The Vikings have come up with its final season, streaming on Netflix. The series is perfect on the part of storytelling on the part of its creators. The bunch of casts that got featured in this show has done a tremendous job. By watching this show, you’ll not just get entertained but also you’ll connect yourself with the emotions that the story portrays.
Basically, then, this is one part of that “tender moment in the life of [a] country” presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg keeps on stating about. However, Kattegat doesn't suffer from a power vacuum though, because a leader stepped up in the fifth season finale, one its people know and trust. Instead, it and its leaders have entered a space in its history, and history itself, filled with possibility, peril, and the unknown.
Using the vocable "tender" to this sequence of events proves to be appropriate enough. In a world where power is composed of humans who are proficient at exercising swords and military strategy, that’s not a good thing.
“Vikings” may partly owe its existence to the popularity of “Game of Thrones” — it debuted two years after HBO’s fantasy first premiered — but across its six seasons, the series established its own devoted fanbase and respectable ratings.
However, some have outright declined “Vikings” since its 2013 debut mainly because it isn’t “Game of Thrones.” It never aspired to be, but that doesn’t matter. Here there be no dragons, only shield maidens and conquerors. In some cases, they are one and the same. Here we have a cast of actors mainly known for their TV work (other than Gabriel Byrne, who appeared in the first season).
And here we have a program running on a basic cable network that for years was synonymous with cheeseball re-enactments. “Vikings” never had such low standards and in fact, steadily improved with each passing season. No matter; those who refuse to watch are free to stay that course, although they’ll be missing out on a final season I suspect will be more satisfying and fully baked than anything “Game of Thrones” creators D.B. Weiss and David Benioff presented during their finale run.
Season 6 kickstarts after a contentious arc pitting the sons of the long-gone king Ragnar Lothbrok (Travis Fimmel in early seasons) against one another for control of Kattegat, a major seat of power in Scandinavia in the series' timeline.
Kattegat’s throne has changed hands throughout the series, passing from Ragnar to his queen Aslaug (Alyssa Sutherland, also departed) to his ex-wife Lagertha (Katheryn Winnick) who reclaimed it by force.
In the fifth season, Ragnar and Aslaug’s son Ivar the Boneless (Alex Høgh Andersen), born without the use of his legs, established a style of rule that may seem awfully familiar to some watching at home.
Prodded by some old-fashioned sibling torture at the hands of his brothers Ubbe (Jordan Patrick Smith) and Hvitserk (Marco Ilsø), Ivar spends his entire life compensating for his disability by establishing a reputation as a heartless killer.
Where his father, mother, and Lagertha expanded Kattegat’s wealth by opening it up to trade, Ivar closes its gates to foreigners. Ivar is incurably paranoid, silencing all who speak against him by using an inspired variety of cruelties, even burning Hvitserk's lover alive. He declares the right to do all of this by claiming he is a direct descendant of Odin, a god.
Eventually, Ivar’s half-brother Bjorn Ironside (Alexander Ludwig), Lagertha, and Ragnar’s eldest son overthrow him, but he disappears and escapes justice. And Lagertha, dethroned in a previous season and drives into madness, returns to crown her son king. The End . . . of Season 5, not the story.
History and TV storytelling follow predictable cycles. One repeats, and the other echoes certain refrains — one being if the villain is not dead, he’s not done. Sure enough, in the two-hour premiere, we find Ivar wandering the Silk Road and heading east to Kievan Rus, where his path crosses with another ambitious ruler with a cruelty streak that is at least equivalent to his own.
In creating “Vikings,” Michael Hirst loosely follows the outlines of various legends and accounts from Norse history, legend, religion, and politics to build a multi-generational family drama fueled by impressive battles, muscular swordplay, and bloody betrayals. The action is the smashing costume to the story’s substance and its provocative examinations of the benefits and drawbacks of cultural expansion.
Time and again the ruling clans of Kattegat and Norway have joined forces and collided philosophically —and physically — over the definition of what it is to be Viking. Are they explorers, raiders, warriors, or farmers? More recently, it asks how long the Norse beliefs that have long guided the Northmen can hold out against the ever-expanding forces of Christianity.
Hirst, who wrote the Oscar-winning “Elizabeth” and Showtime’s “The Tudors,” stitches together these threads we know about Viking society, politics, and religion while luxuriating, if one can call it that, in understanding that the average person knows little about Norse heroes or their exploits. That allows him some creative license while at the same time obliging him to meet up with an ending already recorded by historians and storytellers.
Vikings' final season slumps during the middle, struggling to tie-off certain storylines with characters who never quite grabbed hold as they should have, but the final few chapters, which juxtapose the serene settlement of new land, with old lands being soaked in blood for the sake of "glory," make for a thrilling and poignant climax. For those of you in need of more epic Viking tales, Vikings: Valhalla is currently in production for Netflix -- and is set roughly 100 years after the events depicted in Vikings and will include appearances by famous Vikings from history like Leif Erikson, Freydís Eiríksdóttir, Harald Hardrada, and William the Conqueror.
If are you are a fan of warriors, power, wisdom especially things related to different gods(Odin, Thor, Jesus) then you shouldn’t miss this out. Vikings are series that have everything that connects a viewer like war, friendship, emotions, creativity, and anything you want.
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