The Last Kingdom season 4 dropped on Netflix last week, and if you’re like me, you’ve already binge-watched your way through every new episode. And while we don’t yet know when season 5 will actually air, executive producer on the show, Nigel Marchant has answered one lingering question: What the heck happened to Uhtred’s youngest kid?
We already know about young Uhtred (Finn Elliot) and Stiorra (Ruby Hartley) — who both had a very busy season — but at the start of season 3, Uhtred had a third child who wasn’t part of the fourth season at all. As it turns out, this third kid would have been “one character too many.”
“I think we’re always conscious about bringing in new characters – and there’s an awful lot of them within this season – and there’s a lot of younger characters coming in,” Marchant told RadioTimes. “Obviously, we only had 10 episodes and so many hours and so many storylines that we could really push through.”
"So there was a conscious decision about who we really wanted and who is propelling the story along. We didn’t want to cheat the audience by not meeting the characters and going on a journey with them. There’s a lot of characters in any ensemble piece and that means there’s a lot of mouths to feed for the writer."
Image: The Last Kingdom/Netflix
Cool, so this poor fictional kid was wiped from existence because Uhtred couldn’t spring for a nanny? Maybe he didn’t want the headache of dragging a third kid through the wilds of Mercia…there were a ton of kids in this season, leaving Uhtred and his men playing the role mannies while trying to fight off the Danes.
But just because the child wasn’t in season 4, doesn’t mean he won’t make a triumphant return in season 5. “So, we really felt that we were introducing Uhtred’s two children, we also had Aelfwynn and Aethelstan who were caught up in all the action, and just that it would be one character too many,” Marchant continued. “We don’t like to deviate from the books, we like to keep the characters and the essence there, but sometimes it just doesn’t work. But that’s not to say that we couldn’t see them in the future.”
So you’re saying there’s a chance? We’ll take it.
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