WiC Watches: Vikings Season 5, Part 2
Episode 512: “Murder Most Foul”
With a title like that, you’d think this would be an exciting episode of Vikings, right? Or at least an improvement from last week’s “meh” mid-season premiere. Sadly, the only real fighting that took place was me fighting off yawns.
“Murder Most Foul” opens with Lagertha, Bjorn, Ubbe, and Torvi (Georgia Hirst) facing King Alfred (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) and his court, hoping that Bishop Heahmund (Jonathan Rhys Meyers, sounding like a William Shatner impersonator who smokes four packs a day) can be trusted, and that he can ensure their safety.
Ubbe and Bjorn have a parchment granting them land in Wessex, and all they want to do is go there and become peaceful farmers. There’s a catch, though: the parchment granting them land is invalid, and the only way King Alfred will give them the land they desire is if they agree to fight for him against other Vikings.
Angrily, they agree, and all seems okay, except that Bishop Heahmund wants King Alfred to give him back his former church and title. However, while Heahmund was away fighting against and then for the Vikings, his church was given to Lord Cuthred (Jonathan Delaney Tynan). Heahmund doesn’t take the news well, and rides to his former church to confront Cuthred, and the two throw some really hurtful religious zingers at each other.
Hoping to catch Heahmund in the act of sinning, Cuthred has his man follow the former bishop around Wessex as he and Lagertha roam the countryside, partaking in some passionate kissing and over-the-tunic stuff, until later that night, when they go all the way.
Cuthred sends Heahmund a letter letting him know he found out about his fornication with a pagan, and once he tattles to King Alfred, he’ll never get his church back. This was obviously Cuthred’s “Ned Stark Mistake,” as Heahmund quickly returns to his former church and promptly kills his nemesis.
Meanwhile, King Alfred is supposed to be courting a noblewoman from Wessex, but he ignores her because he has a realm to rule or whatever. Naturally, Bjorn sees this and starts giving her sexy-time eyes, and they hook up that night. This was the obvious and only course of action.
Back at Kattegat, Ivar (Alex Høgh) is still celebrating his victory over Lagertha, and decides to tell everyone that their new queen is now Freydis (Alicia Agneson). Margrethe (Ida Marie Nielsen) tells King Harald (Jasper Pääkkönen) not to worry because she knows firsthand that Ivar can’t get it up, so he won’t be able to produce any heirs. Hvitserk (Marco Ilsø) backs her up.
Later that night, Ivar and Freydis are about to get down when he stops her because he’s ashamed that he can’t perform. Viagra wasn’t around then, so Freydis tells him not to worry; all she has to do is spill some of his blood and they can get back to doing the dirty. Freydis cuts Ivar’s hand and drinks his blood, apparently giving Ivar a murder boner, and the two commence with the sex. After Ivar goes to sleep, Freydis finds some rando servant and has sex with him so she can get pregnant…clever girl.
The next day, Hvitserk goes to his cabin in the woods where he finds crazy-pants Margrethe on the floor crying. She’s heard the news that Ivar’s queen is already with child, and since she has no children, she’ll never be queen, but if she can find a way to kill Ivar, then she can be queen. Hvitserk sees what a gigantic mistake he’s made by taking the nutjob in, and that night a bunch of assassins show up and kill Margrethe.
Oh yeah, and there were a couple of scenes with Floki (Gustaf Skarsgård) literally crying to the one person in all of Iceland who still likes him, that the gods are probably mad at him.
All in all, episode 512, “Murder Most Foul” was a huge letdown. We have a while yet to go in season 5, but so far, I’m not impressed.