Mercenary' Recap 

'Vikings' creator on talks season 3...and how the show will end

King Ragnar sits, pondering his world. And the world is his—if 

, this is the moment when Tony Montana takes over the whole operation, kills his boss, sees his fortune in a neon blimp. (Pause to imagine a

conquest montage set to “Push It To The Limit.”) “When the ice finally breaks, we will go back to Wessex,” he promises his son. “And we will claim the land that King Ecbert promised us.” That was always his dream. To find a new land, a place where the crops can grow.

“What do you see?” he asks his son. Bjorn, standing on the mountaintop, staring down at the kingdom his father won: “Power.” Bjorn is getting restless. He wants to fight. He wants to raid. He’s a man now, but he’s still a young man. He’s not too far away from where Ragnar was back in season 1: A young warrior, excited to plunder new worlds. But King Ragnar is older, and wiser. “Power is always dangerous,” he says. “It attracts the worst and corrupts the best. I never asked for power.” And yet he took it. Is Ragnar saying that he only ever wanted to be a farmer? Or is he trying to convince himself of that—trying to prove that he is a different kind of ruler from vain King Horik? (Travis Fimmel’s deadpan Ragnar gaze is a running Rorschach test: You can never quite figure out whether Ragnar is telling the truth or lying, and whether he’s lying to us or himself.)

“Power is only given to those who are prepared to lower themselves to pick it up,” he concludes. (Put that on the coffee mug you keep at your desk.) A dark warning. Dark warnings are everywhere, here at the dawn of 

’ third season. Lagertha visits the Seer, seeking something like hope. Will she ever bear another child? “I cannot see another child,” rasps the seer, “No matter how far I look.” But he can see a few things, our favorite fortune teller, this half-man half-rash who looks like what happens when Jim Henson makes a muppet out of gonorrhea.

I see a city made of marble, and a burning broiling ocean

“It is the way of prophecy only to be understood when it has happened,” declares the Seer, “And it is too late to change it.” Lagertha asks when she will die. But only the wife of Odin knows—and she’s not telling.

So Lagertha might not have another child; so she might have some trickster-cleaving to look forward to. She’s too busy for premonitions. The Earl of Hedeby returns to her land for one last check-in before her adventure westward. She’s leaving her best man in charge: Kalf, who looks like what would happen if Jesus were the Cute One in a Boy Band. Lagertha and Kalf have a little Sherman-Palladino banter. “I have received another offer of marriage,” says Lagertha. The offer comes from a man whose name, if I heard correctly, is Jurgl Sørgülssérn. “He has a good turf cutting business,” says Kalf, and Lagertha responds, “At least I’ll be warm all winter,” and they laugh and laugh and laugh and you can just feel how they’re both wondering why all their clothes are still on.

“Why don’t you offer to marry me, Kalf?” asks Lagertha, never the shy nor retiring type.

“People would assume that I’d sought the marriage out of ambition,” explains Kalf. “It would do neither of us any good.” And now’s not the time for messy marriages. There’s a fellow by the name of Einar, who looks like Jeremy Davies with a Wario-stache. Einar isn’t happy with Lagertha’s administration; he’d prefer to restore the old dynasty. “What to do,” asks Lagertha, except she’s not asking, and she knows what to do.

All of Kattegat is preparing for the journey to England. Thorunn has been training in the fine badass art of shieldmaidenry. (ASIDE: I am generally opting for the least confusing spelling of peoples’ names—according to at least one reputable website, Thorunn’s name could also be spelled Þórunn, which looks like at least two languages I don’t speak. Let me know if any of this become confusing, and I’ll just start referring to characters by the musical genre their spiritual essence resembles. Ragnar is Gangsta Rap. Bjorn is Grunge. Lagertha is BritPunk. Floki is whatever Devo was. END OF ASIDE.) Thorunn is excited to go raiding. Bjorn isn’t so sure he wants her in Wessex. He suspects that she’s already with child. “If I lost you,” he says, “Then I would also lose my child.”

Ragnar could stand to lose a few children, at this point. He plays with his three young sons, “I’m going to cook you, little piggies!” he says. They all giggle. Then they stop giggling. Like a phantom, their mother appears, holding poor little Ivar in her hand. “How is Boneless?” asks Ragnar, dismissive. (You can feel already how Ragnar’s elder sons view their little brother as some kind of unknowable Other; you wonder how that will reverberate later in their sure-to-be-fraught lives.) “Do you love him?” asks Aslaug. “Of course I love him,” says Ragnar. Aslaug keeps going: “Do you love me?” Ragnar has no comment at this juncture.

“Name me one family that is happy,” says Floki. Maybe his? How Helga dotes upon him! How his beautiful little daughter has grown! “I feel 

 in all this happiness,” says Floki. “Trapped, Helga!” Inaction doesn’t suit Floki; it turns him into Larry David on 

, an anhedonic miser frustrated by his own joy. Best case scenario, he dies in Wessex; worst case scenario, he returns home, to all this miserable happiness.

Floki’s not the only one who’s running away from his problems. Look at poor Torstein, the blond bearded dude who’s sort of the Hawkeye of Ragnar’s 

. By which I mean: An everyguy who’s not one of the big guns, but who clearly has his own intriguing small-scale adventures. Or not so small-scale: Seems that, in this long cold winter, Torstein shacked up with two different women, and now they’re both pregnant. “Why don’t you marry both of them?” his friends suggest. “They 

 each other!” responds Torstein. “They want to kill each other. Or me!”

Athelstan, meanwhile, is looking forward to exciting new developments in his ongoing existential crisis. Ragnar can see his friend’s torment. “You can neither hide from your god, or ours,” says Ragnar. “I suffer from that same dilemma.” Ragnar wants his old friend to travel with him. “You will be my John the Baptist,” he declares. “Wherever you go, I will follow.” I always like how Athelstan’s character arc seems to combine certain narratives from Christian and pagan myth. Last season, we saw him crucified, in the manner of the Christ. In season 1, his arc followed the rough outline of a Hebrew leader: A man plucked from obscurity, shown a new religion, becoming a warrior. Now Ragnar is reconceiving his beloved priest as his emissary: The man who will prepare the way for some greater glory.

The day arrives; the warriors board their boats; their families stay behind, watching. Aslaug sees Ragnar talking to Lagertha: Her eyes are like daggers irradiated by a nuclear explosion. Helga watches Floki leave; Siggy watches Rollo leave; Torstein’s baby mamas watch Torstein leave. A triumphant departure… but back in Hedeby, a betrayal! Kalf takes Evil Jeremy Davies out into the middle of the water, seems to be about to kill him… but then asks for his support as Earl. “Ragnar and Lagertha talk only of farming. 

,” he says, like the word is poison on his tongue. “Who wants to go places and farm? Where is the glory in that, Einar?” You could compare Ragnar to Stringer Bell on 

. All Stringer wanted to do was go legit; all Ragnar wants to do is convert his plunder-based society into an agricultural economy. But there’s always some Kalf somewhere, who thinks farming sounds exactly as boring as farming is; there’s always somebody waiting to stab you in the front.

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