On it's on, this episode was ok, the problem here was the whole storyline leading up to this episode was awfully written and executed.
The episode focused on mixing the war scenes with emotional flashbacks, it is a move that can certainly work, but only when you give a damn about the characters being focused on.
Michael Hirst has messed up so many times this season it's beyond me, killing off Aethelwulf, who (IIRC) was a major character since the first season, with a casual bee sting is just plain stupid and undeserved to the character (just keep in mind that the cause of death for the real Æthelwulf is not known, so the writer could kill him off in any exciting way he wanted...but... yeah... the dude went with Bee sting) in the end, he wanted to develop Alfre's plot, i get it, but it all seemed rushed and poorly executed.
On this episode there are A LOT of bland scenes that don't work because the plot and the dialogue execution throughout the series did almost nothing to make us care for the character in place, like, did we really needed a 2min scene of Halfdan staring at sand? Or Guthrum (i had to google this guy because i could not remeber who he was) death scene, or Margrette's doing whatever the fuck she's doing, hell even Hvitserk has had a plot so bland this season that i could not care about him at all.
It's really a shame because this show could have been a lot more than it really is, specially with the talented cast it has, and the directors usually do a fine job too. The real problem here is the in inconsistent and underdeveloped writting, wich seems to get worse from season to season. Such a shame.
The episode focused on mixing the war scenes with emotional flashbacks, it is a move that can certainly work, but only when you give a damn about the characters being focused on.
Michael Hirst has messed up so many times this season it's beyond me, killing off Aethelwulf, who (IIRC) was a major character since the first season, with a casual bee sting is just plain stupid and undeserved to the character (just keep in mind that the cause of death for the real Æthelwulf is not known, so the writer could kill him off in any exciting way he wanted...but... yeah... the dude went with Bee sting) in the end, he wanted to develop Alfre's plot, i get it, but it all seemed rushed and poorly executed.
On this episode there are A LOT of bland scenes that don't work because the plot and the dialogue execution throughout the series did almost nothing to make us care for the character in place, like, did we really needed a 2min scene of Halfdan staring at sand? Or Guthrum (i had to google this guy because i could not remeber who he was) death scene, or Margrette's doing whatever the fuck she's doing, hell even Hvitserk has had a plot so bland this season that i could not care about him at all.
It's really a shame because this show could have been a lot more than it really is, specially with the talented cast it has, and the directors usually do a fine job too. The real problem here is the in inconsistent and underdeveloped writting, wich seems to get worse from season to season. Such a shame.