Vikings (TV Series) Trial (2013) User Reviews

The Raid, The Rape and The Trail

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 24 September 2017]

Ragnar and his crew head to a coastal village in England and arrive on Saturday. They fight the Sheriff and his men and Rollo wants to attack the village but Ragnar asks his men to wait until the next day. On Sunday morning, they invade the village and most of the residents are at mass. They loot the village and Knut rapes a Saxon woman. Lagherta asks him to stop and Knut tries to rape her; however Lagherta kills him. When they return home, Earl Haraldson asks for Knut, who is his bastard brother, and Ragnar assumes that killed him. Haraldson sentences him to a trial and makes and offer to Rollo to testify against Ragnar. What will Rollo do in the trial?

"The full of action "Trial" is so far the best episode of "Vikings" despite the battle on the beach where Ragnar and his men defeat a greater number of warriors. Rollo is an intriguing character and his attitude in the trial is a big surprise. Also intriguing is Ragnar's attitude on the top of the mountain and the warning of The Seer to Haraldson. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Trial"

Surprisingly Brutal and Stellar

[amongpixels · 10/10 · 30 December 2020]

"Trial" picks up the show's pace immensely with a truly action-packed, drama-filled episode with plenty of high stakes, surprises, heart, strong visuals, and just pure entertainment. I was also taken aback by how willingly the show portrays the brutality of the Vikings and their raids. Meanwhile, Athelstan brings much of the humanity to the show, while characters like Ragnar, Lagertha, Rollo, the Earl and Floki all get moments, big and small, to grow them and their relationships stronger.

My only problem is with some of the dialogue, which still has its spotty moments of being rather blunt and unnecessary. However, there's also great exchanges like when the Earl asks the Seer if the gods even exists, and the Seer simply laughs.

Decent enough, though quite flawed

[huttyjabba · 6/10 · 22 May 2013]

The show is OK for just killing time, but there are so many errors I have to turn off my brain to watch it.

The name-thing is already mentioned. An earl is earl first-name, not earl last-name. Fjords and mountains in Denmark? They barely have hills above 100 m there. Norway is the place to find fjords with huge mountains. Sweden doesn't have fjords with mountains either.

Gabriel Byrne serves no function. A Viking society wouldn't have tolerated a purely parasitical leader like that. To us viewers he doesn't make any worthwhile contribution to the community whatsoever. Everybody has swords, so if you're put on top, the dudes with swords below you has to be better off with you on top, otherwise you wouldn't be there. He's simply cartoon evil. Dissing a hero like our brave Ragnar should have been the end of him.

And what is up with the accents? Why bother doing accents if the result is that characters within the same family have widely different accents? What is wrong with just plain English? Ragnar speaks fluent English, while his sun has the lamest "Scandinavian" accent I have ever heard, and the wife's accent is just straight out of Skyrim, I'm hoping the arrow to the knee will hit her throat instead.

Overall decent, because there is blood and it is vaguely based in history.

Entertaining but...

[Wirefan122 · 4/10 · 25 March 2015]

An episode set in England somewhere on the northeast coast (I think!) where the Norse are getting ready to attack a village for more loot. They arrive on a Saturday (?) and when Ragnar's brother suggests attacking straightaway he tells him that they will wait until Sunday because..."you'll see". Hmmmmmm...church, anyone?

They arrive Sunday morning (?) and find all the swords stacked outside the church which I find a tad bit unbelievable as how on earth did they know when the Sunday service was? Moving on, they kill some and loot the rest.

Arriving back at the beach where their ship is moored they see the local militia/army dudes taking away some of the men guarding the ship. The battle that ensues is disheartening to say the least. The Viking enemy let loose one volley of arrows (which land harmlessly on their 'shield wall') and then charge the same shield wall! Why not wait until the Vikings attack them to let loose more arrows? It's just a tad bit painful to watch the Saxons get massacred...makes one wonder how they conquered the English Isles to begin with.

I won't go into the actual Trial part of the episode but let's just say this show has some decent acting and better scenery. I will hang around for the rest of the season as I like to give a show at least one season before I jettison it.