Vikings: Invasion Recap

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGxS4vEVP0o]

Vikings: Invasion (2×02)

Synopsis: Four peaceful years have since passed with Ragnar as Earl. The time has come for an unlikely alliance to band together in pursuit of a common goal–a new raid on England. A storm pushes the Viking fleet to a new destination, and on the beaches of Wessex, Ragnar and his men may have met their match.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

This episode was one of those episodes in a season that sets things up, but doesn’t really do anything else otherwise. We see a four year jump into the future, where Ragnar has had Floki building boats non-stop in order to prepare for a raid back into England. Meanwhile, he has been enjoying his time with his new wife Aslaug and two sons with another on the way.

You all know my opinion on Aslaug, so let’s not linger on that.

Ragnar still has a bit of a wandering eye, and Aslaug knows it. Once a cheater, always a cheater, girl. But her counter to that would be to predict that her son, Sigurd would be born with a serpent in the eye. I’m not really sure what that is to suggest, but there is a constant theme of Ragnar being afraid of what his sons might do and this might be one of those moments where it’s an actual problem.

As he and the other men leave for England, she turns to Siggy for friendship, but acknowledging that the woman seeks power. It is interesting to see whether Aslaug has actually made a place for herself among the people in Kattegat.

Also in Kattegat, is Rollo. He’s spent the last four years basically being a drunk, but this episode he gets Ragnar’s forgiveness again. Although he has his forgiveness, he is not able to go on the raid with the men and instead is forced to stay home. Seeing this, King Horik, who had originally chosen to join with Ragnar and Jarl Borg to go raiding, tells Ragnar he similarly does not trust Borg, and no longer wishes to go raiding with him.

Yeah. He just kind of drops this knowledge on Ragnar and leaves the guy to deal with his problems. I’m not saying I hate Horik, but the man is a douchebag. Not to mention, Siggy has now got her hands wrapped around him, so we’ll see what she puts him up to.

Ragnar visits the seer before leaving, and learns that his sons will be more famous than Ragnar himself. And one of his sons will marry a princess and one will sail around a sea that has no tides (which some Googling has told me is the Mediterranean). When Ragnar asks of Bjorn, he learns that the son the seer speaks about is Bjorn, but the seer will not answer any more of Ragnar’s questions. There are a few scenes in the episode that echo exactly how much he has miss his first born son, but sadly no sight of the boy.

Finally they venture west in Floki’s ships, but the navigation is still rudimentary and they are blown off course by a storm. Athelstan joins them for the first time on a raid, a different man than when we first met him in season 1. Blown off course, they lose a significant amount of ships, and find themselves in Wessex instead of Northumbria. We learn in this episode that Athelstan has adopted a lot of viking customs, but also that Ragnar has been learning the English language.

Upon arriving in Wessex, they are ambushed by soldiers, but manage to fight their way to victory. Sadly one of Horik’s sons die in the attack. Athelstan saves Ragnar’s life while in battle for the first time, and earns even more of Ragnar’s trust. They are informed by two soldiers that they are in Wessex and the King Ecgbert is a man very similar to Ragnar.

Ultimately, I only very mildly liked this episode. Probably because of the lack of Bjorn and Lagertha, who are definitely my favorite. But I was happy to see more of Athelstan, especially after the lack from last week.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOnvii7rLNw]