TV Review: "Domina" (Season 2)

The second season of the Livia-centered drama sees her continuing to scheme and manipulate everyone her, even as she finds her loyalties and her abilities perpetually tested.

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Just after I finished undergrad, I started watching HBO’s Rome. It was in many ways a revolutionary viewing experience for me, and it was actually what inspired me to pursue graduate work at the intersection of antiquity and modern media. With its iconoclastic take on the world of the ancient Romans–filled with sex, unruly women, debauchery, and political intrigue–it was like almost nothing else on TV at the time, and it has been convincingly argued that it helped to set the stage for such later HBO juggernauts as Game of Thrones. Though there have been many series and films set in ancient Rome since HBO’s series left the air, none have quite its sophistication or its complexity.

Which brings us to Domina, the Sky Atlantic series written and created by Simon Burke. Starring Kasia Smutniak in the role of Livia Drusilla, it follows her as she goes from being an outcast during the last days of the Roman Republic to the most powerful woman in the Empire, thanks to her marriage to Gaius Octavius, the man who becomes Augustus. The first season showed both her youth and the early days of her marriage, showcasing in particular her utter ruthlessness, as she works with her faithful servant Antigone to secure her own place, and that of her sons, in the hierarchy of Rome. 

The second season sees Livia well and truly ensconced as the First Lady of Rome. She has Augustus (known throughout the series as Gaius)  wrapped tightly around her finger, and she rules their domus with an iron fist, even as she also has to contend with the enduring ire of both her sister-in-law Octavia and her predecessor Scribonia. These latter two will stop at nothing to destroy Livia, and in one of the most remarkable moments in the series Octavia even forces Gaius to promise her that he will take the life of one of Liva's sons in exchange for Livia’s poisoning of Marcellus. It’s a devastating moment, particularly since we know that Gaius loves one thing as much as Livia, and that’s his honor. 

Indeed, family rivalry is key to the appeal of Domina. Anyone who has even a passing knowledge of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty knows that it was remarkably incestuous, and much of this stemmed from the fact that, despite their many years of marriage Augustus and Livia never managed to produce a child of their own, thus necessitating quite a bit of maneuvering of the various branches of the family, often at Augustus’ urging. The strength of the series lies in its ability to twine together the political and the domestic, so that each pairing–Agrippa and Julia, Julia and Tiberius, and so and so on–has ramifications for both the family and the state. Behind the walls of the palace, personal desires are always sacrificed on the altar of ambition and expedience, which leads to many broken hearts and hurt feelings. 

I give a lot of credit to Kasia Smutniak for her ability to give us a Livia who is shrewd and cunning, who understands the levers of power and how to manipulate them. Though some of her abilities do start to strain credulity–she is well-nigh indestructible throughout the season–the power of Smutniak’s performance is such that it allows us to believe in her ability. For fans of the 1970s I, Claudius, it’s easy to see how this fierce young woman will eventually become the malevolent spider played by Siân Phillips, someone who is willing to dispatch literally anyone who stands in the way of her own designs, even her own grandson. Throughout season two we watch as Livia slowly loses herself in her own machinations, often showing herself willing to destroy anyone, whether friend or foe, up to and including the ever-loyal Tycho. In one particularly memorable (and horrifying) scene, she even goes so far as to have the Chief Vestal walled up in a cave, all because she poses a danger to Livia and her plots. This isn’t to say that Livia doesn’t have a heart, because she does: she loves Gaius, certainly, and she has a dalliance with Agrippa. However, her vow to her dead father hangs over her, and she constantly feels herself pulled apart by her competing loyalties.

I’ll admit that, at the beginning of the first season, I wasn’t entirely convinced that the series’ central conceit–that Livia attaches herself to Octavian in order to effect a restoration of the Republic–was going to work. In the second season, however, as we come to see how much of a cost this is going to exact on Livia and those around her, I became more and more convinced that this was a smart narrative choice. What began as something akin to the conceit of Gladiator–which proposed that Marcus Aurelius intended to give power back to the people–has now morphed into a monster that not even its own architect can control. As the second season progresses, we see the cracks in Livia’s grand design, as both Tiberius and Drusus start to chafe against her control. One of the series’ best creative decisions has been to present Tiberius as a broken young man deeply scarred by his mother, who has developed a split personality, one of which, Bad Tiberius, will surely take over more and more control as he grows older.

However, while  the male characters such as Tiberius, Drusus, Iullus, and Ahenobarbus certainly have a role to play in this series, Domina is still very much a female-centered drama, and that is its greatest asset. The series smartly realizes that while Augustus might have been the one who dealt the Republic its death-blow, Livia was just as savvy and just as essential to the functioning of the new regime. Each episode of the series is an elaborate (and often melodramatic) puzzle, with a sting in the end which constantly brings you back for another episode. It’s a slower burn than either Rome or Starz’s Spartacus, but that just means that it has more time to let us get to know these characters. As a result, we feel that we understand each of them and their own tragedies–and shout out to Liah O’Prey who masterfully portrays Augustus’ long-suffering daughter Julia. 

Augustan Rome certainly wasn’t built in a day but, in the course of the eight episodes of the second season of Domina, we see how murder, sex, betrayal, and politics are baked into the foundations of the new regime and its way of operating. I hope that we get a third season, so that we can see Livia continue to contend with the consequences of her actions.