Forbes Vikings Review - Episode 19

Excerpts:

"Just last week she revealed that she had breast cancer. She looked fine and healthy. Now . . . days later? . . . she’s dead. This isn’t how breast cancer works, even in a time with no medical treatments. It would certainly kill her, but it would take months at the very least—months between when she recognized the lump and then deteriorated and then finally passed. Possibly much longer."

"Judith is sick one episode, the next she’s dead. We never see her decline. It’s bizarre. I almost didn’t even recognize her."

"I was never a big fan of Judith, but she deserved better than this after all these years."

"I can’t wait for the armies of Bjorn, Harald, Hvitserk and Olaf to descend and overthrow him (Ivar)—except that I know, deep down, that they won’t. They’ll turn on one another. Olaf is mad. Harald is jealous. Bjorn is pigheaded. Hvitserk is just a guy without anyone who actually follows him. He says to Bjorn that he’s fated to kill Ivar, but all I could think is that this means Ivar will kill him instead."

"Harald needs to stop pining over women he can’t have. It’s a little much. I really like his character but he’s always in the same rut. He could have plenty of women so why does he keep going after ones he can’t have? At least he’s consistent, I suppose. But it seems like a plot device we’ve used not once but twice over with his character." 

"Ivar, meanwhile, remains as cloying as ever. His wickedness is overbearing, almost saccharine. He’s built up this powerful empire but I’m just still not sold on it—I don’t believe that he really did anything to ever deserve it." 

"(Ivar) He’s the villainous equivalent of a Mary Sue. Somehow everyone fears him. Somehow everyone follows him. Somehow he’s built up Kattegat to heights Ragnar, Auslag and Lagertha never could. Somehow he defeats every foe, uncovers every conspiracy—even Freydis’s lies, it seems—and yet he does all this not through cleverness or better strategy, but through endless good fortune and the inexplicably stupid decisions of others.

"(Ubbe) Turns out, he was staring off at Valhalla, at the old gods he abandoned for political ends. Later he tells Torvi the Christian god means nothing to him."

"It’s his (Ragnar) dream finally realized and it’s realized not by Bjorn or Ivar, but by Ubbe."

"Bjorn has descended into this very one-dimensional character, always either scowling or giving his sexy look at various women who he quickly discards. He’s always pounding his chest and never really thinking. His bravado dominates his every decision, every phrase. I can’t stand it. What happened to the Bjorn of the past, the one we rooted for?"

"The irony is too much for Floki, who has not only endured the squabblings of his followers but a really disappointing script for the past 19 episodes. He gives his familiar crazy little giggle. We’re reminded of better days."

"We’re not in the glory days of Vikings, but we saw some glimpses of truly great TV in Ubbe’s fight, in Floki’s reaction to finding the cross, even in Bjorn and Hvitserk’s reunion."

The fact that I wake up from a nap to see people rejoicing over Ivar abandoning/potentially killing an innocent baby.

Ivar is an adult man who has free agency and autonomy. To infantilize him and absolve him of all his decisions is absurd. No woman holds that much power over a man (and vice versa).

FYI, A child is innocent in the game of adults. And anyone celebrating the killing of a child because they hate the mother, reveals allot.

Very excellent critique and review of Vikings:

Excerpt:

"I think I’m tired of how cynical this show has become. More than its aimlessness, it’s the lack of humanity I find so depressing. Nobody cares about anybody else. Mothers kill their sons. Fathers abandon their children. Brothers are always at war with one another. When Bjorn finally comes out with his little love speech, all I can think about is how badly he’s treated all his previous wives, all the children he’s abandoned."

"I don’t buy it. None of this is really human nature. People back in those times didn’t just neglect and abandon their children willie nillie. People still loved their parents, their children, their family and friends. There wasn’t endless backstabbing and misery. Life was hard and the hardest folk survived, but Vikings has taken malaise to a whole new level. There is nothing hopeful about this show. There is no drunken joking between Ragnar and Ecbert. Nobody is carrying Aethelstan’s body up the mountain."

"Later he sends Hvitserk (who has also suddenly fallen in love with yet another woman whose name escapes me) on a diplomatic mission."

"Bjorn tells her he’s afraid to ask if she loves him. He professes his vulnerability. He’s lost, alone, his soul naked. I guess this show of weakness works on her. I’m a little confused. Did I miss the part where they fell in love? This show’s tendency to skip forward makes following the various narratives a bit like suffering from whiplash."