‘Vikings’ season 4 episode 18 review: Did Ivar, Bjorn and the rest of Ragnar’s sons get vengeance?
We are nearing the end of “Vikings” season 4, but there are still a few loose ends to tie up before we say goodbye. Are Ragnar’s sons going to get revenge on Ecbert and Aella for killing their father? Will Ubbe and Ivar manage to get revenge for their mother by killing Lagertha? More then anything we want to know if these brothers can actually work together to get anything done since they are so divided.
Tonight’s episode started with the brothers discussing who is going to lead their great army to England and of course Ivar feels that he is the best choice since he has observed the landscape and that Ragnar chose him to do this before dying. Ubbe (and some of the other brothers) want Bjorn to lead since he just came back from a very successful raid. And the brotherly squabbling begins – at least until Bjorn tells them all how it’s going to be because he’s in charge. He’s the only one with actual battle experience and while Ivar doesn’t like it, he doesn’t really have much of a say.
Before heading out on the raid, Ubbe and Margaret get married, but it seems that she still has feelings for his brother Hvitserk as well. Ubbe offers something a little unprecedented on his wedding night and suggests that they even though he married her they should share Margaret. Calling his bluff she kisses Hvitserk in front of Ubbe and asks them both to come to bed with her and as it turns out Ubbe was being truthful in his willingness to share her. Should make for interesting parenting when she eventually gets pregnant. Speaking of weird relationships, can we talk about Bjorn and Astrid for a minute?. Really… who wants to have sex with someone who has been intimate with their own mother? To make things even more awkward, Lagertha knows.
King Harald runs into the woman he has been perusing for years and is the whole reason he has been trying to become the king of all vikings. She had originally told him that if he accomplished this station, she would marry him, but he learns that not only is she married to someone else, but that he is of a lesser station then he was before he started his journey to be king. His whole world is shattered and we wonder if he even cares anymore about becoming king since it won’t win him the hand of this woman. As it turns out – he is still very much interested in ruling over all and the fact that he didn’t kill her tells us that he may still have plans for her. We have always had a hard time being invested in Harald’s story, and we just don’t see him as much of a threat to Lagertha.
Ragnar’s sons finally land on the shores of England and while king Aella is getting ready to attack, king Ecbert is imploding. Aella under estimates the viking forces, but once he sees what he’s up against, he is clearly afraid… and he should be. They take Aella prisoner and demand to know where Ragnar’s body is. When they get to the site of his death, Aella offers them gold and silver to spare him, but Ivar tells him that is not the price he will pay for killing their father. The price Aella is going to pay is the famed blood eagle that we once saw Ragnar perform and then have his body hoisted in the air for all to see.
Since Ragnar’s death, “Vikings” has done a really good job of keeping the momentum going with some of their other characters and strong stories, but tonight’s episode was the first one where we really felt his absence. All of the vikings partner swapping just wasn’t that interesting to us and king Harald has never been a story that we are invested in. The last few minutes of the episode where we saw Ragnar’s sons get their revenge however, was gruesome, satisfying and a little creepy as Ivar stared in Aella’s face while he died. Ecbert should be very afraid of what’s coming. Episode grade: B-
ICYMI: We spoke to “Vikings” actor Alex Høgh Andersen about his role as Ivar the Boneless! Check that out at the link here.
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