vrijdag 14 augustus 2015

Vikings season 2

Remember my gripe with season 1 how I couldn`t stand the main character of ragnar (though I`m pretty alone in that opinion)?  Well, for the second season this has improved, and I`ll tell the reason in a bit.

The series, numbering 10 episodes, starts of with the cliffhanger of last year, as Ragnar and King Horik faces his brother Rollo who has thrown his lot in with Jarl Borg.

In the aftermath of the battle, we jump 4 years forward, and enter the reason I start to like Ragnar: his grown up son Bjorn, who went from small boy to lumbering ox...

With an alliance now in place between Earl Ragnar, Jarl Borg and King Horik to raid together, Ragnar suddenly finds himself in some domestic problems as Anslaug, his one night stand from season 1, arrives in Kattegat, pregnant of Ragnar`s son.  After the jump forward, she is now the mother of already 2 sons, and expecting a third (and later, a fourth... she sure is fertile), while Ragnar and Lagertha are divorced.

However, Horik orders Ragnar to break up with Borg, and raid england without him, arriving in Wessex where the intelligent, though not entirely christian King Ecbert rules.  While they are out there, Borg raids Ragnar`s lands, and Rollo manages to save his brothers children and wife as the village is overrun and massacred. 
Ragnar, upon learning this, returns home, and with the aid of the forces of his ex-wife they manage to defeat Jarl Borg.  While King Horik and Athelstan are in negotiation back in england, they are ambushed and Athelstan captured, becoming a sort of `warrior priest` at the court of Ecbert, who genuinly wants an alliance to add the fierce norsemen to his roster of troops.

While the defeated Horik reforges an alliance with Borg, Siggy tries to work her way up in power again, going even as far as `making a man` from Horik`s youngest son while he watches.  But Rollo takes his revenge on Borg, burning his men... and approved by Ragnar who orders the execution of Borg in the way of the `Blood Eagle`. 

Honestly, I didn`t even think Jarl Borg an `evil` villain, but a man seeking revenge for being first forced to give up his lands to Horik (s1), then being betrayed out of the raiding alliance (again by Horik) but raiding Ragnar as the king had manipulated it that way.  I think if I was ragnar, i would probably had better picked him as ally.

Replacing him to gather a new force for england, is Earl Ingstad, who turns out to be Lagertha, having killed her new husband as he had her raped and beaten up.  But Horik is pray to seeds of jealousy as he suspects Ragnar wants to get his post as King.  He tries to establish supreme rule back in england, leading to the defeat of the viking force and leaving Rollo severly wounded, so he goes for another way and tries to corrupt Floki to betray and kill his friends.

However, this turns out that Floki was playing Horik all the time, as he is utterly loyal to Ragnar and Horik is dispatched in justice for his crimes.

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