Were you a huge fan of the History Channel’s Vikings? We certainly were! The show did an amazing job telling the history of Scandinavia in a unique way that is very fitting to the way it was shared throughout time. Now Netflix has a new continuing series that times place later in time. So we jumped at the chance to review it!
As always, we will be breaking down the series on the basis of Story, Acting, and Overall! Let’s jump in and go a viking!
Story 7/10
Taking place 100 years after Ragnar Lothbrok, the Vikings have settled all over Europe, which had unfortunately caused resentment and anger for the people of England. When forced by his nobleman to solve the unrest, King Aethelred II of England sends for the leader of the town of Danelaw, and his main bodyguard. When they arrive, they realize that it was done for the purpose of purifying the lands and destroying Viking blood in England.
But like the days of Ragnar, Vikings do not take these events lying down. King Canute of Denmark orders the formation of an army in Kattegat to seek revenge in England for the death of their settlements. Included in the lot of Vikings is Leif Erikson who has been unfortunately sold into service of King Canute to save his sister. But for almost all involved in the journey to England, destiny is calling.
I will admit the beats, stories, and battles seem to feel very familiar to the show that it’s continuing, but it’s not the show or creator’s fault, they are limited by history. Unfortunately, as a species humanity has a habit of making the same horrible mistakes over and over again thanks to our natural lean toward xenophobia.
Speaking of prejudices, the series features a lot of hate and bigotry when covering the topic of conversion within Scandinavia from Paganism to Christianity. The two groups hate one another and they can barely put their differences aside to fight another nation.
Acting 9/10
The cast of Greenlanders specifically played by Lujza Richter, Jack Mullarkey, Sam Stafford, Edward Franklin, and of course Sam Corlett as Leif Eriksson and Frida Gustavsson as Freydis Eriksdotter, are an amazing new group for this series. The relationship between them, and their friendship through the battle in England, is one of most powerful things of this series.
Leo Suter who plays Harald Sigurdsson is an awesome unifier within the series and plays well against Gustavsson and Corlett.
As far as shows like this, usually the series is only as good as the villains, and Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson as Olaf Haraldsson and Asbjørn Krogh Nissen as Jarl Kåre are so unlikeable that they really make awesome villains to hate.
Everyone in the series does an amazing job playing the roles of Vikings in a darker era of our history.
Before I close out the section of acting, I have to talk about my favorite people of the season. Laura Berlin as Emma of Normandy and David Oakes as Earl Godwin are so impressive as characters. Their work in the background to achieve their goals, it’s hard to remember that they are just actors playing intelligent people, due to how amazing they are at performing their positions.
Overall 7.5/10
It’s an interesting sequel to the original series. The intro is similar but completely off. The introduction to the characters in the first episode’s intro is very weird considering the series’ predecessor. With regards to the series introduction to the characters, in the first show we were introduced to Ragnar, played by Travis Fimmel, as a humble farmer with ambitions. The journey took time, it built up, and we grew to love the characters. That made their loss more painful.
Now we barely know the people of the series, then they die except for one. Then we are introduced to even more characters and they are immediately thrust into war. Regardless of those issues, it’s still a really engaging story, and I am very interested to see where it goes next.
Conner’s Final Thoughts
It was great to see the changes to Kattegat with time, to see the world as it has changed. It was very frustrating though that they jumped so far in time that no one exists within the world of the series that existed within the first show.
It’s a choice. That being said, they mention people from the world of the first series, but it feels hollow considering the fact that the world is so similar but supposed to be so different.
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