Summary: The Vikings return to Wessex and fight for Kwenthrith, defeating her family's forces in Mercia. Torstein dies in the process, Porunn is badly injured and ashamed, and Floki starts turning on Ragnar. Lagertha watches over the new settlement and forms a relationship with Ecbert. Judith and Athelstan have sex and Aethelwulf finds out. Harbard visits Kattegat, takes Ivar's pain away and sleeps with Aslaug. Ragnar's kids fall through ice and Siggy saves them but she dies. The Vikings return to Kattegat and Lagertha finds out her earldom was usurped by Kalf. She wants to fight him but Ragnar allies with him in hopes of conquering Paris. Once the Vikings leave, Ecbert has Aethelwulf destroy their settlement. Athelstan rediscovers his faith as a Christian and is scorned by all but Ragnar for it. Floki kills Athelstan in secret. The Vikings go to Paris where they attack the city but are defeated. Ragnar is grievously wounded and dying. He gets baptized and once dead, he is brought into the city for a Christian burial with the promise that the Vikings will leave after it happens. However it's a trap, Ragnar is alive and allows the Vikings to enter the city and ransack it. Rollo is left behind as the Vikings go back and he makes a deal with Emperor Charles to marry his daughter. Porunn gives birth to Bjorn's baby but leaves Kattegat. Ecbert begins to connect more with Judith in an attempt to get leverage over Aelle.
The Good: Even though he received far less focus this season, Ragnar is still a really great character. By all means I should be frustrated by Ragnar now because of how he always seems to be 20 moves ahead of everyone else, but I never find myself being annoyed by it. The show has organically written Ragnar's intelligence in a way that is believable, and every plan and choice he makes is consistent with what we know about him, and it's feasible that he would figure these things out. Take the latter half of the season. Ragnar's plan to fake his death seems needlessly complex for the sake of drama, but when you remember that he heard a prophecy about Paris from the Seer, it suddenly makes perfect sense why he would fake his death and why he would hide it from the others. It also makes perfect sense that Ragnar knows Floki killed Athelstan, and he even got it confirmed when Floki gave his speech to Ragnar when he thought he was dead. The show has done a tremendous job of making this character entertaining to watch, intelligent and believable. It's the single biggest achievement of the show. The other character that was superb this season was Floki. Floki had a lot to do in every episode and we got to see some of Gustaf Skarsgard's best performances yet. Contrasting Floki's extreme dedication to the Norse gods contrasted with Ragnar who dares to question these things made for some really compelling drama. I really like how Athelstan was put in the middle of this conflict, and it was interesting to see if Ragnar truly had the best interest of the gods in mind or if he actually was becoming a little to Christian to be an effective ruler. The turning point was of course the death of Athelstan, which I thought was a brilliant moment both in terms of the scene itself being great and in terms of it having a huge impact on the show. The intrigue of the Ragnar/Floki conflict continued throughout the entire season and I'm excited to see where it goes from here. The first half of the season was centered on the Viking settlement in Wessex and I thought that this was pretty well done. The action scenes were exciting and I enjoyed seeing the development of the settlement. The twist that Ecbert always intended on betraying them after taking Mercia was really nicely executed and it caught me off guard. Ecbert was a consistently enjoyable presence in this season. The Paris storyline was mostly good stuff. Watching Ragnar's forces lay siege to the city was compelling and exciting. I was highly interested in seeing the Vikings attempt to conquer Paris, so all the scenes that focused on that idea were engaging to me. The scenes inside the city weren't good (see: The Bad), but they did their job in laying the groundwork for next season. I adored Rollo's decision to ally with the Franks because it seems like the permanent move that Rollo needed to finally get a compelling storyline after he flip-flopped from with Ragnar to against Ragnar again and again for so long. I have a few other things that I enjoyed. I enjoyed Ecbert's presence as usual. The character is a blast to watch and he was given a lot of interesting storylines including his betrayal of Ragnar's deal and his romance with Lagertha. Harbard was a curious presence early in the season and I really enjoyed the actor's performance and sense of mystery. I hope he turns up again. As usual, the action this season was excellent and we got the best action setpiece yet with the siege of Paris. I'm running out of ways to compliment the action on this show, but this season had more of what made it so great in the first two seasons. The Bad: In spite of all that this season did right, I feel like the show lost a lot of its heart from season 2. The storytelling was so simplistic this entire season and it felt like there was no uniqueness or heart to any of it. Complexity within characters was completely sacrificed, and everyone had very one-dimensional motives, and never did anything too interesting. Ecbert was probably the most complex character this season, but that's only because the show hadn't yet revealed the extent of his selfishness and lust for power until he burned down the Viking settlement. Now that the twist has happened, Ecbert has become another very simple character. Athelstan brought a majority of the complexity to the last season with the show's unique exploration of Christians vs Vikings. But with his death in this season and with the destruction of the settlement, the show seems to have almost entirely rid itself of any interesting ideas it wanted to explore. The current storytelling legs are entirely based around betrayal and revenge. Don't get me wrong, it is fun to watch betrayal and revenge, but there is nothing inherently special about any of these ideas that other shows like "Game of Thrones" have not tackled. Furthermore, the artistic nature of season 2 was mostly absent in this season. There were a few lovely scenes like the scene where Floki returns to kill Athelstan or the scene where we get to see the extent of Ragnar's injuries as he writhes in pain in a puddle of blood surrounded by flames. These were nice sequences, but I couldnt help but notice that there were far fewer of these than in season 2, and the ones that we got weren't nearly as memorable or compelling, which ties into the show's increasing simplicity. I was very disappointed with how this season handled Athelstan, Bjorn, Lagertha, Rollo and Ragnar. These are the main characters of the show and yet I feel like they had very little to do all season. Ragnar had more in the second half of the season, but he was oddly absent in the first half, continuing to hammer in how the show has zero interest in exploring what being a King means to Ragnar. The other four characters were misused badly. Athelstan did not have much of an arc in this season, and outside of the rediscovery of his faith, all he did was translate and have sex with someone. This is a huge step down from the dilemma he had last season. This season should have been about Bjorn stepping up to become Ragnar's true heir, especially considering the opening scene (Ragnar lectures Bjorn on ruling) and the final conflict (Bjorn is the only one entrusted with Ragnar's plan). And yet we get hardly any scenes of Bjorn learning to be a man and rule, there are only a few badass scenes with him in Paris. Instead, the rest of the season is only interested in exploring his romances with Porunn and Torvi; both of these storylines suck. Rollo was given literally nothing to do all season until he forms the alliance with Emperor Charles. The show uses Rollo to fill time and never gave him anything to do, which is a horrible misuse of a major character. Lagertha also wasn't used to her fullest potential. She had a better season than season 2 to be sure, but her storyline with Kalf was horrible, and her romance with Ecbert ended up being entirely pointless even if it was interesting while it was happening. Surely there should have been more of a story to tell with Lagertha in this season. One of the worst decisions of the season was to repeat Ragnar's long con at the end of season 2. This is the second time in a row that "Vikings" has sacrificed telling a complete story in favour of giving the audience a moderate surprise that they likely would have figured out well before it happened. This time around the show spends so much time trying to convince us that Ragnar is dying that it forgets to tell any kind of story with all of the other characters. And what was it for? For a single moment where Ragnar jumps out of his coffin and takes Gisla hostage. This was not worth it at all. I would take a complete story with depth and emotion over a meaningless shock any day of the week. Plus it feels incredibly repetitive for the show to use the exact same trick as last season to resolve the siege of Paris. I was incredibly disappointed by this and I thought that it was a weak conclusion to a good storyline. Speaking of Paris, it was pretty difficult to care about the scenes inside of the city, especially with the Vikings preparing to lay siege. There were plenty of interesting characters in the Viking camp, and I was frustrated that we kept being forced to see what's going on inside of the city instead of spending time in the Viking camp. Even worse are the scenes in Wessex. Once the Vikings left, Wessex become obsolete and uninteresting. I only care about what happens to Wessex so long as the Vikings are involved because they are the reason I watch the show. So why on Earth was so much time wasted in Wessex long after the Vikings left? None of these scenes were good and I was dead bored while watching them. Aethelwulf and Judith are not interesting characters and I don't care about them. Speaking of characters I don't care about, Kalf was a useless addition to the show. This character is boring, out of place and makes Lagertha look like a fool. And to make matters worse, he doesn't even do anything in this season! I seriously question his inclusion into the show because he seems completely frivolous. Erlendur is even worse. He's a bland character with an extremely punchable face that I cannot take seriously. I still can't fathom why he was left alive last season and the character continues to be an uninspired asshole. Both Kalf and Erlendur have an agenda to kill Ragnar but I don't take them seriously as a threat at all. Kwenthrith is still awful. She had more to do this season and was slightly less cringeworthy, but I still don't like her at all. The Unknown: What is Rollo going to do now that he's married Gisla? Will he betray Ragnar again? Will the marriage be successful? I assume so because the Seer said that great things will happen to Rollo. What will Ragnar do to Floki now that he knows Floki killed Athelstan? How will Ragnar deal with Ecbert and Aethelwulf? Will they be prepared for him? How will Kalf and Erlendur turn on Ragnar? Do they have any plan to take him out? Did Porunn leave Kattegat for good? Best Episodes: E06 Born Again: This episode wasn't entirely great, but the last 15 minutes were excellent. Floki killing Athelstan was one of the show's most memorable sequences, and Ragnar's speech to his departed friends is one of the show's most powerful moments. E08 To the Gates!: This episode was everything that I love about the action in this show. Sure the story was a bit shallow, but the choreography and siege logistics were terrific. As a fan of medieval-style battles, I had a blast watching this. Worst Episodes: E02 The Wanderer: Outside of Torstein's amputation, this episode was pretty empty. Also the many, many affairs were getting really annoying by this point. E04 Scarred: And this episode was even worse with the constant affairs. It felt like horny was the main character trait of everybody in this episode. This episode had a lot of Kwenthrith on top of that, which is not a good thing. Siggy's death is the other main talking point and I thought that it was a surprisingly hollow scene. E07 Paris: This was a meandering episode. The aftermath of Athelstan's death was glossed over so that we could have a slow-paced and boring set-up for the siege of Paris, complete with many sleep-inducing scenes in Paris and Wessex. Character of the Season: Floki. Conclusion: This season did some things right. The Ragnar/Floki conflict was great, the siege of Paris was a blast, and I enjoyed several parts of the first half of the season too. But in spite of this, the show lost what made it so compelling to me in season 2. The characters were simplified, the side characters were shoved into the background and there were plenty of issues with the writing, including a baffling amount of focus on storylines that ended up having no impact whatsoever on the main plot. It's because of these flaws and the lack of a compelling emotional core that season 3 ended up being a substantial step down from season 2. The show is trying to be a high quality and epic TV show, but it doesn't have the storytelling depth, the characters or the writing to even come close to accomplishing its goals. Every now and then the show will have a really strong scene, but the pieces never fully add up to create a compelling narrative. It's disappointing, but I'm afraid that we've already seen the best of the show in season 2. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm uncertain about the future of the show, and it distresses me to know that there are somehow still 60 episodes to watch after this season. I'm not sure that I will be reviewing them all.
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Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
March 2024
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