Vikings: Valhalla season 1—All episodes reviewed and explained

Episode Three: “The Marshes”

The Vikings have landed in Kent on the south coast of England, and everything seems to be going according to plan. The episode opens as they raid a small village in a terrific action sequence. It’s cool to see Leif and Harald finally get their hands dirty in a battle. Especially Leif, who’s come a long way since killing his first-ever person in the last episode.

While raiding the village, they quickly learn that King Ethelred has died, meaning his son Edmund is set to take the throne. That said, their quest for revenge remains unchanged. Clearly, they would’ve liked the chance to kill Ethelred themselves, but his son will do.

In London, Edmund is convinced that he must lead his army against the Norsemen on the battlefield, even if everyone around him thinks it’s a bad idea. There’s a great scene in the courtyard when advisor Earl Godwin (David Oakes) watches Edmund practice his sword-fighting skills against the guards. He seems to be a pretty impressive fighter, but Godwin is unconvinced, so he decides to face Edmund himself, and beats him senseless.

Queen Emma is far from impressed by Edmund’s attitude, but Godwin — despite beating him up for his arrogance — believes that England needs Edmund to be King for the battle to come. Therefore, he wastes no time in preparing for a coronation.

As the Vikings make their way towards London, they camp just outside the city in the southern marshes. This isn’t ideal, but they’re hoping to take the English by surprise. At night, it is decided that Leif will take a group to scout London Bridge in order to gather intel on how best to attack the city. But as they make their way through the marshes, Leif and his group are ambushed by a bunch of English soldiers. The attack is pretty devastating; they lose six Norsemen and Leif is badly injured. This is a great little battle that again underlines how no one is safe in this show. Anyone in the army can die, except for Leif and Harald, who both have strong plot armor.

When the scouts fall back to the Viking camp, they concede that the English are probably aware of their plans to attack from the south. That’s when one lone Saxon rides into the heart of the camp, plants an ominous flag, and rides away. Now it’s absolutely clear: the Saxons are daring them to attack.

Leif and Harald take matters into their own hands and decide to infiltrate London to find weaknesses within its defenses. When they arrive at the drawbridge, they spot something that could sway the battle in their favor. What could it be? I’m sure we’ll find out during the battle.

The rest of the episode takes place in Sweden, where Freydis embarks on her pilgrimage to Uppsala but gets more than she bargains for when she and her small group come across a powerful warrior who attacks them for no apparent reason. The attacker has a strange mark on his forehead. He slaughters most of the group and Freydis only just manages to kill him by strangling him to death.

We still don’t know who this mysterious person is, but we do learn that he makes it his duty to hunt pilgrims. And he’s not the only one of his kind out there. At the end of the episode, we see his group come across the dead body. “Find them,” he says ominously.

It was hard enough to take one of them out; how will Freydis cope with a whole group of these people?

Verdict

We have ourselves another solid, super fast-paced episode here. The plot continues to thicken, and nothing about this series so far feels like it’s just there to be filler content. Everyone has an interesting story to tell. And it doesn’t hurt that we spent a lot of time with many of their ancestors in Vikings.

There are a ton of questions as we enter the next episodes, including:

• Will Freydis be pursued on her way to Uppsala?
• Will Edmund have enough courage to fight against the Vikings?
• What will come of the attack on London?
• What advantage did Leif and Harald find on the bridge?

No doubt, we’ll learn the answers to all of these soon enough!