- Title: Atlantis – The Madness of Hercules
- wiki: link
For all the conspiracy and backstabbing that takes place in Atlantis it’s a city where its characters fall into the black-and-white categories of either celebrated heroes or flawed villains. Despite all that they have collectively done for the city “The Madness of Hercules” turns Jason (Jack Donnelly), his friends, and the woman he loves from the former into the later over the space of a single episode. Branded a traitor to the gods by the the pressured Melas (Ken Bones), Jason awaits execution in the palace dungeons which leads Hercules (Mark Addy) to attempt an ill-fated rescue and Ariadne (Aiysha Hart) and Pythagoras (Robert Emms) to plan a more successful one even if it does cost the queen both her throne and her freedom.
Hercules’ unwillingness to turn Medusa (Jemima Rooper) over to the palace, despite knowning doing so would likely save Jason’s life, leads the hero to make several questionable choices over the course of the episode only to be left with the same bad choices in the end. Given that Jason’s destiny lays outside of the city and on the open seas where his true adventures will begin it’s not surprising to see the city’s hero turned back into an outsider. The only question that remains is will Ariadne retake her throne from Pasiphae (Sarah Parish) or, branded just as much a traitor to the gods as the man she loves, will she abandon her throne and choose to stay with Jason as the series quickly approaches its finale?
