The last season of the show based on Norse mythology is out and it is not the grand finale that the audience expected. The third season of the show ties up the loose ends of the story that was started in the first season and this is a great shame because the final season is rather a mess. This being a fan of the show since the beginning, I couldn’t help but feel let down and annoyed by how the events unfolded. The season is rather packed and the writers seem to have tried to fit in as much as they could, which left many story arcs feeling rather rushed. It is like watching a marathon runner in the final mile, struggling for breath and getting into a poor running position. Although there are some fun scenes and character interactions, the game is rather rushed and feels like it lacks the polish that could have made it great. In this article, we will be discussing what was good, what was bad, and why this final season is a perfect example of how the series could have been given a much better ending.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11311302/
- Platform: Netflix
A Rushed Farewell
Too Many Characters, Too Little Time
The main problem with this season is it is filled with too many characters and there are just not enough scenes to give each of them their due, specially when it comes to who is going to rule Kattegat and who is going to rule England once Canute is gone, that scene felt so hard to watch with him trying to make excuses of why and who is going to rule between his sons with Emma and Aelfgifu. It feels as if the show is attempting to do too much at once and in doing so some elements inevitably suffer. There are new villains and side characters that are introduced but they are not given as much time as we would like to know more about them, it is the case of the battle between Mangus and Freidis, felt so lame while on the other side of the world Harald was getting all the attention necessary to develop his story. This is quite annoying because some of the new characters that are introduced appear to be quite compelling but I still felt each episode ran out of time to get to know them before the story shifts focus to another sub plot, probably not know them better say about their past but at least let them take their time to have some real arguments and fights. If we really think about it between Mangus attacking Freidis village and her getting tight to a poll to get burn how many times they did really had an argument or properly fight?, another scene that piss me off was how easy they killed Canute's father when on season one and two the man was a bad ass who out smart most of them.This is because everything is so fast paced that many of the story development are left rather unexplored, just like Canute's father that show up and then immediately killed. Characters will talk about their goals at the beginning of the season and then either the plot will be wrapped up rather quickly or completely ignored, the case of Canute how he had a great moment when visiting the Pope and starting a fight over there and his second best scene was close to the end when he had to name an heir, what else significant he did? the scene where they had him mimic Ragnar sitting looking at the land was cool though. It's a shame because there are some rather good concepts present here, but they are not given the chance to develop as they should.
The season also has a problem of changing the scenes and story lines too often and too frequently. At one point we are tracking one character and the next we are with another character in the middle of the other side of the world, it is the case of Canute, Harald and Freidis. It gives the story a rather fragmented and confusing feeling at times, especially annoying because in the previous seasons the show seemed to handle multiple story development while still maintaining the flow of the show, they dedicated enough time to each character at a fixed location and not jumping from one place to another, three or five times within the same episode.
The Good Stuff
Action Sequences Performances
I have to say that the season does come up with some decent action scenes, most of them from Harald and his glory with the Romans. There is a huge action sequence at the beginning of the episode which somewhat echoes the famous London Bridge fight of the first season, very similar where Leif (Green Lander) use a lot of science unknown for many to breach the castle. It is not as great, but it still has some nice battle strategies and impressive fight scenes, this are some of the moments make me recall why the show is so good when it is at its best, spin off are not always the best, rarely top off the original series and I was never expecting Vikings Valhalla to be the case although adding Valhalla to it sets the bar very high.The cast still delivers as well as they can with the material they are provided with, the cast is mostly good, especially Harold, Freydis, and Leif’s actors. Despite the fact that the writing is not always on the highest level, the authors succeed in creating rather realistic and interesting characters, the same applies to the secondary characters and the actors representing Canute, Godwin, and Emma gave their best.
Missed Opportunities
Character and Plot Development
Everything is so fast that people do not have enough time to build up their characters and become more complex, such as Leif and Freydis, are rather underdeveloped and seem to have little to do in many episodes when they were in the eye of the storm on previous season. It is my opinion their story do not receive the closure they require after three seasons of development. The ending feels like the writers had more seasons in mind but had to rush and tie up the loose ends, this results in some rather cutting corners conclusions and one is left with many questions that will most probably never be answered, all of the sudden we saw Canute having troubles to close his hand and they call it, he is dying because he is old, wtf.
The plot in England with the characters of Canute, Emma and Godwin seems somewhat out of place and separate from the rest of the series, reminds me a lot of Vikings season where Avar goes to Russia and it felt so disconnected from the rest of the original Vikings story but at least he had to much screen time that the episodes were fixed on him giving enough context.
After finish the series I got to the conclusion that his probably was a budget problem, the budget for this season was not as large as in the previous ones. The large scale fights that were a staple of the earlier seasons are not as frequent, been the scenes that cost money, for example when Harald got into Constantinople, the castle look so small, the scenario itself felt cheap. The action scenes are not as frequent and when they do happen they seem to be on a smaller level. From a production perspective it is quite reasonable but as an audience, I felt left feeling slightly deflated as the climax of the series is not as spectacular as I thought it would be.
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