Vikings season 5 episode 19 review: Did Ubbe defeat the king?

There are a few different balls in the air right now when it comes to the last two episode of Vikings and most of them revolve around brothers at war. Ivar wants to leave Kattegat and finish the war that Harald started (and lost) against Alfred. Then we have Bjorn and Hvitserk that are both gathering resources to go back to Kattegat and overthrow Ivar – and neither of them know that the other brother is doing this (Ivar is in for a surprise needless to say). And last but not least Ubbe has challenged one of the three viking kings to a battle after he refused to step down from attacking Alfred. There is so much happening for Ragnar’s sons right now and that’s not even mentioning that Lagertha is back in Alfred’s home – not quite the same woman that she was, but she’s back.

Judith’s health

Judith revealed in the last episode that she has found a lump and has known other women to die from this… and unfortunately she also died at the beginning of this episode. She was such an interesting character that has done a lot of shady things over the years to ensure that Alfred was king, but she was always entertaining to watch because we never knew what she was going to do next. Vikings season 5 has not held back on killing off major characters (this show has never shied away from making these decisions) and we know that the prophecy of Lagertha’s death is still looming.

Speaking of Lagertha…

We saw a little bit of what happened to her on the last episode when Judith found Lagertha at the healer’s house but tonight they pulled the curtain back a little further. We saw Lagertha leave the battle after watching Heahmund fall and as she wandered through the woods injured she saw the healer who brought her back to her hut and healed her. The healer cut off Lagertha’s hair saying that her old life is behind her and she is moving into a new one… does this mean that the Seer’s prophecy is no longer true?

Ubbe’s battle against a king

The stakes are set up that if Ubbe dies the remaining vikings will attack Wessex, but if the king dies his people will all settle in Ubbe’s lands. This is a fight to the death! There was a lot to love about they way this battle was set up with one of the top aspects being these two men getting tired as the fight goes on. We have really only ever seen this in one other show and that was in the first season of Daredevil in that famous hallway fight scene where Matt Murdock takes on a wave of ninjas and as he goes on he tires out – which makes it feel all the more authentic and that’s what happened here with Ubbe and the king.

When Ubbe feels he is defeated he asks Odin and his father for strength (not the christian god he has now pledged his life to) and he gets just enough energy to finish the fight and kill the king. He realizes after this that the Christian God really means nothing to him and that going forward he is living a lie by wearing the cross. He doesn’t know how he can fight for a god he does not believe in.

When he and Torvi return to Alfred, Ubbe is still badly injured and on a stretcher, but Torvi tells Alfred that the war has been stopped and reunites with Lagertha. When all of the vikings get to the land Alfred promised them it was the first time we really felt like these two groups of people were uniting as one. The highlight was watching Lagertha holding dirt in her hand and talking to Ragnar, hoping that he was watching their dream come alive.

Trouble in paradise

Freydis now knows that her son is missing and Ivar not only refuses to tell her where he is, but blames her for producing a monster instead of the son of a god as she promised. This fight ends him him hitting her for the first time and we see this all unraveling quickly for them. When hunters find their son and bring him home Freydis tells Ivar that their son froze to death and Ivar confronts her about all of her lies. While she doesn’t admit to it (hard to speak when Ivar is strangling you) he knows in his heart that it was all a lie and that wasn’t his son. Ivar lies to the people of Kattegat about his child, saying he was a perfect boy in the image of Odin, but that he died for reasons unknown.

Floki faces God

Floki’s journey to the gods took a really unfortunate turn for him tonight. Ever since arriving in this land his life (and the lives of everyone he brought there) has been hell on earth. Now he has found a cave where he feels that he can finally hear the gods once again (they stopped talking to him for a long while). When he reaches the depths of the cave he doesn’t find any sign of the gods and instead finds a christian cross and bursts into maniacal laughter followed by a stream of tears. His outburst causes a major cave in where we don’t know if he’s going to make it out alive or if this land finally killed him.

Related – Check out a preview for the Vikings season 5 finale.

CarterMatt Verdict

The moment that we were really excited for was to see what happened when Bjorn and Hvitserk learned that they both had the same goal in mind as they both marched their armies towards Kattegat and it was really the first time we saw Bjorn and Hvitserk make a real connection. They hugged, they laughed, they smiled and embraced. More so we are starting to wonder if the end of Ivar is coming. Not only is he unraveling at home with his son dead and his wife hating him, but a great battle is coming for him. He may have a feeling that Hvitserk has betrayed him (hence his decision not to attack York and instead increase their home defenses), but he doesn’t know about Bjorn, Harald or the two great armies coming for him. With Hvitserk revealing that it is his fate to kill Ivar we really can’t be certain who will make it out of season 5 alive.

What did you think of Vikings season 5 episode 19? Leave us your thoughts in the comment section below. (Photo: History)