The Last Kingdom season 5: All episodes reviewed and explained

Episode 6

The Last Kingdom reaches a climax in “Episode 6,” where the armies of Edward and Sigtryggr clash despite Uhtred’s best attempts to convince both men that Aethelhelm is the one actually responsible for Aelflaed’s death and the slaughter at Rumcofa.

I was getting a strong whiff of contrivance off much of this episode. Uhtred reaches Edward and tells him about Aethelhelm’s plot and Edward pretty much immediately believes him, despite their rocky history. Later, Stiorra buys Uhtred’s story even faster despite talking a big game of spilling Saxon blood. As trustworthy as Uhtred is, when leaders set their mind to slaughter I’d think it would take more convincing than this to turn them away from it.

And Uhtred’s attempts don’t work anyway, since he can’t find Sigtryggr before the Danish warlord leads his army into Aethelhelm’s camp in the dead of night and starts killing men while they sleep in an effectively creep sequence. I also liked the tense bit where they creep across a frozen lake to catch Aethelhelm’s men unawares. And that pays off later when Sigtryggr starts losing the battle and some of his men flee back across the ice, only now, in the bright light of day, the sheet is thinner and some of them fall straight through. It’s pretty horrific all around.

Once the battle is over, we have a situation where both Sigtryggr and Edward finally know that Aethelhelm is really behind all the trouble, but because Sigtryggr attacked Saxons and then lost the battle, Edward is obliged to punish him. He tries to take the middle way out by offering to spare Sigtryggr’s life if he gets baptized, but Sigtryggr refuses. That means execution, and the deed is done by none other than Uhtred himself — in front of his daughter and Sigtryggr’s wife — in a well-acting, tear-jerking sequence.

All of this is suitably dramatic, but it all happened a bit too quickly and conveniently for me. There are a couple other bubbles of contrivance, like when someone tries to kill Aethelstan yet again and he yet again turns the tables on him; kid is a Terminator. Elsewhere, Brida and Pyrlig stumble across a dying soldier from the battle who gives them exactly the bit of misinformation Brida needs to be convinced that Pyrlig is leading her into a trap. She guts him, which upsets me. Fight, Pyrlig, fight!

The battle itself is fun, although a bit chaotic, and some of the blood spurts look a little fake to me. And of course they are fake, added in afterwards with CGI, but I could tell, is the point.

It sounds like I’m down on the episode, although I swear I more or less enjoyed it. The Last Kingdom lives by the sword and dies by the sword; its rapid pace and adherence to the source material gives it a consistency a lot of shows lack, but sometimes it feels like it’s so focused on delivering on the plot that it doesn’t stop to consider what that plots means.

Oh, and Aethelhelm escapes the battle, by the way, the little weasel. His new plan is to regroup in the kingdom of Scotia and convince the king there to stand against Edward’s growing influence. Wihtgar, the knob who currently occupies Bebbanburg, is already there. Hopefully we’ll see Uhtred slash the shit-eating grin off his face before the season is over.

The Last Bullet Points

• “Countless” Danes were killed at Rumcofa. Osferth fought in “countless” battles. Danes will live at Eoforwic in peace for “countless” generations. We can count all those things. I’m calling for a moratorium on that word.
• “And you have utterly failed me, as you did my mother,” Aelfwynn tells Aelswith. Ouch. And then Aelfwynn flees her room after Aelswith grounds her; she’s making all the classic teenager moves. In any case, Aethelhelm is now hoping to kidnap Aelfwynn and gifting her to the king of Scotia in order to buy his way into his good graces.

The Last Kingdom Episode Grade: B

– Dan