12 episodes up on Netflix from February 25th
If I remember rightly, they've moved on a couple of hundred years (not that Vikings liked to pin itself to specific years) and we'll likely see the result of Rollo becoming Duke of Normandy as well as other events from the first show.
I'm tentatively excited. Vikings always looked and 'felt' amazing, and they used the increased budgets well. The battles in the first season were about 20 blokes in a quarry pushing shields into each other, but later on they looked great. I assume there will be money behind this from the start.
But... holy crap, the continuous backstabbing between brothers or allies got really tedious as a plot device. I know it's based on existing sagas, and some of that must be from the sources (or even just an accurate reflection of Viking politics) but by the end it was just painful. The parts of the show I loved the most were following those who wanted to explore and see the Dark Age world, but Bjorn lasted about 3 episodes in the Mediterranean before abandoning that to go home and fight in some new grimy war that pitted brother against brother.
And lastly, by the end I couldn't have picked out of a lineup any of the former peasant/slave girls that had fluttered their eyes at the throne of Kattegat and been the new queen 2 episodes later. Another overused trope.
It sounds like I'm ragging on the show I know, but realistically it was great, and then they ran out of story not long after Ragnar died so just kept remixing the same battle for Kattegat but with a slightly wider net of Kings, Jarls etc involved each time, all brought on board by a treacherous brother or unfaithful husband/wife. There were some fun diversions along the way even then, but not enough to sustain it.
