An inessential Vikings makes desultory moves in a game we've stopped playing
Dennis Perkins
“I could wish that you were more subtle.”
“All Change” resurrects the title of
Vikings’ long-ago, Season 1 finale. If you cast your mind back, that was when Ragnar Lothbrok first met, bedded, and impregnated Aslaug with Ubbe, thus cheating on Lagertha and dismaying essentially everyone, onscreen and off. Out of the four characters mentioned there, three are dead and Ubbe is the oldest remaining son of Ragnar after last episode’s death of his half-brother, Bjorn Ironside. Ubbe’s in Iceland, refusing to take up his illustrious father’s legacy as ruler of Kattegat, while still planning to follow Ragnar’s footsteps in discovering a fabled Golden Land to the west. Of the other sons of Ragnar, Hvitserk and Ivar continue to serve the would-be Rus conqueror Oleg, while Kattegat, reveling in the vikings’ underdog victory over the Rus, contemplates a new ruler.