The fourth season finale ofVikingssaw one generation fall and another generation rise.
The sons of Ragnar Lothbrok marched to Wessex, seeking vengeance for their father.
It spoils nothing to say that the Great Heathen Army found victoryanddefeat.
Credit: History
But we’ll bespoiling everythingin the season’s final postmortem chat withVikingscreator Michael Hirst.
Going forward, are the remaining characters more cynical?
It was almost like the 1960s, that period!
And yes, things have changed mightily.
Any sense of security and any sense that you’re able to control events has evaporated.
But of course, they’re now against more cynical voices, like Ivar’s.
Ivar has a very strong voice, and he’s not wedded to the same dream.
He’s a more fundamentalist Viking.
Similarly, in the case of Wessex, there is probably more realism.
Was it always inevitable that they would turn on each other?
The sons of Ragnar united behind one cause only: revenge.
They all understood the necessity of that.
We saw immediately that there were stresses and strains between the brothers.
It was typical of Ivar to make that public.
Ivar doesn’t bother with niceties.
He is a divided character.
We will soon see his shock and shame and remorse for what he’s done.
But he lives in the moment.
And he’s not going to be laughed at.
He’s like Caligula, and it’s quite impossible for him to restrain his feelings.
[Killing Sigurd] is a big signal, for everyone around Ivar.
There are no constraints.
He doesn’t recognize constraints.
He can behave completely inappropriately.
We know there are certain traits about historical tyrants.
I’ve read enough history to know how Ivan the Terrible behaved, and Mao Tse-Tung, and Stalin.
There are some things that they always have in common.
One is huge vanity.
Ivar is already displaying some of those elements.
You feel that it’s going to get worse, and indeed, it does.
The finale ended with our first sighting ofBishop Heahmund, played by new regular Jonathan Rhys-Meyers.
How did you decide to introduce the character like this?
Heahmund is a real character.
Heahmund apparently was renowned as a fighter.
But I also wanted to complicate it further.
He’s full of contradictions himself.
He’s a fundamentalist Christian, and yet he is a man of great sensuality.
He’s tormented by these two things.
You feel, just from this very brief introduction, that somehow his path and Ivar’s will intersect.
Floki buried his beloved Helge in this episode and seemed to renounce his whole existence.
I loved the shot of him walking off into the darkness.
Is this the last we see of him?
That’s a wonderful image, and what it represents is the death of the Floki that we knew.
There is a rebirth.
Floki becomes a different sort of person.
He wants to submit himself to the will of the gods, and he certainly does that.
So Floki is still at the heart of the show.
Can you talk a bit about what the next season holds for the main characters?
The story of the sons is now underway.
They have individual exploits.
But also, the sons fall apart.
We’ve seen the beginning of the disunity.
