This week's episode was the expected battle between Alfred and Harold's forces. Ubbe surprised me once again with his level headedness and ability to seamlessly move between the two groups while setting Harold up for an unexpected ambush. IMO he is the true embodiment of Ragnar over all his other sons. To think it would be him rather than Bjorn who remains distant and sullen. I hope things turn out well for him and Torvi.

Heahmund tried to disavow Lagertha before they went into battle but calls out for her on the battle field as he dies. She hears him and seemed to me to be really gutted by his death and his calling out to her. Perhaps that is why she chose to disappear when the dust settled. I don't believe she was killed but I can't say as to whether or not we will see or hear of her again.

Who taught Magnus to fight? He had more balls than I thought he would have. It's just as well that he's gone off with Harold but he's no seer. His predictions about the fate of Christianity were WAY off, lol.

I also wonder what's going to happen to Aethelred now that Alfred knows he was the leader of the conspiracy to overthrow him. It must have killed Judith when she had to inform on him because I believe she loves both her sons but the son of her heart is Alfred. Will his execution be a low key private affair because he is the brother to the king or will it be a public affair that will serve to be a warning to any others who dare to challenge the king?

I almost forgot about darling Ivar. What will happen if this son his wife has convinced him she's going to have turns out to be a girl?

 

I'm all caught up but I won't discuss this Wednesday's episode in case you haven't seen it yet.

I was frustrated with Heahmund's death and felt we had more mileage on his character. That was also exacerbated by how they tied in Lagertha's disappearance at the end. Not happy with the direction of the story there.

I'm completely tuned out with Iceland. Aside from Floki, I don't give a damn about those other characters. He is also suffering due to not interacting with anyone from the main cast. Would love to see his perspective on everything that's happened since he was gone with Ragnar's sons etc.

Wessex is my favorite part of the show right now. I'm surprised too how I've come to like the Ubbe character in time. He's smart like Ragnar and has made some good choices. His alliance with Alfred is interesting too.

 

I agree about Heahmund and Iceland. Heahmund had much more to do. I also agree about Ubbe. That story line in intriguing.

I am over Ivar. In fact I am becoming bored with him and that entire story line.

I was shocked with what Judith did though, didn't see that one coming.

 

'Vikings' To End With Season 6, Spinoff Series In The Works


By RUSS BURLINGAME - January 4, 2019

• The series is currently ongoing, and will take a break after January 30, when the final season five episode hits the airwaves.
  
  A 20-episode sixth season will wrap up the existing story, and presumably set up a potential follow-up, for which talks are still happening. There is no specific premiere date set for season six yet, although Deadline speculates that the series will wrap in 2020.
  
  While creator Michael Hirst has written every episode of Vikings, he will be joined by Die Hardand The Fugitive writer Jeb Stuart (no relation to the DC Comics character of the same name -- as far as you know) for the prospective spinoff.
  
  
  Vikings has been big in the geek space over the years, with a strong presence at Comic Con every year, appearances by Adam "The Edge" Copeland, and a tie-in comic book.
  
  “Vikings” is the critically acclaimed series from creator and sole writer Michael Hirst (Academy Award® winning film Elizabeth and the Emmy® and Golden Globe® nominated series “The Tudors”) and is a family saga that tells the remarkable tales of the lives and epic adventures of the raiders and explorers of the Dark Ages. Across all platforms, the last season of “Vikings” averaged 11.2 million viewers per episode. “Vikings” is a top five drama across all of cable this year, and finished its season as the #1 original series on cable on Wednesday nights among all key demographics (Live+SD). Vikings averaged 3.7 million total viewers in Live+7.
  
  In the mid-season five finale, legendary Viking Rollo (Clive Standen) returns just as the divide between the Lothbrok family climaxes with Ragnar’s sons battling each other to rule the world. The long-awaited faceoff ends with a strategic victory going to Ivar the Boneless (Alex Høgh Andersen) who vows vengeance on his betrayers with a direct target on Lagertha’s (Katheryn Winnick) back. Last seen in an unstable state and losing her appearance as a fierce Viking warrior, Lagertha is hopeful she will regain her spot in Kattegat as its rightful leader.
  
  Season five cast includes series regulars Jonathan Rhys Meyers as “Bishop Heahmund” along with Katheryn Winnick (“Lagertha”), Gustaf Skarsgård (“Floki”), Alex Høgh Andersen (“Ivar the Boneless”), Alexander Ludwig (“Bjorn”), Georgia Hirst (“Torvi”), Peter Franzen (“King Harald”), Jordan Patrick Smith (“Ubbe”) and Marco Ilsø (“Hvitserk”).
  
  “Vikings” is an international Irish/Canadian co-production by TM Productions and Take 5 Productions. MGM Television serves as the worldwide distributor outside of Ireland and Canada. “Vikings” is produced in association with Corus Entertainment.
  

 

Well, I finally got to see Wednesday's episode. No one need worry about me and spoilers. Luv 'em as long as it's not a murder mystery. Discuss away. Only makes me more excited to watch for myself.

My thoughts? First off, don't mess with Judith! Lol. Damn, but I never thought she would have poisoned her firstborn. I wondered, of course, when he got a little uppity with her. I guess she figured it would only get worse and she better nip it in the bud while she still could. After all we are talking about a woman who would bed her father -in-law right under her husband's nose.

I was happy to see Bjorn finally said the things he should have to Torvi. She deserved better and now maybe she has it with Ubbe. I thought he might have told them both to take care of each other but perhaps that was too much to ask. Now he has to convince Harold he's no threat. From the way he looked at Bjorn at York, I got the feeling that he might have been a little jealous of Bjorn's easy way with people. Especially the ladies.

What was all that with Hvikserk? Buddha? Maybe he'll be bit by the explorer bug like Ragnar. We'll have to see how Ivar's next move against Wessex will go and whether or not Harold, Bjorn and Magnus throw a wrench into the equation.

Floki? He sucks as the Nordic Jesus. That situation is further going down the toilet if that's even possible.

 

With hte way things were going Judith was bound to lose one son, she just chose which one it was going to be. Brutal scene though, which did end up redeeming that episode.

I hope they kill of Ivar this season so we don't have to suffer with him in the final one. His expiration date has long passed. There's nothing else to be gained from his character.

 

Just a few thoughts on Wednesday's episode. Can this show get anymore depressing?
That whole crap in Iceland made me sick. I don't know their names but that family that Floki seemed to have believing in all his kumbaya really fooled me. I was frankly disappointed. Then when the daughter of said surviving family took a header off the cliff, I felt like I was watching the Viking version of "Then There was None". I'm sure at this point the remaining family must sail back to Norway. There are no other alternatives that I can see but will they leave Floki behind?

Judith is trying to teach Alfred to become Tywin Lannister but will the lesson stick? He seems to have a big heart. I hope he can find a way to perhaps get the intent behind her lesson without having to sell his soul to the devil so to speak. Alfred does need to make Ubbe the leader of his armies cause it takes a Nordic warrior to defeat a Nordic warrior. I would imagine he has the advantage of knowing how the Danes think and if he wants to retain his lands he has to follow through rather than betray Alfred. I think Al will see that. And what's up with Judith? The way she was looking at herself in the mirror? Is something going on with her physically? A lump or something not quite right which might indicate she's dying?

Moving along to Ivar. For once his wife gave him some good advice. Too bad Hvikserk has a new girlfriend. While I think he did well to warn her to stay clear of his brother, I don't think he went far enough. He's going to turn on Ivar which puts her in harm's way. Unless Ivar keeps her captive, I think Hvikserk should have told her to be on the lookout that he would send someone to her to spirit her away.

Speaking of which we have the new love triangle of Bjorn, Harold and Grunnhild. I think that Bjorn is lying to himself. He says he's not sure he's ever been in love. Bullshit. I think he was head over heels for his first wife. He never had proper closure with that relationship. After she was injured, she pushed him into Torvi's arms and ghosted on him. I think this new one reminds him of her.They even kinda resemble each other. Just my two cents, but she's a tricky one. She tells Harold what she thinks he wants to hear and then she gets Bjorn to tell her he loves her. I don't think I heard her say she loved him back. She's trying to hedge her bets playing one man against the other. I think she figures she'll make out either way. We'll see.

 

I'm thinking Floki might just leave Iceland on his own now. We've had more than enough of that dismal story. He won't want to be around those people anymore either. I could just see him set off on his own.

I don't understand why Hvikserk didn't take the girlfriend with him, particularly since he plans on betraying Ivar. It puts her in direct danger and can't end well. She's defenseless alone against a paranoid lunatic that believes he's a god. Really stupid move there.

Alfred is more of a Jaime Lannister type (the current reformed version) than he is Tywin. He's smart, but he's not that ruthless. It's going to be a difficult thing for him to carry with him too, knowing is mother killed his brother.

I'd prefer for them to kill off Ivar this season and move Harald up as top adversary, but I'm afraid now he's going to meet his demise since it's shaping up as a struggle between him and Bjorn. Too bad. At least he's not a one dimensional, over the top Batman style villain like Ivar is.

 

I thought the remaining family would go and leave Floki alone with his Gods but it could happen that Floki would go and leave them behind. That's more than they deserve.

Some of the sagas say that Harald Finehair does become king of all Norway so that makes me wonder what happens to Bjorn, although I read that in some sagas he goes on to become king of Sweden so who knows what the writers will do. If it comes down to Harald and Bjorn however, my money is on Harald cause i believe he wants it more and will find some way to get it done by hook or by crook.

 

I was a little surprised that Bjorn wanted to be king. Thought he would just want his revenge on Ivar and be done with it. Maybe he'll change his mind on that, or he'll see Grunhild is duplicitous and want to move on. It's hard to tell with him because he changes course a lot.

I'm hoping Floki returns. He's a good character when with the main cast, but they've completely wasted him this season.

 

The show is limping to the finish line this season. We keep seeing Ivar do horrendous things. Now he burns alive a bunch of people that were opposed to him, and at the end leaves "his" baby in the woods to die. We get it. He's a sick, twisted dude. Tired of seeing his sadistic actions every week. It just doesn't advance the story.

I thought finally Floki was going to leave Iceland this episode but now we're going to have to suffer through an episode next week with him having some sort of delusional "coming to the gods" moment in that cave.

Ubbe and Torvi's story is interesting though. I like how they are coming into their own.

Bjorn was an idiot insulting Harald to his face, telling him why he'd never gain the prominence he desired. And now he thinks this guy is just going to be fine with him using his army to overthrow Ivar and install himself as king? Brilliant.

I don't even want to get into Lagertha's bizarre return from the wild.

Hvikserk's scenes with Olaf were interesting. I don't believe he planned on killing him but was just testing if Hvikserk's offer to attack Ivar was real. Ivar has to be commonly known now to be a lunatic and Olaf might have thought it was some bizarre ruse to determine his loyalty.

It's going to be funny now with all of these different forces converging on Kattegat.

 

I'm getting bored with it all to be honest, and I'm disappointed that I'm getting bored. This show has not been as good since they killed off Ragnar. I do keep hoping that something is going to spark and make the show interesting again.

 

After reading Stealth and Southernlady I was very anxious to see for myself what was doing and I found I actually felt a little better about this episode. My impressions:

I think Ivar made a strategic mistake to murder Hvitserk's lover and her family. Besides the fact that it was horrific and cruel he just lost his hostage. It appears that Hvitserk didn't care that she was at risk and dived headlong into trying to secure the Danish's king's support against Ivar but now there is no reason for him to give a f---and it gives him one more thing to hate Ivar for. Why did Ivar do it? Does he know about Hvitserk's betrayal or suspected he might do it not that Ivar needs an excuse to do something cray but what was he thinking? I loved the Swedish sauna scenes. The greatest Nordic gift to mankind ever, IMO, lol.

As for Ivar and his son. The kid must have been born with a cleft palate, hence the midwife saying he would never drink milk from his mother's breast. In this time period, better he should leave the poor babe in the woods. If not for Aslaug, Ivar himself would have been left in the woods. Ragnar wanted to do it and lets face it, things would have turned out a lot different if he had gone through with it.

Bjorn is acting reckless. Harald I thought was trying to at least be civil about being rejected but no, Bjorn had to rub his nose in the whole Grunnhild affair. That's being impulsive and stupid. Harald knows how to bide his time to get what he wants. He's been working towards his goal for many, many years. Bjorn thinks he's the superior man but me thinks he better watch his ass. Harald will be looking for the hole in his armor so to speak.

Skipping across the sea to Wessex, I called it about Judith. Being a woman, I knew that look of concern on her face as she looked at her body in the mirror. How many women today have done the same thing to get a better visual at a lump they may see on their breast or torso? Of course, not all "lumps" are malignant but people of that time period would only know that lumps usually equate to dying and that was indeed Judith's conclusion. Without the tools of modern medical technology, it would not have come to Judith's attention until it was quite large so she's probably right if the thing has been getting bigger.

I was touched at how she took Lagertha in right away and cared for her. I think our shield maiden, at seeing Heahmund die, experienced a bit of a break with reality. Maybe a foreshadowing of her own death but I liked her conversations with Judith and Alfred's wife. Not sure where her character goes from here but she does have Torvi and Bjorn's kids to look after if something happens to mom. Pull yourself together for them girl!!!

I like Ubbe more than ever. I'm interested in seeing what happens with the Danish invasion force and his hand to hand combat with the one hold out Danish King. I hope he doesn't get himself killed.

Not looking forward to Floki and his experience with the "Gods" in the cave.I could do without that.

 

True, the biggest problem with Ragnar's death was that they should've led into it more gradually. Suddenly his younger sons were grown and they didn't give us enough time to get to know those characters. It's only now that I'm finally finding Ubbe interesting. They should have had Ragnar with all of them for a bit.

 

While I believe Bjorn will prevail against Harald, I have some slight doubt now. With only one season left in the show, and Ubbe becoming more prominent, it's a possibility they could kill off Bjorn. Then we could have Lagertha/Ubbe/Torvi coming back to get revenge on Harald. At this point if they had to kill off one of them I'd prefer that it be Bjorn.

 

Some thoughts on this week's episode:

I was dying when Ubbe was fighting the Danish King. I was eating and actually bit my lip, lol. God, he looked dead so I was thrilled when he took a breath. I kinda knew that conversion wasn't heartfelt. I liked his honesty when he explained to Torvi that he accepted the Christian religion because he wanted what Christianity could do for them, but when the chips were down it was Odin's spirit that filled him. I thought it was a nice contrast to Magnus who called out to Jesus during the storm. It seems that what we were raised with is what we often fall back on in times of trouble.

Judith died from her cancer and Lagertha gave Alfred words of comfort and advice. Al kept his word, recognizing Ubbe's sacrifice to prevent war and followed through with giving the designated land to the Northmen. All good so far. I also think it was time for our Norwegians to head home. Where will they go? Will they join up with Bjorn and Harald? Oh, I noticed Al's wife was preggers. And we have a possible successor!

Speaking of babies, we had a WHAT DID YOU DO WITH MY BABY moment from Ivar's wife, like she was gonna get away with trying to put him on the spot. I guess she was reminded that she married a monster she helped create, although it probably was a normal thing for people to do back then in that culture. Ivar put a good spin on it though, I thought, when he was talking to his people. We'll see how well he can defend Kattegut.

Ah, Floki. He found his God(s) only it wasn't who he thought. No wonder, things didn't turn out well. The island was already claimed by the Christian God, he must have thought. So disappointed. What will HE do now?

Going back to Harald and Bjorn, I absolutely LOVED it when Grunnhild slapped them both down during their little pissing contest. Fight AFTER you seize the crown from Ivar. Way to go sister, lol. Also a nice little reunion between Bjorn and Hvitserk.

I think there's only one more episode left in this season.

 

That was my favorite moment in the episode. Their reaction after it was funny too. They just sort of shrugged it off as, "yeah she's right."

This was probably my favorite episode in this half. My only real complaint (aside from the Floki mess of course) is how they fast tracked Judith's death.

And yes, this Wednesday is the final episode. I'm a little more optimistic now that Ivar might actually die in the finale. Now that Ubbe lives and the Harald vs Bjorn collision was diverted it would make sense that Ivar is the death in the finale. I don't see him defeating all of the forces aligned against him either.

 

I did enjoy this episode - but was quite concerned that Ubbe had been killed. He is my new favorite character, I think because he reminds me so much of Ragnar!

 

Yes, I think of all Ragnar's son's, Ubbe is most like him. Casting was spot on too. Jordan Smith even resembles Travis Fimmel.

 

He's my favorite character now too. I was concered that Ubbe was going to die when he was lying on his back and thinking of Odin. I would've been really angry at the show too if they had done that. They've killed off too many good characters and now they finally have someone the audience can connect with again.