Netflix’s Vikings: Valhalla ends where it always said it would: with the Viking Age closing. The series ran three seasons and 24 episodes, premiering February 25, 2022, and finishing July 11, 2024. Jeb Stuart created it as a sequel to Vikings, set more than a hundred years after that show’s events. Sam Corlett plays Leif Eriksson. Frida Gustavsson plays Freydis Eriksdotter. Leo Suter plays Harald Sigurdsson.
Trailer, via Netflix.
St. Brice’s Day, 1002
The series opens on the St. Brice’s Day massacre in 1002, when tensions between the Norse descendants in England and the native English reach a bloody breaking point. That choice of starting point is the smartest thing Vikings: Valhalla does. It gives the show a historical wound to work from instead of a vague promise of glory.
A hundred years after the original Vikings, the Norse are not raiders arriving from the sea. They are neighbors, settled, and the English want them gone. The massacre turns that resentment into bodies.
From there the show tracks a new generation. Leif Eriksson, Freydis Eriksdotter and Harald Sigurdsson are the names the series builds around, and the first season runs eight episodes. The show also sets the Norse against each other over Christian and pagan belief, which is a more interesting conflict than any of the battles against the English.
The Cast Around Sam Corlett
The supporting cast is where Vikings: Valhalla does its heaviest lifting. Laura Berlin plays Emma of Normandy. David Oakes plays Earl Godwin. Bradley Freegard plays King Canute. Caroline Henderson plays Jarl Estrid Haakon.
Casting reports in November 2020 named Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, Frida Gustavsson and David Oakes. Gustavsson was revealed as Freydís Eiríksdóttir, Oakes as Godwin. Jóhannesson was cast as Olaf Haraldsson, though earlier reports had him as Harald Sigurdsson — a part that went to Leo Suter.
Pollyanna McIntosh and Asbjørn Krogh Nissen took the supporting roles of Queen Ælfgifu and Jarl Kåre. That is a deep bench for a show that has to sell a century of distance from its parent series.
The third season added Florian Munteanu as General Georgios Maniakes in May 2022, and Goran Višnjić as Erik the Red in June. The second season’s new cast, announced that November, included Bradley James as Lord Hárekr, Hayat Kamille as Mariam, Marcin Dorocinski as Grand Prince Yaroslav the Wise, Sofya Lebedeva as Eleana, Tolga Safer as Kurya and Stanislav Callas as Jorundr.
Three Seasons, Two Renewals
Netflix ordered 24 episodes in November 2019. The series was renewed for a second and third season in March 2022, and the second season premiered January 12, 2023. The third and final season arrived July 11, 2024.
That is a clean run by streaming standards. A 24-episode order announced before the first frame aired, two renewals handed down a month after launch, and a finish that the creators could see coming. Vikings: Valhalla never had to write toward a cliffhanger it might not resolve.
The cost of that security shows in the middle season. Season two has the least to do, because it sits between the massacre that starts everything and the ending the show was always pointed at. It moves pieces. It rarely lands a blow.
What the Show Gets Right
The premise is the strongest asset. In England, the descendants of the Vikings and the native English are on a collision course, and the show does not pretend the Norse are innocent. The St. Brice’s Day massacre makes them targets and then makes them vengeful, and the series holds both facts at once.
The religious split inside the Norse camp is the better thread. Christian and pagan beliefs divide the same people who are supposed to be fighting the English, and that division does more dramatic work than any shield wall. It also gives Freydis Eriksdotter something to be besides a love interest.
The show’s scale is a real achievement. Three seasons, 24 episodes, and a story that spans from 1002 to the end of the Viking Age without collapsing into a single revenge plot.
Where the 24 Episodes Strain
Vikings: Valhalla inherits a problem it cannot solve. It is a sequel to a series that already told the Viking story at length, so it spends its first season reintroducing a world the audience knows. Leif Eriksson, Freydis Eriksdotter and Harald Sigurdsson are historical figures with built-in weight, and the show leans on that weight instead of earning it.
The English side is thinner than the Norse side. Emma of Normandy, Earl Godwin and King Canute are cast well, but the show treats them as obstacles and allies rather than people with their own reasons.
The final season carries the heaviest load. It has to close the Viking Age, resolve the Leif and Freydis and Harald stories, and justify the 24-episode order. It gets closer than the second season did. It does not fully get there.
Ranking the Three Seasons
Judged on what each season actually delivers, not on what it promises:
- Season one (2022) — the St. Brice’s Day massacre gives the show a real wound to open on, and the eight-episode order keeps it tight.
- Season three (2024) — the ending the series was built for, and the closest it comes to a real conclusion.
- Season two (2023) — the connective tissue season, and the one that most often feels like setup for something else.
That ranking is not a knock on season two so much as a measure of how much the first and last seasons had to do. The middle one just had to survive.
What the 7.0 Means
Vikings: Valhalla scores 7.0 out of 10. The published critical score agrees: Metacritic sits at 70 out of 100, and the aggregate critical figure is 7.0/10.
That number is fair, and it is also the most interesting thing about the show’s reception. A 7.0 is not a failure and not a triumph. It is the score of a series that did exactly what it set out to do and not much more.
The 24-episode order announced in November 2019 is the detail that explains the whole run. Netflix committed to three seasons before anyone saw a frame, and the show was renewed for seasons two and three in March 2022, a month after the first season premiered. Vikings: Valhalla was never fighting for its life. It was executing a plan.
That is why the show feels steady and rarely feels urgent. Nothing in it has the desperation of a series that might be cancelled. The St. Brice’s Day massacre is the one moment that lands with real force, because it is the one moment where the show’s outcome is not already decided.
The religious conflict between Christian and pagan Norse is the thread worth watching. It is the part of Vikings: Valhalla that is about something other than inheritance. The Leif Eriksson and Freydis Eriksdotter and Harald Sigurdsson stories are the hook, and they are handled capably by Sam Corlett, Frida Gustavsson and Leo Suter, but they are also the part a viewer can predict.
Vikings: Valhalla is a competent sequel that knows its ending and gets there. A 7.0 is the right score for that: worth the 24 episodes, not worth arguing about.
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