Vikings: Kill The Queen

February 26, 2016 7:49 AM - Season 4, Episode 2

As Ragnar and Floki remain at odds in Kattegat, Rollo makes great efforts in Paris to win over his new bride, Princess Gisla. Bjorn's survival skills are put to the test in the wilderness, while King Ecbert sets the task for his son Aethelwulf to rescue Queen Kwenthrith from opposing forces in Mercia.
posted by dnash (10 comments total)

The snarky summary I thought of posting:

Bjorn goes ice fishing. Rollo gets a makeover. Floki shows off his abs. And d'you remember Wessex?
posted by dnash at 7:51 AM on February 26, 2016 [4 favorites]

This wasn't a good episode. There was way too much filler, no pacing or structure, and really, who cares about Wessex or Paris. It's a shame, I was looking forward to this season. Now, Ragnar is the only character who seems interesting: Athelstan is dead, Floki in chains and I can't remember any Lagertha moments. The one redeeming thread to it was the Ragnar/Helga interaction. The princess rescue mission was an engaging sequence too I suppose, but really, I want shield-walls, beserkers cleaving skulls and the occasional revenge castration; not toffs in tunics shooting arrows at each other.
posted by Ned G at 9:16 AM on February 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yeah, it didn't leave me with much either. The queen rescue was a nice bit of action, though I'm not sure why we're going back there now that Ragnar is more interested in Paris, (and has a more interesting enemy there, his own brother). Definitely not really caring about the Wessex princess wanting to learn to draw in books with a pseudo-Athelstan.

Hate Rollo's makeover.

And maybe my understanding of Scandinavian climate and geography is weaker than I thought, but how is it that Bjorn is caught in deepest, coldest winter, yet Floki appeared to be fleeing through a springtime green forest? I believe they mean Kattegat to be on the south coast of Norway, and presumably Bjorn has traveled way north, but still the difference seemed extreme to me.

Also, why on Earth is Bjorn doing this anyway? Were solo survival quests a thing in Viking culture?
posted by dnash at 10:00 AM on February 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

That queen has a sexy monk fetish.
posted by Catblack at 11:56 PM on February 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

I kept waiting for Reggie Jackson to show up.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:13 AM on February 27, 2016

i love judith, i love her character development into someone confident and uncompromising, without sacrificing any of her natural curiosity about the world and enthusiasm for life in general. i'm annoyed about how much i like ecbert and his reaction to her request to learn illumination.

i love aslaug, i love her determination to be treated with respect and as a natural successor to ragnar. i hate that ragnar viewed this as a violence-worthy betrayal.

rollo's new mary tyler moore hairdo is hilarious and i hope he triumphantly throws a beret in the air at the end of the next episode

where is my bride lagertha
posted by poffin boffin at 10:23 AM on February 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

also are we allowed to talk about the post-show "about this episode" thingy? or is that too spoilery?
posted by poffin boffin at 10:24 AM on February 27, 2016

For some reason Bjorn's hut out in the wilderness looks way to modern to me - and in way to good condition to just have been abandoned - can't put my finger on it (and I compared it to a few Google image results for Viking huts - it looks a little different but not massively so). It damn near distracted me the entire episode.

Also - not sure where those caves are that Loki is in (have we seen them before?) but I would have thought they potentially would be excellent storage location during the long winters (depending on flooding / tides if near the water line). Just saying.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 6:36 PM on February 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't know why we're still in england, but I really enjoyed the battle at the tower. This show's greatest strength has always been it's action sequences. Not that they're the best thing about the show, necessarily, but they're the element the show is best at compared with other shows which mostly muddle through fight sequences. I was really impressed by this one, which had a complicated attack plan being executed, with action going on in multiple locations, and managed to keep it clear where everything was in relationship to everything else, who was doing what and why, and how that all evolved over the course of the fight. The show makes it look easy, but nobody else in TV is doing fight scenes this well.

I'm happy for Judith, but I feel like this can only end in tears and maybe being burned as a witch or something similarly bad.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 11:22 PM on March 8, 2016

For some reason Bjorn's hut out in the wilderness looks way to modern to me - and in way to good condition to just have been abandoned

Dunno if it's accurate to the period in terms of construction, but I don't think it was an abandoned hut, I think it was that sort of pseudo-communal hunting camp, used by whatever hunters were passing that way as needed. It doesn't belong to anyone, it's not intended for permanent habitation, it's just there so people can survive hunting trips in the region. I think it's a thing in places with a really low population density and horribly cold conditions. Seems like a reasonable thing for them to do.
posted by neonrev at 10:52 AM on January 8, 2017