Vikings “Yol”

And now…It’s a Very Viking Christmas.

Yes, apparently, it’s the holiday season in Kattegat, and people are getting what they want.

Unless you’re, you know, the viewer and you want some of those action scenes.  Those don’t come up much in a holiday episode.

Unless we’re talking about people gettin’ some action.  There’s a bit of that.  Heck, some of that looked like a moderately happy ending for one guy for the time being.  The other was just confusing.

So, wait, what’s happening?  Besides some stuff in Wessex I don’t give a crap about?  They could probably spin that plot off into a new show called Everybody Loves Athelstan But Hates Judith.

So, anyway, Ragnar’s bringing in the giant Yol log, which means we get another episode showing the differences between Viking and Christian celebrations that always show the Vikings have more fun, even if that fun usually contains large amounts of blood, burning, and booze.  Ragnar is still fighting with Aslaug, who for some reason won’t let her husband near youngest son Ivar the Boneless.  Ragnar’s crime was treating his son like an equal instead of a weak cripple.  Man, he sucks!

But hey, it’s the holidays, and that means there’s some gift-giving.  Aslaug lets Ragnar have her new slave, the one who can’t get much of anything right.  She’s Chinese.  Possibly royalty.  How the holy Friga did she get there?  Something about pirates.  Ragnar takes her to his secret hut, and then she introduces him to some sort of medicine that makes Ragnar all goofy.  So, if you wanted to see where the Viking opium epidemic started, I think I have a good idea.

I don’t care what happened with those pirates, having a Chinese woman in Scandinavia in this time period makes no sense.

So, anyway, Aslaug gave Ragnar a gift.  She gave Ivar one too.  She asked a local guy, fresh out of the joint, if he’d train Ivar in the Ways of the Gods and to hate the Christian God with the same fervor of said new teacher.  Do I need to say the teacher is That Asshole Floki?

Aslaug also seems to be mildly amused when a newcomer, King Finehair, comes in saying he wishes to rule all of Norway, which would include Ragnar’s territory.  Well, that could be a problem.  Possibly for Finehair.  These things never work out with kings against Ragnar.

Out in the woods, Bjorn has toughened himself up enough to wear the fur of the bear he killed and all that when he finds himself attacked by that berserker killer dude.  And despite a limited vocabulary and a fearsome appearance, berserker dude kinda sucks.  He does drop that ring Horik Junior gave him.  Bjorn doesn’t know whose it is, but he does go off to his Mama’s land to say hi to Lagertha, claim Junior’s bride Torvi for himself successfully (cue Nelson Muntz’s “Ha-ha”), and make Kalf give us all the face he’d make if he ever crapped his pants.  Ha-ha!

But over in Paris, Rollo is about to get his ass divorced by Gisla when he…starts speaking French.  Or Frankish.  Whatever.  I do know that many French people appreciate it when people at least try to learn their language.  Anyhoo, Rollo makes nice with the wife who hates him, and even gives up his Viking Armband, the thing that got Athelstan made into an outcast once upon a time before That Asshole Floki killed him.  And then Rollo and Gisla make up for lost time, so to speak.  Boom chicka-wow-wow time.

At least somebody in the Christian lands had a good holiday.