Spoiler alert: This post contains spoilers for the entire first season of Those About to Die, streaming now on Peacock.
In the underbelly of Rome in Peacocke’s epic Those About to Die, you can call Tenax (Iwan Rheon) many names. He’s a bookie, a fixer, a faction leader, a patron saint of orphans. But by the end of the first season, he’s earned another title, whether he likes it or not: Emperor-killer.
It all comes down to his chaotic alliance with Domitian (Jojo Macari), the younger son of the late Emperor Vespasian (Anthony Hopkins), who never accepted that his older brother Titus (Tom Hughes) would succeed their father on the throne. In addition to running a betting house for the Circus Maximus races, Tenax finds himself becoming the point man in Domitian’s efforts to disrupt his brother’s rule—a risky job Tenax takes on in order to gain Domitian’s approval to start a new faction of charioteers. Tenax wants power, wealth, and respect, and he can get them by hitching his horse to Domitian’s chariot, so to speak.
Eventually, however, Titus learns of Domitian's plans to cut off imports to Rome, which could cause chaos among its citizens. After they preside over the bloody and dramatic opening day of the Flavian Amphitheatre—what we now know as the Roman Colosseum, built under their father's rule—Titus drags Domitian to hear the evidence against him, a treason he says is punishable by death. What Titus does not know is that Domitian has already instructed Tenax to plot his assassination, a plan that goes so spectacularly wrong that Tenax has to kill Titus himself to save Domitian's meal ticket from the sword.
While Tenax orders more than one murder over the course of the series—created by Robert Rodat, based on Daniel P. Mannix's 1958 novel—killing the Emperor is, fittingly, a turning point from which he can never undo.
“For Tenax, it's business,” says Rheon. diverse“It’s always a matter of business. In order to function in this big league he’s entered, every choice he makes is life or death. He’s always one step away from being killed at any given moment. So everything he does is for survival. It’s not that he wants to do these things, it’s that he says so. He doesn’t ever want to kill an emperor, but he’s faced with no other options.”
Jojo McCarey as Domitian
Courtesy of Rainer Baguette/Peacock
But by handing Domitian the crown, Tenax places Rome at the mercy of a man who will be neither practical nor clear-headed about what motivates him. This is the same man who, just a few minutes earlier, had watched with glee the execution of his former lover. And what was the method of execution? He was tied to the prow of a ship and fed to crocodiles in a flooded amphitheater, before a cheering crowd. And don’t forget that Domitian also had his tongue cut out.
Rion says Tenax has a false assumption that he may have doomed himself by his commitment to Domitian, but it is too late for his doubts to make any difference.
“As you can see in his eyes, Tenax is not sure he can handle this,” Rion says of his character’s anxiety about Domitian. “Basically, he created a monster. He empowered the monster and put him in power. It’s just a matter of whether he can control it. Can he control it like he controlled Scorpius? Scorpius was a drunken charioteer but a genius. Domitian could have killed him in a second.
“I think Tenax was scared in the end, because he found himself in a situation he always wanted to be in, but the consequences of that were scary.”
Speaking of fear, the season ends with Tenax admitting out loud that he’s afraid, not of Domitian, but of the relationship he’s developed with Kala (Sara Martinez). After Kala enters Tenax’s service to rescue her enslaved children, she never pretends that her primary motivation is anything other than to bring her family home. But her increasingly important role as manager of Tenax’s betting business—and their undeniable chemistry—intertwines these two troublemakers in ways they never expected. Rion says Kala brings out an almost childlike vulnerability in Tenax that he’s long suppressed in order to toughen himself up while living on the streets.
Sara Martinez as Kala
Courtesy of Rainer Baguette/Peacock
“She’s probably the only person he’s honest with,” he says. “He has no friends. He’s a loner, a lone wolf. He doesn’t let people in, and he’s a brute because he doesn’t have to question himself morally. But here she is, and having some kind of companion is so important to him. Especially someone who doesn’t lie, whose motives are so pure. Everyone’s playing a game, but she’s not.”
Perhaps that’s why he feels so hurt when Kala doesn’t hesitate to betray him in order to save her children, by revealing evidence of his role in the plot to assassinate Titus. Ultimately, the evidence doesn’t reach Titus until Tenax finishes the job. But the damage is done. In their final scene, he tells Kala that he must kill her because she knows about his sidekick in killing the emperor, and she firmly counters his threat with a truth he can’t deny—he needs her to run his business now that he has so much business with Domitian. Their undeniable attraction becomes whether or not they will have a romantic relationship—but thanks to this skirmish, the relationship remains unrequited until the end of the film.
“The last scene was fun, and Sarah is so great,” Rion says. “But the fact that he didn’t kill her is important. Any other time in his life or anyone else’s life that he would betray, he would kill them. Letting people live shows weakness. But that’s why he said, ‘You’re scaring me.’ He knows he needs her.”
But what does Tenax ultimately want? He has shown his prowess in chariot racing and blood sports. He has spies all over the city, many of them children who look to him as a father figure. He has also proven that he is willing to get his hands dirty to further his cause. But what does Tenax want? He is That issue?
“Respect is what he wants,” Rion says. “He wants this aristocracy to respect him. There’s something inside him that needs it, like a father who says, ‘Well done, son.’”
Iwan Rheon as Tenax
Courtesy of Rainer Baguette/Peacock
This might make sense considering that Tenax's childhood friend-turned-stalker Ursus (Daniel Stessen) revealed that Tenax may be the son of nobles who raised him as slaves and later killed him to escape. But Rion says Tenax's proximity to power in Emperor Domitian has him dreaming of bigger things by the end of the season.
“Once he gets to the end of the season, he thinks he might become the emperor, and maybe a great emperor, because he knows how to manage things and make tough decisions. He’s a smart guy who knows how to play the game. But first and foremost, he has to advance himself. Maybe he’s a nobleman, which means he can level up a lot easier. But there’s a little problem with Domitian. He has to manage him first.”
Can anyone relate to a psychopath getting his first taste of untapped power? Rheon certainly knows that better than most, having played a version of it as the terrifyingly volatile Ramsay Bolton on HBO’s Game of Thrones. One of the most vicious and despised figures in all of the Seven Kingdoms, Ramsay makes some of Tenax’s darkest actions seem like the actions of a Good Samaritan.
So who would win if the two characters played by Ryon were brought down to the Colosseum for a wrestling match? Ryon bets on the man who has enough patience to emerge victorious.
“I think Tenax will win,” he says with a laugh, pondering the possibilities. “I think Ramsay will make a mistake. You certainly wouldn’t want to mess with Ramsay anyway, but I think Tenax has a cool head, and at some point, he’ll win Ramsay over. Ramsay is just an idiot, really. He’s a psychopath. He has no empathy. But Tenax is very empathetic, and that’s saying something—even if he doesn’t really show it.”
“It'll be a good fight anyway.”
