I’ve laid out my criticisms of
Vikings’ overall direction since (and for a time before) the death of Ragnar Lothbrok, at length. So here’s where I say that “It’s Only Magic” finds a way to recall
Vikings’ at its best for a little while. (It’s qualified praise, as I’m still me, after all.) As Ubbe and his followers explore what they assume to be Othere’s fabled Golden Land, with strange new creatures skittering through the abundant trees and a shimmering lake offering the sea-ravaged travelers a blissfully bracing swim,
Vikings recaptures a sense of wonder.
“What will you do? You are all men who are easily bored.”
Honestly, I was more thrilled by “A Final Straw,” an episode about bored men contemplating action, than I’ve been about much of the action-dotted by empty sixth season of
Vikings. Partly, that’s because the series has whittled down its cast and storylines to manageable numbers, choosing at least the most central figures to lead the push to the series’ approaching end. But, more, it’s been far too long since everyone was concentrated in the same story, rather than (poor Ubbe’s foundering followers aside) the show plodding back and forth to side-stories (in Rus, Paris, England) with all their variably overstuffed and under-dramatized non-Norse.