‘Vikings” season 4, episode 3 review: Bjorn vs bear, Rollo learns French, Athelstan returns

There was not nearly enough Lagertha on the last episode of “Vikings” (and by not enough we actually mean not at all), but tonight’s episode will have a little more of her. Also, we will see how Ragnar will deal with Floki, now that his daughter has died. Will this change Ragnar’s original punishment?

After making Lagthera his partner in the earldom, she and Kalf share a bed together again. He tells her that he loves her and that he wants to have a child with her, but she answers him only with a kiss. So is he really serious? It’s hard to tell, especially when one of his minions tells him that Bjorn is living alone in the wild and that it’s the perfect time to kill him and destroy Ragnar’s family as he wants – and Kalf agrees, so he hires a beserker to find Bjorn and kill him.

Rollo still can’t get Gisla to love him or even respect him, and she’s asked her father to arrange for a divorce after humiliating him at court. The king is worried that if Rollo leaves, then they won’t know how to counter Ragnar’s attack, but instead of leaving Rollo asks to be taught how to speak and read French so that he can communicate better. As expected, Rollo got very frustrated, very quickly and walked out on his lessons, but not on the kingdom… at least not yet.

We had an appearance of Athelstan in this week’s episode and although it was just in a vision to Ragnar and Ecbert, it put the biggest smile on our faces to see George Blagden back in the world of “Vikings”. After seeing Athelstan, Ecbert is convinced that he is dead and he and Judith grieve over his passing. The vision of Athelstan telling Ragnar to give “mercy” inspires him to let Floki go ending his physical punishment, but he learns that his daughter is dead, so there is still much suffering ahead for him.

Watching Bjorn fight that bear was the highlight of the episode (maybe even the highlight of the season so far). It was such an intense fight between man and beast and made us cringe every time Bjorn or the bear got a hit in. It was intense, brutal and honestly frightening. We were thrilled that there was more of a focus on Bjorn since we haven’t had much of him lately. Now if they would just give Ragnar something more to do, then we’d be cooking! Episode grade: A

What did you think of this episode of “Vikings”? Leave us a comment below and share your thoughts on the season so far.