This show does a good job with parallels — at times they are spelled out for us (as with Judith and Athelwulf's almost grim wedding vs. Floki and Helga's joyful, sexy one) but at other times they are so subtle that they seem almost accidental.
For instance, in the previous episode, we had Bjorn fight with Rollo, and…

Yes, I agree - and some are just a lot less fun — maybe that's why people like Plinko so much — it's a genuine game, not a test based on guessing where you'll probably be wrong.

Still catching up (on Vikings episodes) here —

Clarity needed!
re: Aidan's "confession" to Glenn — I got that the Alexandrians tend to err on the side of leaving people to get eaten by walkers, but I thought he said that they had left THEM (Rick's group) for the walkers? Didn't he say, "It was us, it was us…" or something?
I couldn't figure out what he exactly was…

At first, I thought she might have been the one who broke the owl.

I suppose it's been said before, but this review really nails it by calling out Anna's rape from Season 4 being a huge mistake to put into the story. (I know a lot of people were upset about it for many different reasons, but just in terms of the show's momentum, it was terrible.)
When Mr. Green gets mowed down, it…

Interesting! Can't remember if that had been a mystery… though if Harbard is indeed some sort of god, he could always have been indirectly involved, influencing other characters.

Went to "Game Night" at Second City's UP Comedy Club. It was pretty good - I noticed that the people who drank the most had the most fun: a comedy club rule, maybe? (I always though the 2-drink minimum, which I don't think SC has, had to do with making $, but maybe it has to do with making sure people laugh?) Of…

I remember when Hamm hosted SNL — I believe he was in one of those black-and-white Vincent Price spoofs Bill Hader used to do — and that wasn't even the strongest sketch. Along with his hilarious role in Bridesmaids, I do hope we see him in a lot more comedy.

Yeah, he has this kind of permanent sneer on his face. I was sure he was from pro wrestling or something.

So, I was watching over the past couple of episodes, and remember when King Ecbert says, all proudly to Lagertha, "Look at how I'm totally down with your pagan gods! I have drawings!" Lagertha responds that Viking gods are real to them: flesh and blood. Immediately after she says this, they cut to the Wanderer,…

I finally saw this — the poor reviews it received made me want to see it solely to support Jon Stewart, because even if the move was just terrible, the project was a noble one.

She died saving kids, and with the promise of being reunited with her daughter in Valhalla. That's got to be an ideal character death.

re: Kevin Durand — I recognized him, wasn't sure from where. Looking at IMDB, I see that he was on 11 episodes of "Lost." Even from the pics of him from the series, I can't quite place him. Was he the guy who was threatening to kill Benjamin Linus's (well, the French lady's) daughter, and Linus attempted to call his…

Good call. And his ferocious mullet did not help matters at all.

I actually spent some time thinking about what word he could have used instead. I mean, something like "fanny" wouldn't work well, would it? It's just too bad that the speech wasn't worded completely differently so as to avoid having to use a term for "butt."

Maybe someone already said this, but although there were tons of tempting fringe benefits for King Ecbert to bed Lagertha, I got the strong impression that his main motive had to do with gaining some sort of power over Ragnar.

Is anyone else pretty surprised that Ragnar & Co. didn't go ahead and kill Horik's son? Although we didn't actually see him die, it was almost as if we didn't need to.

Yes, and I believe Rollo was speaking of her (to Torstein, maybe?) in the first or second episode this season when he referenced having had one true love, and it came to nothing. The fact that Ragnar kind of interrupted Rollo's musings on this lost love pointed to Lagertha being the object.

The one thing I keep remembering about him was the story of him seeing his two young sons dead… and how he talked about them being positioned "ass" to face (or something like that) as being an insult. It really just took me out of the moment for some reason - not that it was necessarily anachronistic language, but it…