Every single episode of The Last Kingdom, ranked worst to best
(9) SEASON 1: “EPISODE THREE”
“Uhtred allies himself with the newly crowned Alfred, but his commitment to the nascent king jeopardizes his bond with Brida.”
Recap
The battle on the Hill is over and Guthram’s Viking force has been repulsed. The price has been high, for the Wessex King Aethelred lies dying. Odda the Elder hurries to prepare Alfred to take the throne, just as Aethelwold and Odda the Younger cook up a lame scheme to try and steal it. Aethelwold is banished to a monastery, but he’ll be back.
Alfred releases Uhtred and Brida from captivity and convinces Uhtred to assist him while he negotiates with Ubba and the Danes. Brida concocts a drink of hallucinogenic mushrooms and has a vision of Ragnar, but it will later cause her to miscarry Uhtred’s baby. Alfred asks Uhtred for one year of service in Wessex. In return, he will give him Bebbanburg. Young Ragnar returns and Brida leaves with him, leaving a heartbroken Uhtred behind to honor his commitment to Alfred.
Our Take
Watching an enraged Brida hurl foodstuffs at Beocca is always fun, and while “Episode Three” has plenty of solid humor, it’s also packed with intrigue and heartbreak. Man, the meeting between Alfred and Ubba is tense! The Last Kingdom really finds its stride with this installment, weaving together political and military storylines without ever losing emotional touch with characters we’re growing to love.
Uhtred and Brida, once so intimately connected, are splintering over their competing allegiances, Uhtred to the Saxons and Brida to the Danes. Uhtred’s one-year commitment to Alfred, the return of Ragnar and Brida’s miscarriage widen the gulf between them, despite their history and love for one another. As Uhtred tells Brida, “Uhtred Ragnarsson can never become Uhtred of Bebbanburg. Never.” Ragnar understands. “I need this revenge like I need water,” Uhtred tells him. “When the time is right I will be with you.”
King Alfred emerges here as a complex character. He apparently adores his wife Aelswith, but can’t stop canoodling with a servant girl, despite his certainty that god is watching. Uhtred is always scheming, believing that he’s playing Alfred and everybody else, and ignores warnings from Beocca and Brida that he’s in over his head. It’s a train wreck we can all see coming.
The emotional reunion of the late Earl Ragnar’s three children — Uhtred, Brida and Young Ragnar, freshly returned from Ireland — reminds us that they are the show’s central triumvirate, the beating heart of this sprawling story. Their scene together pulses with emotion.
Despite his happiness, Uhtred is stricken, for he has sworn his loyalty to Alfred for one year, and now he will lose Brida, who has always been “half my life.” Dreymon, Cox and Santelmann are fantastic here — especially Dreymon — and the episode concludes by underlining Uhtred’s agony. It all leaves us thirsting for more.
QUOTE: “He (Alfred) wants more than a year’s service. He wants you to help take back England. All of England. Of course, when the year’s up you could go back to the Danes. That would at least give me the chance to kill you. But what would you be? Who would you be?” (Leofric, to Uhtred)