Vikings Season 6 Part 2 Review

After 89 episodes, spanning six seasons, the historical epic Vikings has come to an end. The final ten episodes show the fates of the sons of Ragnar Lothbrok.

The second part of season six picks up where part one left off: the Rus have invaded Norway and Bjorn Ironside (Alexander Ludwig) has been stabbed by his brother, Ivar the Boneless (Alex Høgh Andersen). The Vikings must face a dire situation as they have to find a way to repel the Rus. As well as the lingering plotline from Part 1, Part 2 also focuses on political intrigue in Kattegat and Kyiv, the Vikings preparing for another invasion of Wessex, and exploration to the West.

Vikings was a show I really enjoyed. It was historically inaccurate, but it was entertaining and many of the battle scenes could rival Hollywood movies. So, it saddens me to say the final ten episodes were a disappointment.

Part 2 started off strong with the episode “King of Kings” where it showed the Norwegian response to the Rus invasion. Bjorn had abilities as a military leader, and he was able to inspire his subjects. But after that Part 2 suffered from pacing problems. The bulk of this part was focused on the political wrangling in Kattegat and Rus which was tiresome because the show went over the same old material. There wasn’t even much action or battle sequences to help spice things up.

The final three episodes had the opposite problem because it looked like the show was rushing to a conclusion. Harald Finehair (Peter Franzén) seemed like he came up with plans to invade Wessex on a whim. His reasoning was the Vikings dominate most of England they may as well conquer the rest of it. There was no build-up or reasoning for the invasion. This section of Part 2 went over the same material as the first season of The Last Kingdom but the Netflix show did it a lot better. The Last Kingdom had a lot more time to look at this conflict.

The most interesting storyline in Season 6, Part 2 involved Ubbe (Jordan Patrick Smith) and a small group of the Norsemen goes West to find new land. Their journey takes them to North America where they arrive in a bountiful forest, but they also encounter the native tribe living there. The Norsemen and Native Americans had to figure out how to communicate with each other. They do it by offering gifts and using basic words and body language. I would have wanted to see more of this because the Vinland colony famously failed, and the show could have shown this.

The final ten episodes wanted to include a theme of the Viking Age coming to an end. Norway was invaded by a Rus, the Rus were Christians and the North American colonists talked about letting the old ways die. The final battle of the series was The Battle of Edington, the battle that turned the tide for the Saxons. The final episode had a sense of the series going full circle because the Vikings in North America had a policy of cooperation instead of conquest and raiding and one of the main characters convert to Christianity. However, the series suffers from a case of ‘Tell Don’t Show.’ An example of this was characters saying that the King of Denmark has converted to Christianity but there was no sense that the religion was spreading around Scandinavia. Another example involved the war story where Alfred and his Queen argue about Wessex abandoning Winchester but again, this wasn’t shown.

The battle sequences have been one of Vikings’ winning features but Season 6, Part 2 was lacking. It seemed like the show had its budget cut because it only had one major scene. The Battle of Edington was wonderfully gory but it was ruined by this horrible grey filter over the footage. It was really disappointing when compared to Part 1 because it had Lagertha’s battle against the Bandits, Lagertha’s lavish funeral, and the Rus launching a medieval version of D-Day. The final part also had an annoying habit to have non-linear editing where a character describes events with them being shown through cross-cutting. It worked for Bjorn’s final battle, not so much when Ivar left Kyiv and Ivar describing his plans for the Battle of Edington.

The final ten episodes of Vikings could and should have been a lot better. As a fan of the series, it was a let-down.