If you know the story of Spartacus, you know there was no happy ending. They didn't beat the sheer size of the Roman Army, they didn't immediately ensure an end to slavery, and there was a lot more death in the final battle. But is this finale, keeping it close to the truth, as absurdly saddening as you'd expect? No, shockingly. It spends a great deal of it's time tying up all the remaining character arcs before the final battle, which is hugely epic by the way, and it rides off the theme of dying for a noble cause and succeeding in a different way. It somehow manages to make a massive historical tragedy hugely bittersweet, and even plenty of character deaths are heartwarming rather than outright tragic since they lose better than the winners won. It does all that while tying up every loose end remaining and giving a hugely satisfying conclusion despite the tragedy, which I would've never thought was possible. It ends in a much better way than some other similar series, especially those by HBO, cough, cough. It's worth watching the entire series through just for episodes like this.