Vikings review: Did Seer hint at Bjorn killing Lagertha? (season 5 episode 4)
Bjorn’s journey
Originally he was planning to bring all of his ships on his journey to the Mediterranean, but he has someone new aboard his ships that’s been pulling his ear telling him that Rome is over and instead he should head to Sicily. Not only that, but he’s also talked Bjorn into sending away most of his fleet and landing in Sicily with just a few ships as a way to appear as traders and not raiders. This will give them an opportunity to observe the people, their forces and their sources before deciding what his next move is.
Once they get there, the “traders” ruse quickly unravels (Bjorn’s claim of “of course we are traders – look how few boats we brought” didn’t convince anyone) and the commander of the town welcomes Bjorn. He later learns that there is another commander and that this person is false – he travels to meet the real person in charge.
Heahmund’s plan against Ivar
Heahmund and Aethelwulf have retreated, but they aren’t defeated. In fact after seeing Ubbe and Hvitsek coming to them to work out a deal, Heahmund has come up with a solid plan to end this: He’s blocking all rivers, and all roads in an attempt to starve them out. This plan is put in motion immediately and all food sources are halted to the city of York.
Ivar knows that their resources are dwindling and that there is sickness in the town, but he doesn’t seem to care right now – he’s just reveling in the fact that he has the respect of all the viking army, and as we know, respect is something that Ivar has been longing for all his life.
So does Ivar have a plan to deal with the starvation? He has a plan and it consists of pretending to burn the dead (as a smoke show for the Saxons) and then making the Saxons think that they have all escaped the town, jumped on their ships and left. We suspect that isn’t the case, but we will have to wait until next week to find out the rest of Ivar’s plan. How they dealt with the starvation… well we suspect they ate the dead.
Ubbe returns to Kattegat
We weren’t sure if Lagertha was going to welcome Ubbe back, but she has – thankful for his part in avenging Ragnar’s death. He tells her how Bjorn brought everyone together, but that once he left on his journey Ivar has torn the brothers apart. With Hvitsek abandoning him he and Ivar are now his enemy. Lagertha uses this opportunity to make Ubbe an ally in her fight against Harald. Ubbe is in a great place to gather information as others tell him of how Lagertha was weak against Harald and is losing respect from many in Kattegat. Lagertha is no dummy and she has heard of the unrest against her… unfortunately the one person she trusts the most is Astrid and after many days of thought she has decided to marry Harald and the ceremony happens right away. It may not be what’s in Astrid’s heart (we know that Lagertha still has hold of that), but she’s made this choice. We like to think that Astrid is playing the long game in helping Lagertha bring Harald down, but time will tell with this.
CarterMatt’s overall thoughts
The consequences of Ragnar’s death have not finished playing out yet according to the Seer and this is the overall story this season that we are most interesting in seeing play out. Vikings has always been the story of Ragnar and his sons and just because Ragnar is dead doesn’t mean that he won’t be affecting everyone. Lagertha knows that she is going to be killed by one of Ragnar’s sons and with the Seer telling her that the next time she sees Bjorn it won’t be under good circumstances we are starting to feel more confident that Bjorn will be the one to kill her. While this wasn’t the most exciting Vikings episode we’ve ever seen, it was one that certainly gave us a lot to think about.
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