The first decapitation in Spartacus: Blood and Sand occurs 11 minutes into the first episode of Season 1. Two swordsmen in northern Greece, circa 75 B.C., hack, block, thrust, parry, and dodge until one of them overcommits. The poor guy finds himself not only off balance and exposed at the upper torso but, fatally, lacking the power of computerized fast-motion technology that his opponent suddenly possesses. If he’d known his opponent had this power, he probably would have fought more defensively, but it’s too late. He’s shown his throat, whereupon his opponent’s sword, a few degrees into a roundhouse slash, accelerates to invisibly fast. The next thing we see is a body spinning hard to its left as its head releases from its neck at a slightly higher rate of rotation. You really only notice that the fighters’ skin has been digitally washed to the gray-blue of hypothermia, thanks to its contrast with the red of the centrifuging blood, which obviously comes from a warmer palette.