship, and fed to crocodiles in the flooded amphitheater, before a cheering audience. Don’t forget, Domitian already had his tongue cut out as well.
Rheon says Tenax is under false assumptions that he may have doomed himself by committing himself to Domitian. But the time has passed for doubts to make much of a difference.
“You see in his eyes, Tenax is not sure this is manageable,” Rheon says of his character’s alarm about Domitian. “Essentially, he has created a monster. He has enabled a monster and put him in power. It is just about whether he can control him. Can he control him as he controlled Scorpus? Scorpus was a drunk, but genius charioteer. Domitian could have him killed in a second.
“I think Tenax is scared at the end, because he finds himself in a position he’s always wanted to be in, but the consequences of it are frightening.”
Speaking of being scared, the season comes to a close with Tenax admitting out loud that he fears, not Domitian, but the relationship he has developed with Cala (Sara Martins). Having entered into Tenax’s employ to save her enslaved children, Cala has never pretended her main motivation was anything other than to bring her family back home. But her increasingly important role as manager of Tenax’s betting business — and their undeniable chemistry — intertwines these two wayward people in ways they didn’t expect. Rheon says Cala brings out an almost child-like vulnerability in Tenax that he long-ago repressed to harden himself while living on the streets.
“She is probably the only person who is honest with him,” he says. “He doesn’t have friends. He’s a loner, a lone wolf. He doesn’t let people in, and he’s a brutal person because he doesn’t have to question himself morally. But here she is, and having a sort of companion is quite big for him. Especially someone who doesn’t lie, and whose motivations are completely pure. Everyone is playing a game, but she is not.”
Maybe that’s why he’s so hurt when Cala doesn’t hesitate in betraying him to save her children, by revealing proof of his part in the plot to assassinate Titus. Ultimately, the evidence never makes it to Titus before Tenax finishes the job. But the damage has been done. In their final scene, he tells Cala he should kill her for knowing his emperor-slaying side hustle, and she resolutely meets his threat with a fact he can’t refute –– he needs her to run his businesses now that he has his hands full with Domitian. Their undeniable attraction has become the season’s will they/won’t they romance — but thanks to this spat, it remains unrequited as the credits roll.
“That last scene was a joy to do, and Sara is so wonderful,” Rheon says. “But the fact he doesn’t kill her is important. Any other time in his life or anyone else who betrays him, he kills them. Letting people live shows weakness. But that’s why he says, ‘You terrify me.’ He knows he needs her.”
But what does Tenax ultimately want? He has shown his aptitude for the business of chariot races and bloodsports. He has spies all over the city, many of them children looking to him as a father figure. He has also proven he is willing to get his own hands dirty to further his cause. But what is that cause?
“Respect is what he wants,” Rheon says. “He wants this aristocracy to respect him. There is something in him that needs that, like a father saying, ‘Well done, son.’”
That would make sense considering Tenax’s childhood-friend-turned-stalker Ursus (Daniel Stisen) revealed Tenax might be the son of the patrician that raised them as slaves and they later killed to escape. But, Rheon says, even more than nobility coursing through his veins, Tenax’s proximity to power in Emperor Domitian has him dreaming bigger by season’s end.
“As soon as he gets to the end of the season, he’s thinking, ‘I could be the emperor,’” he says. “And he would probably be a fantastic emperor, because he knows how to run things and make tough decisions. He is an intelligent guy who knows how to play the game. But first things first, he has to get himself consolidated. Perhaps he is a patrician, which means he could level up much easier. But there is the minor problem of Domitian. He has to manage him first.”
Can one manage a psychopath who is high on their first true taste of untapped power? Rheon would know better than most, having played a version of that as the chillingly volatile Ramsay Bolton on HBO’s “Game of Thrones.” One of the most vicious and justly despised characters in all of the Seven Kingdoms, Ramsay makes some of Tenax’s darker deeds look like the actions of a good samaritan.
So who would win if the two characters Rheon played were dropped into the colosseum for a gladiatorial bout? Rheon is putting his money on the man with the patience to come out victorious.
“I think Tenax wins,” he says with a laugh, pondering the odds. “I think Ramsay would make a mistake. You certainly wouldn’t want to mess with Ramsay in any case, but I think Tenax has a cool head about him, and, at some point, would draw Ramsay in. Ramsay’s just an idiot, really. He’s a psychopath. He doesn’t have any empathy. But Tenax is very empathetic, which means something — even if he doesn’t really show it.
“It would be a good fight though.”
