Vikings X: Halfway Through the Madness

[HexMachina]

Why did they give Ivar creepy luminous eyes? Isn't Sigurd the one with the weird eye? You know, Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye?

[Buckwheat]

They forgot about Sigurd's eye-snake a long time ago, the child player had completely normal eyes too.

[Mark Antony]

Solid end to the mid season. Ragnar vs Rollo was awesome. They've gotten rid of most of the dead weight, Judith is the main character that still needs to go. 

[-Ghost-]

Preview for the fall

Edit - I don't know why it's cut off but it's on their FB page

https://www.facebook.com/HISTORYCanada/videos/10154048661107777/

 

[RhaenysBee]

19 minutes ago, -Ghost- said:

Preview for the fall

Edit - I don't know why it's cut off but it's on their FB page

https://www.facebook.com/HISTORYCanada/videos/10154048661107777/

 

Thank you!

[Zorral]

So They left us with a cliff hanger, which we knew They would.

Thanks for that trailer link. The fall season looks quite promising. and Ragnar ain't daid, not yet.  I've felt for a while that when Ragnar goes out it will be at Ivar's hands (though I know it's supposed to have happened in quite a different way, and there's the chance that it does happen that way). But those who think we're finished with Wessex - Mercia, this mid-season final made it clear it's coming back with a, ahem, vengeance.  The trailer shows it too.  Looking forward to the Lagertha - Aslaug throw down.  Mine money is on Lagertha, and my preference too.  Gads I loathe Aslaug's teeth.  

The time jump felt extreme, particularly since we don't know lots of things about the fates others in whom we're interested.  But the trailer helped with that.

O -- Ivar's eyes -- they look borrowed from Bo the Succubus when she goes all fae, in Lost Girl.

 

[GallowKnight]

That was definitely the best episode of the season! (which isn't really saying much) And finally we got some much deserved action, plus no Wessex whatsoever. I liked the battle scene even if it felt like we didn't get a good look off the scope of it. There was a lot of ships on both sides of the battle but the the focus was only on two of the platforms, a couple of wider shots could have been good to show the entire battlefield. Ragnar vs. Rollo was good but it does feel a bit silly that two characters can have a big one on one without any real interruption. Plus no major deaths as far as we know.

The 10-ish year time jump was pretty abrupt and I wish we could have gotten some closure on Lagertha's and Halfdan's conditions, as neither looked very good when last we saw them. But the time jump feels like a bold move and it definitely has me intrigued. I really like the grown up version of the boys and it's going to be fun to see more of them. I wonder that they are going to bring in Guthrum to that group during the second half. Ragnar's speech was also great. Auslag is still a bitch. However it feels like a lot more should have changed during the time jump. Bjorn has not gotten married or had any more kids? No one in Kattegat has gone back to England in all that time? Why is everyone's taking styling cues from Ragnar?

I wonder if this closes out the Paris part of the show (I sure hope so). Rollo has embraced Paris and Paris has embraced him, Roland and Therese are dead and Charles finally showed some fucking backbone. That neatly ties up everything regarding this part of the show and would allow close this chapter of the saga out. But knowing Michael Hirst he'll probably find some fucking way to bring it back.

Despite how shitty the show have gotten this season I gotta say that I have no intention of dropping it, I look forward to it every week and know I'm really curious to see how the second half of the season will look like. Hopefully it has more viking stuff and less of everything else. And hopefully Torvi dies.

 

17 hours ago, GrimTuesday said:

 And Charles ganking the two folks seemed ridiculous when you consider that he was basically all in on Roland an episode ago

I guess Charles is just the hit it and quit it type.

[-Ghost-]

Someone made some stills from the video https://m.imgur.com/a/rb97P

Some awesome stuff in there. Ivar is a complete badass. I'm wondering if one of those 2 guys hugging could be

Guthrum? Can't tell is that's Torvi or Flokis wife behind them in the one shot.

And wtf is going on with

Rollo Bjorn and Hvitserk fighting together?

Looks like awesome stuff is coming.

[GallowKnight]

5 hours ago, Buckwheat said:

The scenes in the end were really like a new start! Want to see Mediterranean. I am not even that angry anymore that Floki is still alive.

Welcome to the dark side, I always knew you'd c come around

Quote

Someone made some stills from the video https://m.imgur.com/a/rb97P

Some awesome stuff in there. Ivar is a complete badass. I'm wondering if one of those 2 guys hugging could be

Spoiler

Looks like Halfdan is alive at least

And I guess that squashes my hopes that Paris would be left alone.

 

 

[Arkash]

1 hour ago, Buckwheat said:

They forgot about Sigurd's eye-snake a long time ago, the child player had completely normal eyes too.

Wrong !

Rewatch the scene where he spies on Aslaug and Harbard having sex, you can clearly see the snake.

Dunno if the adult has it as well but I'd guess so.

But, as I've said a while back, I really think the actor they chose for Sigurd looks like the second rising of Erlendur... sad since the kid was the most eerie of them all and really intrigued me... whereas his adult version is more common. 

[RhaenysBee]

The battle was great, so was seeing the sons, so was Aslaug, so was "Look at you! You look like a bitch!". 

The Emperor's 180 degree turn was stupid, so was the fact that they lost the Paris battle again, so was Aslaug's short hair, so was throwing out all ongoing storylines with the time jump. 

Ivar actor is on point (so far) and Alex totally grew into his role and delivers an epic Bjorn, mainly because he's copying everything about Travis Fimmel which is a good and reasonable thing so no complaints there. And Aslaug has perfected the art of being Cersei. She is everything I ever expected Cersei to be, and everything Lena Headey's Cersei fails at. Loved to hate her. 

What fucked my mind was three things. 

1. What is with Hail Caesar? Ave Caesar/Imperator was not a customary greeting even in Roman times (My little Google adventure confirms it was only used a handful of times after Caesar himself), let alone in the early medieval times when Christianity ruled Western Europe and people were generally not too smart since much of the knowledge swept away by the fall of the Roman Empire had not yet been recovered (it was a starting and on-going process as shown in season 2 when Ecbert made Athelstan translate Roman scripts). Even if, by any chance, the tutors of young Charles had mentioned Caesar (which I find highly unlikely, as tutoring at the time was mostly religious or determined by religious dogmas) to the wee lad, he had zero reason to make this a thing especially that I am 100% sure you couldn't find a nobleman in 800 Frankia who knew where that line came from or even have a clue about who Caesar is. Correct me if I'm wrong. It is also not the first time the show uses the term, that's why I went to Google to check its origins, but nothing seems to imply that Ave Caesar was a used/known line any time before the enlightenment. I hope there's a historian here who will kindly clear this up to me. 

2. So the Mediterranean might not even exist because a map is just scribbling on a piece of paper which anybody could have drawn, huh? But Ragnar surely lied to his people 10-2 years ago because a random stranger claims that random strangers claim that some escaped settler made it back to Kattegat and talked to Ragnar. Okkkkkkkkkay. Good thing Ragnar deleted those 30000 emails, imagine the hype if there was even evidence. 

3. Where has Ragnar been and why? 

4. (Lagertha?) was answered by the trailer, thank you once more for the link. 

"Look at you! You look like a bitch!" 

Spoiler

If we assume that Lagertha had Bjorn at 16, and know that Bjorn was 13+4=17 when they reunited with Ragnar and  assume again that Siggy was 3 when she died and took 1 year to be consummated and born, and assume they returned from Paris the same year she died, and also assume that the time jump was 10 years, 16+17+4+10=47 year-old Lagertha returns to fight for Kattegat in the trailer. Just saying... 

[Corvinus85]

2 hours ago, RhaeBee said:

1. What is with Hail Caesar? Ave Caesar/Imperator was not a customary greeting even in Roman times (My little Google adventure confirms it was only used a handful of times after Caesar himself), let alone in the early medieval times when Christianity ruled Western Europe and people were generally not too smart since much of the knowledge swept away by the fall of the Roman Empire had not yet been recovered (it was a starting and on-going process as shown in season 2 when Ecbert made Athelstan translate Roman scripts). Even if, by any chance, the tutors of young Charles had mentioned Caesar (which I find highly unlikely, as tutoring at the time was mostly religious or determined by religious dogmas) to the wee lad, he had zero reason to make this a thing especially that I am 100% sure you couldn't find a nobleman in 800 Frankia who knew where that line came from or even have a clue about who Caesar is. Correct me if I'm wrong. It is also not the first time the show uses the term, that's why I went to Google to check its origins, but nothing seems to imply that Ave Caesar was a used/known line any time before the enlightenment. I hope there's a historian here who will kindly clear this up to me. 

Ah, yes, that was stupid. And when Charlie did it to Rollo, he put the crown on his head backwards. 

[Alia of the knife]

So, Ivar is a Fremen.

Anyway, at least it seems like there is a chance it might get back on track.......

[Buckwheat]

Oh yes, Lagertha and Aslaug never age at all.

The line about the "piece of paper" bothered me because Floki most likely would not have a concept of "paper". If anything - he might have learned it from Athelstan - he would know "parchment." And Björn's map looks more like parchment than paper. Paper just was not much of a thing then. It is a small nitpick, but something that really could have been considered.

ETA: So what was the point of the whole Lagertha's pregnancy subplot again?

[Lord Lyman]

After watching the mid-season finale, I can finally tell Grisla and Therese apart. Should be no problems going forward. What's confusing me know, is how Erlunder became one of Ragners kids.

4 hours ago, Buckwheat said:

 So what was the point of the whole Lagertha's pregnancy subplot again?

I not even sure what the entire point of the Hedeby subplot was.

[-Ghost-]

Ok, so from the trailer where the 2 new guys are greeting each other, the one on the left with the beard is Josh Donaldson. He's a MLB player with the Blue Jays. I guess he's only making a guest appearance, so I'm not sure who he could be.

Ivars eyes are like that because of the osteogenesis imperfecta condition he has. Not sure why they didn't do that when he was a child too.

[Astromech]

2 hours ago, Lord Lyman said:

After watching the mid-season finale, I can finally tell Grisla and Therese apart. Should be no problems going forward. What's confusing me know, is how Erlunder became one of Ragners kids.

I not even sure what the entire point of the Hedeby subplot was.

Especially now that Therese is dead  

Ivar seems to be the heir apparent of the show. Good. He's the most interesting of Ragnar's kids.

[RhaenysBee]

2 hours ago, Lord Lyman said:

After watching the mid-season finale, I can finally tell Grisla and Therese apart. Should be no problems going forward. What's confusing me know, is how Erlunder became one of Ragners kids.

I not even sure what the entire point of the Hedeby subplot was.

Or the point of the pilgrimage, the point of Torvi, the point of Harbard, the point of feminist Judith? 

[Zorral]

If they are going to the Mediterranean in the next phrase of the series, we'll have more Paris, and Rome.  Can't have Mare Nostrum without Rome, or Spain, or, then, Paris.  Timelines screwed around with, but we are within the windows in which vikings both raided up Spain's rivers, and hired on as bodyguards for Muslim rulers in the south of Spain.

I just don't get why Roland and Therese were whacked.  But then the king (I can never recall his name!) was sure Therese called him stupid, and he wasn't having that.  Still, it does seem rather extreme.  But I'm not a king. I guess as mentioned above, this king is so distrustful of everyone that like the ruler in A Thousand and One Nights, one night is what you get, then off with the head.

 

 

[GrimTuesday]

2 hours ago, -Ghost- said:

Ok, so from the trailer where the 2 new guys are greeting each other, the one on the left with the beard is Josh Donaldson. He's a MLB player with the Blue Jays. I guess he's only making a guest appearance, so I'm not sure who he could be.

Ivars eyes are like that because of the osteogenesis imperfecta condition he has. Not sure why they didn't do that when he was a child too.

Oh, I knew he looked familiar but I couldn't place him. I like Donaldson, and I like him even more now that he is out of the AL West and in this show (even if it is just a cameo).