“People always say it’s the end of everything.”
“Yes, but they don’t usually believe it.”
At the midway point of this final Vikings’ season, one is conditioned to expect a house-cleaning. (It’s essentially what the newly market-tested “mid-season finale” was invented for.) Still, “The Best Laid Plans” wipes from the board most of the remaining, long-established characters on the series, leaves Norway occupied and in pieces under the boot heel of the fanatical Christian Rus Oleg, and strands us wondering just what will be left of the series as we know it once it returns for the final 10 episodes.
As endings go—especially for the men and women of the show’s ninth century Norse protagonists—“The Best Laid Plans” provides some fitting and abrupt goodbyes. Harald Finehair stays locked into his unshakeable vision of himself as king of all Norway right to the end, dying heroically amidst a hail of blows from the unstoppable Run invaders attacking the beachhead outside his capital. We lose a little-seen jarl who, among the many who supported Harald to the throne over Bjorn, is the only one to show up to repel the invaders.
And Bjorn Ironside.
Cut down in his berserker rage by brother Ivar in the last, dying resistance to the Rus landing force, Bjorn dies. All through the episode, the buildup and payoff to the massive battle scene that forms the second half of “The Best Laid Plans” has intercut with isolated scenes of Bjorn—either himself or in lonely conversation with Ivar—on the beach looking out to where the Rus’ massive armada is inevitably coming. It’s a storytelling device creator Michael Hirst has used before, and it’s as effective here as in the past, the poetic license of the interstitial interludes bringing an epic sweep to the conclusion (for some) of a story suited to (and taken from) half-hyperbolic oral tradition.
“I have made many mistakes and I have failed, but this time I will not fail,” Bjorn tells his little brother, “This time I will win. The gods are with me. I will defeat you.”
“You are wrong. The gods abandoned you a long time ago, my brother,” responds Ivar, not unkindly. “There’s no way you can win. Believe me, no way you can win.”
Bjorn Ironside loses in the end, Hirst having skillfully set us up in several ways to imagine that he won’t. In mapping their respective battle plans (Ivar’s complete with little scale models), we see Ivar and Bjorn attempting to get inside each others’ heads, both knowing that—for narrative symmetry if nothing else—it is they who will determine the outcome. When Bjorn’s compatriot Erik (something of a doom-and-gloom bummer all episode), asks of of the Rus’ transfer of soldiers from their light ships to small landing barges, “What are they doing,?” Bjorn responds, “What I expected.” Later, after a first line of the Norse defenses appears to fall under the sheer numbers of the Rus, we see Bjorn watching impassively, and then walking slowly away, the filmmaking shorthand for someone about to unconcernedly spring a well-devised trap.
The Rus’ shattering of the beach defenses sees them forced to traverse a steep sandy hill toward the Norse archers, only to be greeted by a fusillade of deadly, spiky rolling balls that trample and skewer them by the score. Then, for added optimistic chicanery, archers light the pitch-covered projectiles aflame with fire arrows, burning scores more. A smaller secondary Rus force (led by Ivar, Hvitserk, and Oleg in a ship emblazoned with a bloody Christ figurehead, complete with deadly-looking throned crown) runs into a Bjorn-designed floating, bristling (and ultimately on fire) barricade, Gunnhild leading the Viking warriors to board the halted Rus ships. Meanwhile, we sit in anticipation, knowing that Bjorn had dispatched Erik earlier to the balking Norse leaders (apparently unsatisfied with Harald’s empty election promises), instructing him secretly, “Send word in my name, not Harald’s name.” It is—on both Ivar, Bjorn, and Hirst’s parts—a lovely, bloody piece of gamesmanship.
But someone had to lose, and, it’s Bjorn. Finally, he wasn’t necessarily outsmarted by Ivar—despite a Rus incursion into Harald’s domain via a daringly impossible-looking mountaineering assault up what looks like the Cliffs Of Insanity—as defeated by the full weight of his failures. When he speaks of their father’s dreams and plans, Bjorn, as ever, cannot convince Ivar (or us) that he truly understands what those are—or that he could carry them out if he did. Alexander Ludwig’s Bjorn was—as Erik told him—as famous and renowned as his father in the years since Ragnar’s death, but Bjorn is right not to believe it. As much as we are conditioned to imagine that this eldest son of Ragnar will finally, improbably pull out a Ragnar-worthy gambit to truly anoint himself Ragnar’s heir, his inability to do so lands with an inevitable sadness. Bjorn Ironside was, like his father, a husband, father, explorer, dreamer, and king. But he was never Ragnar, and he knew it, never as surely as when his blood runs out over the cold sand at the hand of his more ingeniously ambitious brother.
Vikings is best in times like this, where we’re left wondering at what we’ve just seen rather than sighing as we take in another rote installment of threadbare romantic and political intrigue in leather and chain mail. From the start, “The Best Laid Plans” stings with some of the old Vikings storytelling magic, Bjorn and Harald’s alliance, planning, and preparations told in bracingly expedient montage. The intrigues we do get before the carnage begins are equally unsettling in their raw, ugly depiction of this world in ways the series was wont to incorporate. Gunnhild loses her baby with Bjorn, her repeated rebuffs of the solicitous Erik’s attempts to get her to rest from the strenuous preparations for war ending in her screaming and toppling from a dock into the bay. When she consoles Bjorn, it’s with the unsentimental language of pre-war propaganda (“We lost a child, but it would be far worse to lose a country.”), but her solo scene burying the impossibly tiny wrapped bundle of her miscarried son under a pile of stones rings with Ragnar’s long-ago lonely farewell to his dead daughter, Gyda. “But I will wait here a while,” Ragga Ragnars’ Gunnhild chokes out as she lays the rocks on the grave, “in case you are lonely.”
And then Harald rapes Ingrid. The specter of sexual assault was always a looming question from the start of Vikings, a series set in a world where (the propaganda of the invaded notwithstanding) such practices were infamous. The series has largely shied away from the act, thankfully, implicitly granting that those characters whose vision of the human condition was far-sighted enough to follow would also be averse to individual depredation. Rape was for villains. And those conflicted characters whose villainous and anti-heroic natures were always at war (Rollo, Harald) were ultimately left aside in the broad sweep of potential heroism. Harald was already a kidnapping rapist (having absconded with Lagertha’s lover Astrid), so his sudden dispatch of men to bring Bjorn’s second wife to his bedchamber smacks of his wonted, runty inadequacy. Still, it’s an ugly, ugly scene, redeemed only by Ingrid (Lucy Martin) defying any attempt by the pawing and smooth-talking Harald to force her to accept her fate (and possibly wind up as his queen, should the battle turn his way). Ingrid is granted her own mental escape, like Bjorn’s, when we see her approaching the water’s edge, gowned, garlanded, and serene, but in the end, she’s left to stumble, bloody and weeping, into the deposed Olaf’s arms on the dock of the deserted town as the war rages in the distance. The old man, taking her in, can only console her, crying, “Oh my poor child. Weep for all of us. Weep for our ruin.”
In the end, who is left to gather up the scattered and mysterious fragments of Ragnar Lothbrok’s enigmatic legacy and piece them into something worth saving? (Or, if you like, watching.) Erik (with his significant red hair), greets the dying Harald’s benediction, “Find yourself another home, skógarmaðr,” by scooping Harald’s ill-gotten crown out of the blood and mud and fleeing into the chaos. Gunnhild, bested by Oleg (to be fair, she’s just miscarried), escapes by diving into the icy water and swimming away, Ivar’s deadly throwing knives having been deflected by some blundering warriors. We don’t see the end of Olaf and Ingrid, but their prospects aren’t good, and they’re hardly poised to take on larger roles going forward. Ubbe and Torvi are facing intrigues of their own as they set out alongside the untrustworthy Kjetill and duplicitous Othere-Athelstan to discover new lands to the west. Ivar and Hvitserk, the last remaining sons of Ragnar, have seemingly thrown in with the Christian conquerors, Ivar having told the disbelieving Bjorn (in Bjorn’s mind, at least), that destroying the old gods was Ragnar’s dream all along. There’s always the possibility that Hvitserk is still harboring some revenge plans against Ivar, but Marco Ilsø has made the perpetual also-ran’s heel turn seem as permanent as it’s been rushed. Noway is shattered, the gods are endangered by a fanatical Christian whose mission (or so he claims) is to bring about “the end of paganism,” and the sole surviving driving force in Vikings’ narrative has been, finally and, it would seem, utterly swept off the map.
Of course, there’s one character left whose absence all season has only left his own confused and deflected legacy looming larger. Floki the boatbuilder is still missing, his own fanatical devotion to his gods having been apocalyptically shaken—both by the short-sighted failings of his chosen “pure” Norse settlers, and, seemingly, by the trembling, violent eruption of the Earth itself. Now, with his hated Christian god standing triumphant over his land, the scene is set for the final major player left on Vikings to make his move—whatever it may be.
Stray observations
- Hvitsrk remains the least satisfyingly drawn son of Ragnar. (I mean, Sigurd was a drip, but he went quick.) Here, scheming with Ivar (they may or may not still be conspiring with Dir to overthrow Oleg), he tells his brother, sneering, “A lot of my life I’ve fought against my fate but now I’m resigned. I’ve committed myself to the destructive element.” Even Ivar raises an eyebrow at whatever’s going on in Hvitserk’s head at this point.
- Speaking of raising eyebrows, prior to the invasion, Ivar is seduced in the middle of the night by Katia, who leads the shirtless and flowing-haired Ivar into a secret chamber where she dresses up like a blonde-wigged angel and mounts him while he protests that he can’t, you know. Just wanted to type that sentence out to see if it’s any less silly. It is not.
- Harald: “We have some misgivings.” Bjorn: “Who doesn’t, being human?”
- While Bjorn supervises his defenses as the Rus boats are first spotted on the horizon, Harald is still naked and alone in the bed where he’d raped Ingrid. Hearing the far-off horns announcing the impending battle, he reaches for his crown and lays it upon his own head.
- As the innumerable boats approach, one Viking warrior at the battlements starts up a stirring Norse song. No one joins him.
45 Comments
Bjorn defeated, finally!
All hail Bjorn, he of the most amazing puberty where he went from 5 feet tall to like 6’4″ in a year.
Bjorn was the best character in the show since Ragnar and of course Lagatha died by far not even close and he’s not defeated
Skol. Poor Bjorn. Let’s hope he’ll get a proper funeral by his brothers. I think this was better than a B+ but I fear that’s the best it can pull given it’s nature. Ivar isn’t even the villain any more, it’s all so odd. They’re taking chances with the narrative and I’m happy with how it’s turned out.
I’m years behind but Bjorn seemed to always encapsulate Rollo’s strenghts and Rollo and Ragnar’s flaws. That made him interesting, but ultimately a character that would probably fall at the end.
Can’t think of a show that’s gotten rid of nearly all their key players before. All we really have is Ivar and Ubbe going into the final stretch.
Final season of Breaking Bad basically got reduced to Walt and Jesse (other characters were there but they were always ancillary to the primary conflict, including Skyler).
The Walking Dead did but it became a shell of the show it once was. Vikings is still amazing!
*citation needed
Can’t wait to see Ivar’s gruesome death…its been a long time coming.
Brilliant Series
Used to be but has jumped the shark big time
So I’m guessing Kjetill won’t be seen much again, since Copeland is back in WWE
The final 10 are already filmed.
I know this show has always given the actual history a bit of the side-eye, but how the hell is Ivar going to get to Ireland from here? And why haven’t the norse settled in the British isles in a huge way? Like by the time both Ivar and Ubbe were supposed to have dies, the Norse had been settled there for decades, that big invasion to avenge their dad had repercussions that echoed for 1000 years, one of which was the founding of a bunch of little norse dynasties all over the north half of great Briton, a bunch of them (supposedly) ruled over by these guys. I guess I’m just surprised by the direction this has all gone (I’m still shook by how they wiped Sigurd Snake-in-the-eye off the map before he became famous, and thus worthy of being in a tv show a millennium after his death) like Bjorn was supposed to be king of Sweden, and may have been killed by Ubbe, while Harald is supposed to have lived into his 80’s and left his own brood of children (anywhere from 11-20)who fought over all Norway, with 3 of them being declared the heir, one of whom was named “Erik Bloodaxe” and was supposed to be Harald’s top choice, there’s a ton of drama there. I dunno, it seems far more fitting that the runty scheming asshole would actually end up winning in the world of vikings.
Yes, but could you fit all that into a few series? Balancing your desire to educate and entertain, while writing, directing, keeping your text stylistically consistent?From my pov, this is a gateway show. I watch and want to know about the real Ivar and Sigurd. I go, I read the web. Maybe I’ll pick up some comics about Vikings. Maybe I’ll venture into artefacts and essays. It’s just a gateway.
I feel like you could. If you look at the first and second seasons of this show, we got some time skips, and the show didn’t go off the rails, if anything the show always seemed to run into trouble when it spent too much time having the characters sitting in one place spinning their wheels, that’s part of what made the fall of Ragnar arc so interminable it was just watching Ragnar walk in narrative circles while high out of his mind, when we should have been seeing his young sons make names for themselves (if they’d time skipped and aged the kids up to teen actors sooner than they could have had them doing things instead of just being witness to things, it’s not like children were allowed to be children for long in those days).That way when they take center stage we’re not sitting there going “Where’s Ragnar” because we’ve already gotten used to the character quirks of his sons, and because it was drip fed sooner they don’t have to bear the weight of his absence on their weaker characterization (also, if they are each making these little plays for kingship and having their own adventures, even if we see the effects of those more than actually witness them, they become more interesting. An active character is always more interesting than a reactive character.) and they don’t have to suddenly build 5 entire characters and their dynamic in one season, they can build that up and pay it off over two. I see what you’re saying about it being a gateway, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but I think if you wanted to use the history to build the narrative it has greater benefits and would actually provide some of the structure the show has lacked. Basically, it can be both things.
Well, that was a thorough answer to a through question. I am learning. Thanks, Lurklen.History, benefits and structure in narrative? Interested in your thoughts on this, where you think it’s done well, who’s writing right about it?
The short answer is, no one and nowhere. But that’s glib and unfair, so I’ll be a little more thorough (though I’ll try to keep it brief, as from the length of most of my comments one would be safe in assuming I was being paid by the word or something). ( I wrote a stupidly long comment, like just too long, so I’ll summarize)No historical fiction is perfect, but some depictions are better at some aspects than others. Making good fiction is hard in general, and adding fidelity to history to the burden is also creating another way for you to come up short. In general one should let the history (or setting) act as the back bone and provide the foundation for all of the creative decisions in the creative pursuit. This means reflecting the era in costuming, how dialogue is written, how characters think and are motivated, how conflicts are resolved and incited, and in what determines what is “good” or “evil” in the story, as those things have been very different in other times. Otherwise the rules for good writing/film making still apply. Ultimately in fiction making a good story is your prime goal. People/films who have done it well (according to this opinionated internet person):-Hbo’s ROME (great costuming, showed how vivacious and colourful *roman life was, while also tapping into the alien aspects to our own culture in relation to family, religion, slavery, friendship, and duty. Was cut short in its prime, and honestly if it had been made about half a decade later would have blown people away, it was the precurser to almost all the large scale costume productions of the modern television landscape.) *(this is another pet peeve, history was not brown and grey, people have always loved colour, and in many cases brighter and more aggressive colours than we would like today. Rome was full of bright colour, and the vikings wore bright cloth to distinguish themselves often with stripes all over it, notdark leather. And hats, tons of hats, every mother fucker in history was nuts about hats/helmets, but movies hate them because they block actors faces and often look silly to modern eyes.) – SPARTACUS by Starz (a bit ridiculous, but did an excellent job when it came to using the writing to evoke another era’s speech, and trying to evoke the feeling of being in the arena, was surprisingly accurate to what we know of the events of Spartacus’s uprising, though hugely inaccurate in other ways, gets extra points for male nudity (and COLOUR), something most historical stuff shies away from). -Alatriste, a spanish film starring Viggo Mortenson (Really great snapshot of an under explored time in history, honestly people seem to forget Spain was a world power, does a really great job on costuming and capturing the social mores of its day. Fight scenes are pretty great as well.)-Master and Commander on the Far Side of the World (Costumes, ships, script, this is honestly a great movie. A few problems here and there, though it has the caveat of being based on an era, but using purely fictional characters, uses the mores and perceptions of era it depicts effectively to shape character choices. Excellent battle scenes.)-Hbo’s Deadwood (Many inaccuracies, but most are in service to the story, and serve to reinforce the character of the era. A good example is the language, it is just filled with cursing, almost none of which is accurate to the time, with their curses being more centered around blasphemy and religion. But by using modern cursing the writers made us understand just how vulgar the camp would seem. The whole series, apart from the movie which I haven’t yet seen, is about the encroachment of civilization on the people who live at the fringe, and the way the world was expanding, but also getting smaller as time went on.) -The Revenant (This is a great film, that is accurate in many ways, but not at all to its historical source, which has a very different ending, in many ways it is more of a “what if?” tale than a historical reenactment. However, the entire film is really doing it’s job when evoking the seeming emptiness of the frontier world, and the way fur trappers and frontier folk seemed to forget the basic things that made them human upon being immersed in it for too long. Often to the bewilderment and the horror of the native population.)-The Favorite (A film depicting the reign of a lesser known queen of England, with surprising accuracy to the events, if with a satirical tone. It is darkly comic how much is and is not made up in this film.) -The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by Peter Jackson (Now hear me out, I know this isn’t historical, but it does have a pretty involved setting, with historical elements. It’s a shining example of having the setting and “history” live and breath through every aspect of the film. In that trilogy they worried about what kind of slippers the King of Rohan wore on his feet, they did that because they wanted the world to feel true and consistent to the actors, and through them to the viewers. Wherever they could they acknowledged the “history” of the setting, and made reference or allowed it to inform the actions of the characters. Even when they had to cut things, for storytelling, film making, or creative reasons, they deliberated on it. Nothing was slapdash or chosen on a whim. Historical movies should be like this, if even half of the consideration taken for this film was applied to most historical productions they would look ten times as good as they do now. The less said about the Hobbit trilogy, the better.) I could list good and bad films all day, but a good metric is if a film is showing an awareness of its setting, beyond just the set dressing, if that setting is informing the creative choices, and the writing and characterization. If it’s historically based, than the history should serve the story, and the story should be built on the history. If it’s not, many of these same rules apply (Game of Thrones was not based on a historical setting, but many of that shows failings were in it’s inability to hold to the rules and truths of its setting and the novel it was based on.) but instead of history it should be setting.If you’re interested in more historical films, and their variance in quality I’d check out the History Buffs channel on Youtube.
You appear to have dropped the Mic.Thanks a bunch. Of those I’ve only familiarity with Deadwood, and you’ll like the wrap movie.
when this show stopped paying attention to history in the slightest i stopped watching. i pop in once in a while to see how ridiculous it has gotten. which is sad because some things on the show were fantastic and had so much promise.
so bjorn ironside never became king of sweden on the show. sigurd snake in the eye never became king of denmark on the show. ubbe never became duke of frisia on the show. hvitserk (halfdan) never became king of northumbria on the show. and oleg was not christian or ever went to scandinavia in any warring manor as he spent his time in ukraine, russia, and the black sea areas dealing with khazars and byzantines.
Yes this is a great post
So the last two vaguely interesting characters are dead, and Floki is going to be shoehorned in to off Ivar in the last section. Fuck that.
Such a great episode, the season itself so far has been a bit muddled, but this was an excellent way to cap it off until the final episodes, RIP Bjorn Ironside.
If he’s actually dead. I could see a scenario where a badly wounded Bjorn is taken off the battlefield by his wife (that jumped ship)
Yeah I guess we didn’t specifically see him die, it was just heavily implied, they could definitely go the Walking Dead dumpster route and have him be mostly okay when the new episodes come out. I hope not though, that was a good death for a great character.
That was not how Bjorn died this is supposed to be the History channel so I’m hoping they did their research. After all they killed Ragnar off the way he was supposed to have died
I read that Ragnar’s death was historically accurate, but admit I know almost nothing of Viking history so I really didn’t know if this was how Bjorn was supposed to go out or not. Within the show I felt it was fine, if they apparently follow history and he’s still alive after more episodes return, I’ll still be okay, Bjorn is a great character, and the truest son of Ragnar.
Hirst and crew are pretty keen to follow the academia of it, but there are still substantial gaps in our knowledge of Vikings. There’s also far too many characters, years and locations which means storytellers have to compromise their desires for the sake of practicality. The folk moaning about this element couldn’t do a better job themselves.
With only 10 episodes left, I think Vikings has eschewed a good deal of its historical and legendary basis. There have been many significant deviations already.
Well Harald Finehair was a contemporary of Alfred the Great’s grandson, and first King of England, Aethlestan – who fostered one of his children. So the show’s timeline is already way out of whack, as they’re a couple of generations behind.
To be fair, this is a History channel that dedicates about a third of its programming to alien conspiracy theories. I suspect at some point they’ll do a SyFy-style name change to a nonsensical homonym.
My thoughts exactly. Gunnhild to the rescue!
Really not sure where they plan to go from here. There’s still story to be told but they’ve lost most of the characters (and actors) who can truly carry it well.
Boring and uninspired.
That was amazing. I got a rush right through the second half. So sure Hvitserk would stab Ivar through the back, or at least Oleg, that I didn’t see WorfBjorn’s death coming. I give this episode a firm A, the best we’ve gotten from Vikings in years.Incredible.I honestly don’t know where Hirst goes from here. Ivar Vs Hitsverk is something I really would like. As you say, the board is cleared, and that doesn’t bode well for the quality of the final ten. I love the ambition in resetting the cast but the results often seem to drag the stories more than enhance them. Floki was a very different character last we saw him, and I’m not putting chips down on him. I’ll be along for the finale all the same. Bloody great episode this.
Don’t count Bjorn out yet….
https://www.tvguide.com/news/vikings-season-6-midseason-finale-bjorn-dead-alive/During the battle between the Vikings and the Rus, Ivar (Alex Høgh) surprised Bjorn (Alexander Ludwig) on the battlefield by stabbing him through the chest and leaving Bjorn seemingly to die.However, the show’s creator, Michael Hirst, told us not to count out the King of Kattegat just yet. “Well, he’s not dead, is he? He’s very, very badly wounded,” Hirst teased to TV Guide.“I can’t tell you too much,” Hirst continued, “but what I can tell you is the [midseason premiere] is an extraordinary episode and a number of things that you thought were true at the end of [midseason finale] proved not to be quite true.”
See I thought they were going to go for that when they zoomed in on his hand with the sword. I thought they’d have him tighten his grip or refocus his eyes but then they didn’t. I guess Ludwig was too good at playing dead….
Illuminating piece. I reckon Ludwig will return in seer style conscience spirit or new flashback, but something more? 6×10 did use narrative shorthand. I assumed Ivar couldn’t get so close to Bjorn to stab him. The act instead a metaphor for Ivar’s forces…
Some of the comments I’ve seen from Ludwig and Hirst make me think Bjorn will return for just one more episode in a metaphysical role as he hovers close to death. But the remark about Bjorn still accomplishing something that shapes his legacy makes me think it will be more substantial than that, even if he still dies in the process.
I apparently recall several good big thing prophecies for Bjorns great legacies and I think some final galvanising act makes sounder sense.
I figure this is the point at which Bjorn gets confined to a wheel chair and starts fighting crime.
Sorry. I’m old. My cultural touchstones *may* differ from yours.
I found this episode very disappointing, particularly the battle scenes. Battle scenes in this series have always been challenging to follow, but the director got in the way too much with his cut-outs to Bjorn and Ivar on the beach.
Love these recaps. One disagreement though:A lot of times you compare Bjorn unfavorably to Ragnar, suggesting that he’s always fallen short of his father’s illustrious legend and whatnot. I think as an actor/character, Ludwig/Bjorn is a few rungs below Fimmel/Ragnar. But in terms of accomplishments, Bjorn Ironside has been right up there with Dad. Bjorn doesn’t always prevail and makes mistakes, but Ragnar hardly had a spotless record. He died a near-pariah to his people, had some epic fails in Paris, plus a diabolical shroom habit that lives on with poor Hvitserk. So I think Bjorn lived up to Ragnar after all. He just had more competition, frankly (Ivar, Harald, the Rus etc.).
..How was Ivar upriver, scaling a cliff AND stabbing Bjorn on a beach at the same time?