Season 2: Episode 1
6/4/202610 min read
Okay, now we’re getting to the meat. I. Love. Season. Two. I love it so much, we’re introduced to all of my favourite characters and the story is less jumpy than season one. Let’s get into it.
Firstly, Millie Brady does an incredible job as young Aethelflaed. It’s very clear that the makeup department did everything they could to make her as young as possible with her cheeks being pink and all but what really sells it for me is the way that she speaks and literally jumps down the stairs when she’s following her parents. Incredible job and very much needed given the fact that she plays Aethelflaed from now, which I’m assuming is mid-teens, until she’s a fully grown adult with a daughter ready for marriage. I’m not even going to address the fact that she was like eight in the last season because apparently, the time jump is only a few months and there is no way she can grow that much. It’s The Last Kingdom. The one thing we need to ignore to retain any sort of sanity is the ages of the characters through all the time jumps.
Uhtred starting off just wandering, staying in inns and whoring and drinking to absurd amounts just feels so right. He has learned quite a bit about Saxon politics and war strategy but he’s still young and arrogant. I love how Hild wakes him up (Queen Hild of the Water Bucket!) and his reaction yelling that he’s Uhtred son of Uhtred before banging his head and falling down completely disoriented. Actually, that scene alone feels very symbolic of his journey in this episode. He starts off lost and down in the dumps and is thrown into Saxon politics again. And going off of that, in the next scene, Serpent-Breath kind of represents a purpose for him. Once Hild AKA destiny decides he is ready, he’s given his sword AKA a fricking purpose and his story can resume.
Roger freaking Mackenzie! I rewatched this series after seeing Outlander and for some reason, did not pick up on the funny priest yelling about not saying grace being Roger Mac. I can still hear his accent coming through a little when he’s talking to Uhtred about praising god and all that. A preacher in every universe.
Sometimes, I forget just how much Haesten is in this series but nevertheless, he is on the weasel count. He might’ve actually been the second person on that list after Aethelwold. Either way, I love that our introduction to him (I’m not counting the two sentence conversation with Sigefrid and Erik) is when he’s chained and being swatted at for entertainment. And then Uhtred frees him. Do you think Uhtred ever grew to regret that decision? I mean, Haesten causes a lot of trouble for them later on. He gathers intel for the Danes, has his own army in season three, tries to kidnap Aethelflaed, kidnaps Skade, leaves Uhtred and his pretty boys to die hanging upside down. Uhtred doesn’t seem like the ‘look back and regret it’ kind of person but with how much trouble Haesten causes for him personally, he’s got to be frustrated that he let him go free, right? Or maybe he sticks by his decision because his morals couldn’t let someone be treated that way just because of his culture. Uhtred has indeed been mistreated purely because he identifies as a Dane so maybe he saw a part of himself and his own troubles in Haesten and didn’t want another to suffer as he could’ve suffered.
Beocca is such a good character to watch. He is just so funny without even trying. I love every time he and Uhtred reunite. Their friendship feels like such a good grounding throughout the seasons with all the tight spots Uhtred gets himself into and it’s just like a breath of fresh air whenever they’re chatting away. But how did Uhtred not put together that Alfred’s priest = Beocca? I feel like it’s pretty obvious and Uhtred is aware that Beocca is Alfred’s priest and close advisor so why was he surprised it was Beocca? Side note: Beocca and Brother Trew making the sign of the cross IN SYNC and Uhtred rolling his eyes had no right being as funny as it was. Bro does not care about visions from saints in heaven. He just cares about the real, tangible facts and how they can benefit him and further his goals. I think the fact that it was Kjartan’s land that they needed to go to to free Guthred probably confirmed for him that this was destiny trying to push him onto this path. Without that factor, I don’t think he would’ve agreed to help free Guthred even though it’s Beocca asking.
I think that’s another indicator of why Hild says to Uhtred that she thinks Beocca is asking too much of him yet Uhtred is on board with the plan. It’s clear that although she’s a nun who believes in God, Hild doesn’t put as much stock into this vision from St Cuthbert as Beocca does and from the way Beocca is acting, whenever Cuthbert is mentioned, it’s hard to disagree that Cuthbert is his favourite saint. If it was the 21st century, he’d definitely have Cuthbert’s picture on his living room wall. But back to Hild, we get several hints in this episode that she isn’t as ‘God fearing’ as the other Saxons. For starters, she’s a nun and she announces that she’s killed before and will probably kill again without looking the slightest bit bothered by it. She also doesn’t make the sign of the cross like Beocca and Brother Trew do when they’re talking about the vision and she wants to learn to be a warrior. Hild is definitely a voice of reason and she’s just such a good character to reason with Uhtred after Leofric’s death now that he has no one to kind of put him in his place.
Speaking of the plan, it’s sort of a given thing in film and TV that if the plan is explained in front of the audience, it fails and if we only see it happen in action, it succeeds. So it does come as no surprise that whatever Uhtred’s plan with the lepers is, it works fantastically. It just makes watching it unfold so much more interesting and it’s so easy to pull callbacks to when Uhtred was talking with Ubba saying that the gods didn’t favour him to unsettle him before the battle. And the fog adding to the mystique of the dead horsemen and the lepers was truly a paid actor and Uhtred is so lucky that it was foggy so his entrance could be that much more dramatic. Beocca doing what he does best, signing the cross for what has to be the tenth time this episode but Sven being confused about it was beyond funny. I cackled.
Welcome back to weasel town, folks. Non-Disney Sven is back with his weaselly ways, telling literally everyone that he’s just a pathetic son of an egotistical sword Dane. Actually, I wanna pause and talk about Sven for a second. He is so unworldly. He thinks that everyone should just obey him because he is the epitome of a nepo baby in the 9th century. He has no courage, nothing about him is threatening. When Aemond Targaryen only had one eye, it made him look terrifying. Sven Kjartansson just looks like he fell over and lost it that way. Whenever anyone confronts him, he’s just whining and pleading for mercy. He has absolutely no spine. How on earth are he and Sihtric brothers? When he’s properly blindfolded and stumbling through the forest, he just looks so pathetic calling out that no one should harm him, which just sounds like he’s saying his father is his protector and he can’t handle himself. He even seems powerless when talking to Thyra, who is literally locked up as his prisoner. It’s so clear that she holds the power between the two of them. While I’m on the subject, what was Thyra chanting? Why was Sven scared when she started speaking another language? Was it a curse? She’s not a witch? It’s never brought up again?
But circling back to the slave market, Guthred looks like such an average guy, like I could probably mistake him for an extra, yet in Angels and Demons, dude looks so unique. I don’t know how to describe it other than he looks like he’s supposed to be albino but isn’t. I genuinely don’t know how to describe it other than that. But in this show, he looks like a regular lad, which actually just makes it so much better that Abbot Eadred thought Uhtred was the king.
Abbot Eadred has a presence that immediately tells you we don’t like him. He’s firmly against any sort of nuance when it comes to religion and even when he’s told that there’s nothing deceitful about Uhtred and Guthred’s relationship, he’s already decided that Uhtred is an imposter. I do appreciate the nuance the show takes in not taking a side of confirming either Christian or Viking gods and this is one of those times. Father Beocca, our most prominent devout-to-God Saxon, is fully in on this whole vision business but Abbot Eadred makes a whole song and dance about seeing Uhtred’s face and when he’s corrected, you can clearly see that he despises the fact that he was caught straight lying. And despite that obviousness, Guthred appears to believe in the vision as well. I honestly think Abbot Eadred struck absolute gold with Guthred because he’s such a people pleaser so not only will he make people like him as their king but he’s easy to manipulate to suit whatever stance Abbot Eadred wants him to take. And on top of that, Guthred is actually quite dumb so even if others pick up on Abbot Eadred’s tactics, Guthred himself is none the wiser. Seriously, how are he and Gisela related? I wonder if Abbot Eadred chose Guthred specifically because he knew there would be little resistance to spreading Christianity.
Oh my god, finally a love interest that lasts longer than two episodes. Gisela is the best of Uhtred’s women and I will stand by that. From the second we see her, you can already tell that she’s intelligent and compassionate and level-headed, which is exactly what Uhtred needs in a partner. He needs someone to support him but keep him grounded, water his temper and be able to talk through politics and hold their own. During Guthred’s coronation, Uhtred and Gisela are standing next to each other and you could argue that it’d just be natural that the king’s sister and his commander would be together up the front but the fact that the shot centers on the both of them seems intentional, like it’s setting up that they’re equals and planting it in our heads that they can be paired together. And when the chanting starts, Gisela joins in late after looking around at everyone, which I think tells us two things. First, she isn’t accustomed to Saxon traditions because she’s a Dane. Second, she looks worried like she knows that her brother’s now a part of something he can’t get away from and that he isn’t equipped to survive it so he’s gonna be walked all over. I do love how she messes around with him, though, after the ceremony calling him Lord Goose-shit and all. She can be playful like Uhtred and she’s got some fire in her.
And side note before we leave Uhtred and the gang for this episode, the camera keeps coming back to Halig fully passed out on top of his dinner and bro is just so happy to be getting proper accommodations. I bet he was so tired of constantly being either sleeping on the road or at inns with drunk Uhtred slutting it up in the next room.
Won’t lie, I completely forgot that Ragnar and Brida were prisoners in Winchester but at least they have each other to keep company and it does look like they’re being looked after considering how clean they look. It makes me think of the contrast between that and when Aethelflaed is held hostage by Sigefrid and Erik later and she looks FILTHY and needs to convince them to let her wash. I’m glad that Alfred understands at least to some degree that they are just his prisoners because they fought on opposite sides and they’re not despicable people who personally offended him for the sake of cruelty. Their conversation about Dane vs Saxon culture just confirms that for me. He’s being so reasonable and Brida makes a move to take Ragnar’s hand when she’s disagreeing with Viking way of life, which could be her throwing disrespect at Alfred because the Saxons are very weird about physical intimacy (I mean, the fact that Alfred and Aelswith have separate bedrooms despite being married with two children is just wild to me) or it could be her trying to bring Ragnar to her side since she knows that he could be more susceptible to dropping the argument for the rights to Dane culture. He’s more about keeping the peace than her and she could be worried that he’d stop their fight to invade Saxon lands for that peace. Also, the way she’s sitting says that she cares less than Ragnar about peace because while he’s sitting respectably before Alfred, the king, she’s cross-legged in the chair.
Lastly, I wanna talk about Kjartan. It is so clear that he is carrying the power in comparison to his man-child son. Even when Sven is reporting to him about Guthred, his father gets his right-hand man, who honestly just acts like Sven’s babysitter, to verify everything Sven was saying. And then when Sven tried making it sound like his claims had more validity by saying they might’ve heard it five times, Fiske almost scolds him and says it was three. And from the way Sven is telling his father about it all, it sounds like he;s complaining and insinuating that it’s his father’s responsibility to sort it all out even though the only reason Guthred is king and Uhtred is his commander is because Sven was stupid enough to believe that a physical man on a horse was a Odin’s messenger from Corpse Hall. And even when recounting what happened to his father, Sven didn’t once think that the story sounds so fake. Kjartan was smart enough to put together that the horsemen showing up benefitted no one but the group coming to get Guthred.
So yeah, Sven is on the weasel count, Uhtred’s likability is on the rise, we got a glimpse of Sihtric - first of Uhtred’s pretty boys to show up - and I’m so keen for this season.