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‘Vikings’ Season 6 Episode 5 Review: Hvitserk’s character arc seems to be a stretch

For almost half of Season 5 and first part of Season 6, we have been seeing Hvitserk in almost the same condition and we have started to feel a drag, not only in his character but also the plot developed around him.

Hvitserk (Marco Ilso) ⁠— son of Ragnar and brother of Bjorn Ironside, Ubbe and Ivar the Boneless ⁠— has been an important character in 'Vikings'. But unlike his older brothers, Hvitserk has always been a confused soul. While growing up, he was close to Ivar. They shared a bond that made him get easily blindsided by Ivar’s scheming nature and was ready to get his brothers Bjorn and Ubbe killed.

But eventually, he came to his senses when he lost the only girl he liked. He realized how manipulative Ivar has been. Hvitserk started to spiral into a depressive mode, resorted to heavy drinking, and kept getting drifted away from his family and friends.

This became more prominent after the last battle of Kattegat against Ivar. Post-war trauma is not unnatural, even for the most valiant warriors. However, his condition just keeps getting worse, as we see from Season 6.

Hvitserk is a prisoner to severe addiction and torment. He sees dead people, is haunted by Ivar’s voice and visions and still feels disgusted by what Ivar had done to him, and to the rest of the family. He even had a chance to get away from his condition when Ubbe offered him to lead the troops to the Far-East, but he squandered away that one chance.

Now, while we do understand that Hvitserk’s condition cannot be undermined, we have started to believe that maybe his character is being stretched a bit too far. In almost every episode since the start of the new season, we are seeing his character in almost similar shades, which has not changed much since the second half of the last season. This makes the entire visual experience monotonous and a bit too dragged, especially in the light of the other developments taking place in the plot.

At a stage of the story when we are seeing new characters, new alliances, and a whole new era in the making, having Hvitserk’s stagnated character could be detrimental to the rest of the plot. Unless there is a deep-seated agenda Michael Hirst has for Hvitserk in the future, which we still have no inkling of. But as of now, we are getting a tad saturated with Marco Ilso portraying the ever-traumatized son of Ragnar.

‘Vikings’ Season 6 airs every Wednesday, 10 pm, only on History Channel.