Summary: Ragnar returns from Paris but he is changed. He starts doing drugs to cope with his pain. Eventually the Vikings return to Paris and learn that Rollo betrayed them and married Gisla. There is a battle and the Vikings are defeated. Ragnar vanishes for 10 years. Ecbert continues his machinations and becomes king of Wessex and Mercia, killing Kwenthrith. After 10 years, Ragnar returns with plans to go to England. His son Ivar accompanies him. Ecbert captures them both and frees Ivar, but Ragnar is given to Aelle and is killed. Bjorn sails to the Mediterranean but after hearing of Ragnar's death, he returns. The sons of Ragnar create a great army and attack England. Aelle is defeated and killed. Aethelwulf is defeated in battle and has to retreat. Ecbert gives himself up to the Vikings and dies. Ivar kills his brother Sigurd after an argument.
The Good: True to the first three seasons, Ragnar is the best part of this season. This season did a great job of portraying how the main characters have changed as they have aged, and the best example of this is Ragnar. In this season he is completely adrift, far from the charming cunning man that he was in previous seasons. Following Athelstan's death he has lost his purpose, and being a Viking doesn't give him the joy that it once did. The show does a tremendous job of showing us Ragnar's true desires: to return to his old family and to escape from his current reality with a wife he hates, and a destroyed settlement that he feels guilt about. This is a compelling idea that's much more complex than anything else that "Vikings" has done, and I think that it's executed magnificently. Travis Fimmel also adds a lot to this story. The dialogue in "Vikings" has always been bad but Fimmel does a tremendous job of not letting me notice it due to his electric performance. It cannot be understated how much Ragnar's presence improved the show, and it became immediately evident that there is not much more to "Vikings" once Ragnar was gone (see: The Bad). But while Ragnar was there, the stories were good. The first half of the season is spent building up to the return to Paris where a Ragnar vs Rollo battle awaits. This conflict is very engaging and it is built up really well. I've discussed how Ragnar's change was handled well, and I think that the show did a solid job of displaying how Ragnar's men felt alienated from him in the first half of the season. Ragnar's change had an effect on the story, and it was written pretty well. I think that this is a big reason for Ragnar's loss when he did battle Rollo, and that is really good storytelling. Ragnar lost because his heart wasn't in it anymore, and his men suffered the consequences of Ragnar's choices in this season. Alternatively we have Rollo who was a lot of fun in his new role as Duke of Normandy. There is a lot of humour in the Paris storyline which is a pleasant surprise. "Vikings" has never been a funny show, but it put in effort to make Rollo's antics entertaining to watch. I thought that Rollo's transformation was executed well enough, even if it wasn't particularly great, and I did buy into him sticking with the Franks during the battle. The season built up a lot to this confrontation between Ragnar and Rollo and I think that their confrontation delivered for the most part, and it was one of the most memorable parts of the season. But what really stood out about this season was what came next. The Ragnar vs Rollo story was good, but it became apparent that Ragnar's time on the show was coming to an end. And as Ragnar got closer and closer to his death, the quality of the show got better and better as it celebrated the characters and his relationships before his inevitable demise. The episodes leading up to Ragnar's death were not only the best of the season, but the best of the entire show. If there's one thing that this show has been lacking, it's emotional impact. Killing the main character of the show, the one character I actually care about, is bound to have a big impact on me. And thankfully, Ragnar's death was handled with the respect it deserved. After seeing Ragnar reduced to a shell of who he once was in season 4, I was worried that he would get a death that would not fit the character. However, what we got was damn near perfect. Ragnar's final invasion of England saw him resolve the tensions he had in his relationships with Ecbert, Floki, Bjorn and Lagertha while simultaneously grooming Ivar to take over after he's gone. But more than that, Ragnar resolved his own inner conflict at long last, accepting that the gods likely do not exist, and instead of spiting that fact, he makes his peace with it. In doing this, Ragnar is allowed to be himself one final time as he spends a night of contemplation with Ecbert before performing one final con to ensure that Ecbert does not get away with the destruction of the settlement. It's a brilliant final storyline for Ragnar and it is acted to perfection by Travis Fimmel and Linus Roache, the two best actors on this show. Ragnar's death itself was done perfectly, and I'll never forget the final visual of Ragnar's bright blue eye staring up at Ecbert from within the snake pit. The episode "All His Angels" is a striking and powerful piece of art, the likes of which I thought I would never see from a show like "Vikings". The achievement of that episode should not be overlooked, regardless of what I think about the rest of the season. Outside of Ragnar, this season had a few other good elements. As always, the action is awesome. If there's one thing that has been consistent since season 1, it's that. The writing and dialogue may be pretty bad at times, but the action is always excellent. Some characters were given decent storylines. Linus Roache gave some life to the bland Wessex storylines, and I enjoyed King Ecbert all the way until the end. Bjorn had his best season so far, likely because this one wasn't stuffed to the brom with terrible romance. I really enjoyed his time in the wilderness, and I maintain that "Vikings" is at its best when there is no dialogue. The question of what to do with Floki early in the season was really engaging, and his torture was horrifying to watch. The character writing was pretty strong early in season 4. Lastly, of all the new characters, Ivar is by far the best. Alex Hogh Anderson does a great job bringing the character to life and he has shown surprising depth. Ivar is a determined cripple, but also a scared boy, a genius tactician and a frightening psychopath. He's such a unique character and I hope that he is given more to do because he wasn't utilized well enough this season. The Bad: The Good was almost entirely about Ragnar, and I stand by the fact that everything with Ragnar was good. The problem comes when you realize that Ragnar's scenes are only about 30% of this season. In watching this show, I've learned that the creator Michael Hirst has some very major flaws in how he tells stories, and this badly hurt the show in every storyline outside of Ragnar's. Unfortunately, season 4 sees Hirst give in to all of his worst habits. These habits include dedicating far too much time to uninteresting storylines, failing to create interesting new characters, giving main characters with no direction a nonsensical storyline, turning to needless melodrama whenever possible, and spending far too much time making characters argue with each other instead of building relationships properly. Let's start with the decision to spend far too much time with uninteresting storylines. If you look back to my season 3 reviews, one of my complaints was how slow and plodding the scenes in Wessex were after the Vikings left. I criticized those scenes for not featuring interesting characters and for being painfully uninteresting. Unfortunately for season 4, just about every single episode continued this trend. This first half of the season is especially guilty of this as eight out of the ten episodes wasted time in Wessex for a needlessly complex story about Ecbert also becoming King of Mercia. I think that Michael Hirst finds these storylines far more interesting than we do because there is no reason for us to spend this much time on a storyline that is so far removed from the main plot and so unbelievably boring. Kwenthrith, Judith and Aethelwulf are horrible characters and spending time with them immediately put me to sleep. It badly hurts the quality of every episode in this season when a sizeable amount of time is wasted in Wessex, killing the episode's momentum. And there's more to this issue too! The politics in Paris were even more boring than the Wessex scenes because they didn't even feature Ecbert. Watching Roland, Therese and Odo make their moves was as tedious as watching paint dry, and every visit to Odo's preposterous sex dungeon made me want to turn the TV off. That Hirst chose to spend so much time on these storylines is baffling to me. This flaw extended to the final five episodes of the season too, but I'll discuss that more later. Another big failing of the show is its inability to create engaging new characters on a consistent basis. This has been a notable part of the previous seasons too, but the success of the early conceived characters like Ragnar, Rollo, Floki, Ecbert, Athelstan, etc. has disguised how bad this show has been at establishing new characters. But it has always done a terrible job. I can't think of a single character introduced since season 2 outside of Ecbert and Ivar that has been compelling. Everyone is either flat, boring or frustrating. The side characters introduced in Wessex and Paris are laughably bad, but the most egregious failure in characterization comes from the new additions to the main cast. The new sons of Ragnar are boring. There is nothing about Ubbe, Hvitserk and Sigurd that ever made me care about them. Just as bad is Harald and Halfdan who have been around for 15 episodes and yet I couldn't tell you a single thing about their personalities. The inclusion of these two new characters is a perplexing choice because they have done nothing and added nothing to the show ever since their arrival. The handling of the main characters this season has also been poor. Outside of Ragnar, Ecbert and Rollo, I dislike everyone far more than I did going into this season. Well also Bjorn, but the only reason I like him more now is because he was so awful in season 2 and 3. Season 4 Bjorn is only a minor improvement and I'm still not at all convinced by Alexander Ludwig's acting ability (or lack thereof). Besides, Bjorn's biggest storyline this season was also pretty bad. His conflict with Erlendur should have been resolved in 1 or 2 episodes, but it was stretched out until the ninth episode and it never became compelling. And yet, all of the other major characters somehow had storylines worse than this one. Floki is adrift for the entire season and the writers never seem to know what to do with him after Ragnar frees him from his torture. At one point he's joining Harald to turn on Ragnar but this is never explored. Then he is friends with Ragnar again and this decision is never explored. He's also apparently going to be the next Seer, but this storyline gets dropped as abruptly as it came up. And then finally, the show completely destroys the character of Floki by having him be fascinated by Islam. Floki simultaneously did everything and nothing this season, and the character's credibility was thrown off a cliff with how poorly he was written. Helga fared no better. She has never had much to do as a character herself, but killing the character would mean something. However, her story of wanting a child so badly that she desperately kidnaps an Islamic orphan girl was embarrassingly bad, and it made her death into a fittingly stupid moment to end a stupid storyline. Lagertha also has a terrible season. Her story with Kalf ends in the most bland and predictable way, and then Lagertha inexplicably decides that she despises Aslaug now and she takes over Kattegat. Nothing interesting was done with Lagertha this season and the show continually has her kill people in badass ways as an attempt to use the character well. This doesn't work and it makes Lagertha feel more like a badass woman trope rather than an actual character. This isn't helped by the fact that Lagertha surrounds herself with other shallow badass woman archetypes like Astrid and Torvi. Lagertha's murder of Aslaug has to be one of the season's weakest moments. Aslaug became almost comically evil this season and her death was as unsatisfying as it could possibly get. Lastly we get to Kwenthrith and Yidu, two poorly conceived characters who were given an unsatisfying storyline with deaths that had no impact on me. It's fascinating to me how badly this season handled every single character not named Ragnar, Ecbert or Rollo. The last of Hirst's troubling storytelling methods comes from his obsession with inserting melodrama into places where it does not belong. So much of this season was bogged down by meaningless melodrama. Much of the time we spent with the new sons of Ragnar was melodrama. It was either some stupid conflict over who gets to have sex with Margrethe or some generic arguing about who leads the great army. None of it had any depth. Worse were the scenes with Rollo and Gisla. All of their arguments had no depth to them whatsoever. As much as I enjoyed Rollo this season, his scenes with Gisla were pretty bad. This show has an obsession with characters cheating on each other and that being passed off for drama. Something like Bjorn having sex with Astrid for no reason is a perfect example of how this show inserts melodrama where it does not belong for no good reason. It's very frustrating to see the show refuse to commit to any interesting direction with its characters in favour of doing these cliched melodramatic scenes. But this season went beyond Michael Hirst in terms of being awful. The final five episodes of this season were so poorly done in every possible aspect that it's impossible to blame Michael Hirst's style of storytelling for their failure. These episodes were simply terrible. Believe me when I say that nothing about what happened in these episodes was satisfying. The sons of Ragnar are terrible, shallow characters and they do nothing but bicker for these five episodes. We learn nothing about them and so we don't care at all about their conflicts. Furthermore, instead of exploring these characters and the logistics of raising the great army, we spend far too much time in England with the English characters. In fact, if you don't count the battles I am certain that we spend more time with the Englishmen than the Vikings which is downright ridiculous. Once again, Hirst wastes so much of our time on the boring Wessex scenes instead of giving us what we actually want to see. Not focusing on our new characters after Ragnar's death was a stupid move and it ensured that we have no emotional connection with anything that happens now. This is a big reason why I've decided that I will drop the show now. There is no reason for me to keep watching, no characters that I want to see more of, no stories that I'm excited to watch. Everything interesting about the show is dead now, and these last 5 episodes indicate that all that is left is more melodrama, more empty action, and more shallow, simplistic character arcs. The show no longer has a story that is worth telling. Best Episodes: E07 The Profit and the Loss: This episode was helped by some excellent action as Ragnar and Rollo battle for the first time this season. Ragnar's brutal defeat is really dramatic and well done, and there are several genuinely tense and powerful moments in this episode. E10 The Last Ship: Another epic action sequence, and this one is the big climax of the first half of season 4 as Ragnar and Rollo directly fight each other. It's an exciting and fun action sequence. The episode also pulls out a great surprise by having a timeskip halfway through, setting up the second half of the season in a really unique and exciting way. E14 In the Uncertain Hour Before the Morning: This episode was highlighted by the fascinating conversations between Ragnar and Ecbert. In a lot of ways, this relationship was the emotional core of the entire series, and I'm so glad that it got an entire episode to itself. E15 All His Angels: The best episode of the whole show. Ragnar's death is a hugely powerful moment, and the entire episode masterfully builds up to it. This was a superbly directed episode that gets the most out of Ragnar's final episode. Worst Episodes: E08 Portage: This episode had 3 major deaths (Kwenthrith, Yidu, Odo) and none of them had any impact. This was such a flat episode. E17 The Great Army: This episode made it abundantly clear that "Vikings" can't survive without Ragnar. The story was flat and filled with melodrama the entire time. E18 Revenge: After another dull hour of boring melodrama, the revenge on Aelle was so rushed and unsatisfying that it ruined what should have been an emotional high point of the series. This episode was a poorly executed disaster. Character of the Season: Ragnar obviously. Nobody else comes close. Conclusion: This season was divided into 3 parts that I feel very differently about. The first half of the season was decent. It started fine enough and the Ragnar/Rollo stories were consistently entertaining all the way through. The issue was that everything else was really weak, particularly all of the other events in Wessex and Paris. However, this part of the show was still decent enough and I liked it about as much as season 3. The next 5 episodes would be the pinnacle of the whole show. Showing us such rich relationships between Ragnar and the rest of the cast was riveting and it made his death into an outstanding moment that provided the single greatest episode of the show to date. After the success of these episodes, I was optimistic again. But then it all came crumbling down as the final 5 episodes had very little that was worth watching and they're somehow even worse when you look back at them after finishing the season. This could have been a good season, and it definitely had the plot beats to be the best of the series so far. But the terrible execution of the story resulted in this being the worst season yet, one that completely dissolved any interest I had in continuing to watch this show. The season's average score is a 57 which I think is about right. There was some great stuff here, but there was so much bad stuff that there was no chance of this season getting a good score. And with that, I'm done watching "Vikings".
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
March 2024
Categories
All
|