The Battle of London Bridge (Vinland Saga)

The Battle of London Bridge is the 9th episode in the first season of Vinland Saga.

Plot
In October 1013, King Sweyn leads an assault on London, hiring all Vikings including Askeladd's crew. With Thorkell the Tall betraying them for the English, Askeladd offers Thorfinn another chance at a duel if he can kill the powerful viking.

Why it Rocks

 * 1) It advances the plot in a pretty great way from a typical revenge story into a historical epic, with battles of truly epic scale and consequences to many other people. It also introduces plenty of major plot points, like the kingdom of King Sweyn and the importance of the battle of London.
 * 2) It also does a great job showing the complexity of the conflict, the brutality of both sides and how neither were really on the winning side, both morally and literally as the Vikings had a great deal of difficulty capturing the titular London Bridge.
 * 3) A brutal and awesome fight scene between Thorfinn and Thorkell, showing limits to the former's skill despite his extensive training, but also how there's ironically limits to the latter's skill that one could easily exploit. This fight is not over either quickly or in this episode, greatly increasing anticipation for the promised rematch duel between Thorfinn and Askeladd that becomes a major plot point as a result.
 * 4) It does a better job introducing Thorkell than the previous episode, showing him now not only as a powerful warrior who enjoys war, but also how he has a great deal of tactical knowledge and understanding towards his enemies that is the reason why he's so powerful. It also helps to show how he becomes a much more major villain for the remainder of the season as opposed to some of the others who either became allies or got killed off quickly.
 * 5) Introduces Canute (based on Canute the Great, as discussed in the main page) who also becomes a major character for the rest of the season, giving plenty of mystery to his character that makes him intriguing despite him not speaking a single word.
 * 6) A surprising anti-war message towards the end, showing how many casualties there were and the consequences both globally and personally killing can have.
 * 7) Thorfinn gains some more character development as he starts to further question his quest for vengeance and the consequences of his decisions, even outright wondering why Thorkell loves war, saying "what's so fun about war?"
 * 8) The ending shows some new developments in the war between the Vikings and the English which become more major themes, like most of the Vikings being reassigned to the norther parts of the country and Askeladd's army being sent to Wessex, putting Thorfinn's vengeance on hold.

Reception
The episode received 9.2 out of 10 stars on IMDb.