Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Vikings: Season 5, Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 31, 2019

20th Century Fox and Metro Goldwyn Mayer haven't exactly been providing fans with a nonstop array of Vikings releases, as evidenced by the fact that Vikings: Season 5, Volume 1 came out just about exactly one year ago. In my Vikings: Season 5, Volume 1 Blu-ray review, I mentioned how this now long running but perhaps still relatively unknown (or at least unrecognized) series might be able to fill in the sense of loss fans of Game of Thrones might have been feeling in what was a year ago the imminent demise of that series. My same review started by mentioning what was then (again a year ago) the hotly anticipated Game of Thrones prequel which was slated to star Naomi Watts, and in a kind of serendipitous if for some disappointing turn of events, just as I was preparing to write this review, a Variety breaking news article came across my news feed announcing that HBO was passing on the Watts prequel series. That may actually have portended well for Vikings, since it ostensibly removed one potential competitor for fans wanting a sprawling, mythically infused story that involves a feudal setting, but in a "plot twist" delivered shortly after the Watts announcement, yet another breaking news article from Variety appeared in my newsfeed trumpeting a non-Watts Game of Thrones prequel which is now set for HBO's Max service. That said, there's obviously going to be an interim period for a while where no "new" Game of Thrones content is going to be available, and while Vikings probably doesn't consistently rise to the heights of the George R.R. Martin inspired series, it's often surprisingly visceral, with a decent dose of supposedly "actual" history (probably questionable on at least some counts), involving storylines and some nicely energetic performances.

One of the kind of interesting subtexts of the whole now jettisoned Naomi Watts prequel was the fact that a female was being touted as the putative star, and that of course is perfectly in line with Game of Thrones’ frequent emphasis on powerful women. Vikings continues to ply the male side of things in this second half of the fifth season, with an emphasis on Ragnar’s sons and their struggles for control, but of course there are women on hand, too, sometimes in surprisingly powerful ways if not always official "positions" of their own.

One of the kind of interesting things about at least some of the men in Vikings is their perceived weaknesses. This comes into play with regard to two characters in particular, including Ivar (Alex Høgh), a “differently abled” character whom I compared to Peter Dinklage’s Tyrion Lannister, but who in this section of the season more or less declares himself king, becoming increasingly ruthless in the process. Much of this section of this season deals with, well, Games of Thrones-esque family dysfunctions between Ragnar's sons as a result of this declaration. Another king, Alfred (Ferdio Walsh-Peelo) is arguably another male without the preening swagger of some of the Vikings in the show, and his story plays as a kind of counterpoint, becoming the sort of "flip side" of Ivar's descent into madness. In fact, Alfred's tale might arguably be seen as the real focus of this section of this season.

Lest anyone fret that Bishop Heahmund (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), one of the “new” characters this season, is lost in the shuffle, he’s not, and in fact his nascent romance with Lagertha (Katheryn Winnick) provides quite a bit of content over the course of several episodes. (It's may be passingly interesting for some Game of Thrones fans to contrast Lagertha's "role" in various power struggles with some of the female characters in the other series.) Some of this material is frankly overheated to almost Douglas Sirk-ian levels, but the series goes for the gusto in a late development that would suggest that the sixth season of Vikings is going to be conquering new territories in a manner of speaking, one way or the other.

Vikings: Season 5, Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Vikings: Season 5, Volume 2 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of 20th Century Fox and Metro Goldwyn Mayer with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Despite an appropriate emphasis on ice cool blues, grays, and whites, this is often a remarkably well detailed presentation, one that afford more than adequate fine detail in any number of elements like the often quite striking costumes, or even in some of the scenes of wintry outdoor environments. There are some interesting pops of color along the way in what is often a kind of blanched, spare palette, and when bursts of red or purple intrude, they can be quite vivid. As with the first half of the season, occasional dimly lit sequences, or those with "artier" framings, can sometimes look relatively soft in comparison to the bulk of the presentation. I noticed no anomalies in terms of compression issues.

Vikings: Season 5, Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Vikings: Season 5, Volume 2 continues the first half this season's fine audio presentation with another sometimes raucous DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. There are the expected battles in some of this volume's episodes, and the soundstage tends to be filled with realistic effects, including everything from flying arrows to fires being set. The series also has a nicely rendered score, which often wafts through the side and rear channels and helps to establish a suitably propulsive mood. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout this problem free track.

Vikings: Season 5, Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

All three discs offer both the original and extended versions of all episodes. I didn't have time to watch every episode in both versions, but some of the extended versions I did watch actually provided some interesting additions to either characters or storylines.

Disc One

• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 2:57)

Disc Two

• The Most Terrible Thing (Extended Version) Creator's Audio Commentary with Michael Hirst and Gustav Skarsgard


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 6:50)

Disc Three

• The Epic War of Ragnar's Sons (1080p; 8:01) offers a few spoilers in its overview of this season.


• The King and the Warrior Bishop (1080p; 6:17) profiles Alfred the Great and Bishop Heahmund, and contains probably the biggest spoiler imaginable from this set of episodes, so forewarned is forearmed.


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 10:21)

Vikings: Season 5, Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Maybe the relative lack of new Games of Thrones episodes on cable recently gave me a deepened appreciation for this series, but I actually found myself quite caught up in the developments of this second half of the fifth season of Vikings. I'm not quite sure the amalgamation of supposedly real life characters with fictionalized folks totally works all of the time, but you do get at least a bit of a history lesson in this series, all within the context of the kind of amped up emotional ambience that often made Game of Thrones destination television viewing. The series continues to exploit a rather interesting visual aesthetic, and technical merits on this release are solid. Recommended.