WiC reviews the final 10 episodes of Vikings

Image: Vikings/History/Amazon Prime Video

Season 6, Episode 20: “The Last Act”

Well friends, here we are at the end of Vikings. The show started with Ragnar sailing in the wrong direction and discovering England. We’ve been from Paris to Rome to Kiev to North America and watched as men, women and children lived and died, often in brutally creative ways. Naturally, the series finale is full of bloodshed, even if the final moments of the series are as peaceful as anything we’ve seen on the show.

Here we go!

In the new world, Ubbe and Floki have a heartfelt reunion. Floki brings a warmth that has been missing from the show since his disappearance.

But not all is well in the new world as one of Ubbe’s men kills a native in an attempt to discover the location of any gold that might be about. Naturally, this causes tension among the two groups, but Ubbe is quick to pass judgement over the man, opting to give him a blood eagle execution. That seemed like an especially brutal and painful death for the guy, so it was a reprieve when Ubbe simply executed the guy, which seemed to appease the Native Americans. I initially thought it would lead to a greater conflict like the ones we saw erupt in Greenland and Iceland, but we leave things more or less peacefully, with the show suggesting that people can change after all.

Things are less rosy in England. Ivar and Alfred attempt to reach a truce, but Alfred is having none of it and Ivar seems relieved that the fighting will go on. It soon starts up again, with Hvitserk distinguishing himself as he rampages across the battlefield.

And then, the moment Alex Høgh Andersen told us he loved so much is upon us: Ivar’s death. If Bjorn’s death was the end of The Fellowship of the Ring, then Ivar’s death feel like The Return of the King.

It begins as Ivar leads his troops into battle, creaming his way into Valhalla accompanied by a haunting score, In the end, he is stabbed by a young unnamed soldier, and his legs collapse under him. The score switches from haunting to epic and mournful.

Upon Ivar’s collapse, Alfred commands the fighting to cease. Before Ivar dies however, he shares a tender moment with Hvitserk, weeping at the sight of his broken legs. “I’m a freak,” he says. Andersen and Marco Ilsø knock it out of the park in this scene, reminding us that at bottom, Ivar was simply a man in pain.

We later see Hvitserk at Ivar’s burial mound, with Marco Ilsø emoting so powerfully it makes me wish Hvitserk had been given a larger role in the series. Anyway, Hvitserk soon converts to Christianity, which might seem random at first, but the character has always drifted from one thing to another, so it’s not that shocking.

And now it’s time to say our last goodbyes. With peace restored in the new world, Ubbe and Floki contemplate what’s next. Skarsgard delivers his best performance of the series in these closing moments, convincing both me and Ubbe that he’s finally found peace. Floki’s insistence that Ubbe does not need all the answers he himself once sought is very moving, as is his quip about Ragnar still bothering his sleep.

The final season wasn’t without its issues, but its final moments are just about as good as fans could hope for. We don’t know whether Ubbe will take Floki’s advice, but watching the two men sit on the beach in the new world somehow felt like a fitting end for the series, even if it’s not the way I originally pictured the show going out.

With a Netflix spinoff on the horizon (and maybe more beyond that), Vikings could end up being the next great franchise. If it doesn’t, the main series ended in a way it can be proud of. And to that, we raise our cup of ale. Skol!

Episode Grade: A+

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