We’re back with the latest episode recap of Vikings: Valhalla on Netflix. Here’s episode 4. 

Intro

We open scene in medias res. For all you non English majors, that’s Latin for “in the middle of things”, indicating a story has opened in the middle of the plot. 

There’s an ongoing battle and Leif is waking up out of a stupor. He appears to be injured. We flashback to the day before.

Battle Tactics

At the battle table, Cnut, Olaf, Harald and the other generals talk about their strategy for invading London. Harald is speaking and he advises Cnut that the best way to hurt England isn’t by taking London. It’s by taking King Edmund. And because he’s new to the throne and a teenager, it should be pretty easy, right? 

So the Vikings get to work. They start forging new weapons and … planks of wood? Leif calls them the new “ships”. They prep for battle in the marshes at night. 

Now we know what the “ships” were for. They use them to float on their back underneath the floating outposts to shoot arrows through the floorboards. Once they are able to steal the English ships, they sail up river and take position underneath the London bridge in the middle of the night. 

The Battle

A guardsman on the London bridge sees Viking ships in the distance and sound the alarm. At daybreak, the English raise the bridge defenses (spikes). Olaf and his 3 ships wait at a distance. But the English hear something else. It’s the rest of the Viking foot soldiers, led by Cnut. 

Cnut hops off his horse and approaches the gates of the castle. (Side note, there was actually no royal castle in London at this point in time historically, especially not at the embankment of London Bridge. In fact, the royal castle where the sons of Alfred the Great lived was in Wessex). 

He taunts Edmund for being a coward and hiding behind walls. It works. Edmund summons his horse and decides to ride out to meet the Vikings, disregarding his plan to wait for the Mercian army.

The two armies clash on the bridge and there is a brief battle. Cnut calls for retreat back to the embankment they came from. Edmund and his army continue pursuit.

At the same time, Olaf’s ships row forward and Leif, Harald, and everyone else under the bridge shoot arrows tied to rope, latching onto the ships. The ships then row back the opposite way, pulling the ropes taught, and bringing the bridge down with them. 

Edmund and Godwin are trapped on the opposite shore, as more Vikings emerge from the grasses, hidden. Edric of Mercia and his army finally pull up, but they decide not to attack, seeing that the battle has already been lost. 

The boy king is taken hostage by the Vikings. Leif, Harald, and Liv barely make it out alive from under the bridge. But Harald is overcome with excitement that their bold plan worked out in the end.