Vikings (TV series)

He didn't say a huge amount in that episode. In earlier years he seemed reasonable. Maybe Loki influenced him the wrong way!
 
For a series that had lost most of its central characters by the end of its run, these final 10 episodes deserve a place in Valhalla.


The death of Bjorn Ironside was creatively done. Instead of letting a legendary Viking warrior languish on his deathbed, they saddled him up one more time to spook the invading Rus into believing he had risen from the dead to lead the defending forces – all without the aid of duct tape. It was heroic trick worthy of Ragnar himself.


Gunnhild was another class exit. Faced with being forced to be one of King Harald's bride queens, she opted to swim out to Valhalla and join her now officially dead husband, Bjorn. She managed to make suicide look sadly beautiful.


That left Harald with bride number two, Ingrid, the witch. I laughed when Harald later noted that he has never had much luck with women.


Neither did his appointed representative, Erik, whom she blinded and arranged to meet the business end of a pitchfork. She really wasn't into sharing power – not with the man who had enslaved her, anyway.


Character deaths were so prevalent throughout these last episodes that Ivar's blue-eyed, bone-breaking demise in the big battle was something of an anti-climax. He had seemed to be undergoing a maturing transformation during his time with the Rus and befriending of young Prince Igor. Even Hvitserk thought that his crazy, wife-killing brother had changed.


No so much. Once a Viking, it would seem, always a Viking.


That made me wonder how well Hvitserk integrated into Saxon society once he had converted to Christianity. Beats beheading, I guess.


On the hopeful side of the dying Viking way of life was Ubbe's quest to find the fabled land to the west. His Greenland stay was bizarre but brief, before his nearly dead boatload of refugees finally washed up on North American shores.


I feared that things would end just as badly in the New World after the brain-dead member of Ubbe's band, Naad, contracted a case murderous gold fever. I thought: “What the hell does he plan to do with gold? Sail back home with it?” He was clearly unable to adapt to his new circumstances.


Ubbe made a wise decision to simply slash Naad's throat instead of following through with the ceremonial blood eagle path to Valhalla. He was obviously undeserving.


It was great to see Floki again, although his explanation of how he got to North America by finding a boat was a stretch As I remember, he was trapped in an Iceland cave with a collection of Christian artifacts when last seen.


It seemed that the real reason to bring Floki back was to represent the old, with Ubbe representing the new, as both sat on a New World beach in the final scene – watching the sun set on the Golden Age of the Vikings.


It will be interesting to see how much of this epic series is incorporated into Vikings: Vahalla when it comes to Netflix late this year.
For a series that had lost most of its central characters by the end of its run, these final 10 episodes deserve a place in Valhalla.


The death of Bjorn Ironside was creatively done. Instead of letting a legendary Viking warrior languish on his deathbed, they saddled him up one more time to spook the invading Rus into believing he had risen from the dead to lead the defending forces – all without the aid of duct tape. It was heroic trick worthy of Ragnar himself.


Gunnhild was another class exit. Faced with being forced to be one of King Harald's bride queens, she opted to swim out to Valhalla and join her now officially dead husband, Bjorn. She managed to make suicide look sadly beautiful.


That left Harald with bride number two, Ingrid, the witch. I laughed when Harald later noted that he has never had much luck with women.


Neither did his appointed representative, Erik, whom she blinded and arranged to meet the business end of a pitchfork. She really wasn't into sharing power – not with the man who had enslaved her, anyway.


Character deaths were so prevalent throughout these last episodes that Ivar's blue-eyed, bone-breaking demise in the big battle was something of an anti-climax. He had seemed to be undergoing a maturing transformation during his time with the Rus and befriending of young Prince Igor. Even Hvitserk thought that his crazy, wife-killing brother had changed.


No so much. Once a Viking, it would seem, always a Viking.


That made me wonder how well Hvitserk integrated into Saxon society once he had converted to Christianity. Beats beheading, I guess.


On the hopeful side of the dying Viking way of life was Ubbe's quest to find the fabled land to the west. His Greenland stay was bizarre but brief, before his nearly dead boatload of refugees finally washed up on North American shores.


I feared that things would end just as badly in the New World after the brain-dead member of Ubbe's band, Naad, contracted a case murderous gold fever. I thought: “What the hell does he plan to do with gold? Sail back home with it?” He was clearly unable to adapt to his new circumstances.


Ubbe made a wise decision to simply slash Naad's throat instead of following through with the ceremonial blood eagle path to Valhalla. He was obviously undeserving.


It was great to see Floki again, although his explanation of how he got to North America by finding a boat was a stretch As I remember, he was trapped in an Iceland cave with a collection of Christian artifacts when last seen.


It seemed that the real reason to bring Floki back was to represent the old, with Ubbe representing the new, as both sat on a New World beach in the final scene – watching the sun set on the Golden Age of the Vikings.


It will be interesting to see how much of this epic series is incorporated into Vikings: Vahalla when it comes to Netflix late this year. (Netflix's 'Vikings: Valhalla' Season 1: Everything We Know So Far - What's on Netflix) /
 
vikingcruises.jpg
 
Overall a very good last ten episode run (second half of season 6). A lot of great entertainment in there. Action and drama. That said, there was a bit of a rush late on and I thought the finale was a disappointment. Broadly agree with Reberg's comments.

Bjorn's final actions were done in a suitably legendary way. Doesn't give in until he can't sit up. That did lose one of the best characters (after Ragnar and Lagertha) with several episodes to go.
The Russian story was decent, and Oleg was compelling. Though Oleg's end seemed a bit too easy. Bad rulers sometimes have their people turn against them, so still made sense. But was he really that hated?
Hvitserk was revitalized as a warrior. Seemed content to do little outside of the battle field.
Gunnhild's suicide was done beautifully if you can say that for a suicide.
King Harald's death was a little underwhelming as he was wandering about on his own foolishly. But I like that he took his killer down too. The preceding battle was well staged.
Ivar's death wasn't quite the raging way I would have expected. Was nice to see the show's overlap with The Last Kingdom (with King Alfred).
The Iceland-Greenland-and beyond voyage dragged further. Distracted from the characters we wanted to see. But at least they finally got to Newfoundland! Interesting for me as I read a bit about this recently, and am also moving to St John's, Newfoundland this summer. Though I believe the scenes were Ireland. In reality apparently there was a lot of fighting between Vikings and natives (probably started by Vikings), which is part of the reason few if any Vikings settled permanently. Would have been fun to see Uber and the others attack like would have happened in season 1! And then driven off by a larger bunch of natives to tell their tales. Considering all the wait through this storyline it didn't really pay off. More like just something the writers thought should be in there, as Vikings travelled a lot.
The biggest disappointment was Queen Ingrid ending on the Kattegat throne. She was never a character we were supposed to like. So she blinded her co-leader (who was another filler character) and then got her reward as ruler. OK.. Well at least we know the Vikings story will continue offscreen with Hvitserk et al.
But despite the weak last episode there were lots of good points in these episodes. Great series!
 
Last edited:
I must admit I missed the origin of one of the character's -
The viking Christian character with Ubbe who apparently took someone else's identity. Was there more background other than he turned up and said he had already been to the new land in the west?
 

Similar threads


Back
Top