This is a review for Seven Kings Must Die so spoilers ahead if you haven’t seen the movie. 

I was waiting for the movie since the final season ended last year & the companion movie was announced. And the final season ended in the most beautiful way ever. One of the best endings to one of the best if not the best historical drama. And I never thought it needed a movie tbh, but I was still excited to see more of this world & our beloved protagonist. 

And man do I have so many mixed thoughts after watching it. First of all huge praise to the production design, music, cinematography & visuals. This is the best this show has looked & every shot in the movie was art. Now onto more important things, this movie especially the first half felt very rushed, it’s what happens when you try to cram quite a lot of content in a 2 hour movie. This would have been one of the best things ever if this was a proper complete season instead of a movie. Not even ten minutes in and we had already visited multiple locations & a lot of important events took place in like minutes when they should have got a lot more time. The first half on top of being rushed, also has some writing & character flaws imo. It introduces new characters & paints them as a threat but due to the extremely fast pace, there is no development and they don’t feel like threats as well. HUGE SPOILERS- killing of aldhelm & aethelstan being the one who gave the order was a very poor decision & it was something that wasn’t redeemable at all imo, idk why they went for it, it’s like they ran out of ways to end his arc. I don’t mind them making aethalstan gay much but the fact that it played into him being manipulated by the spy could be looked down as both a good & bad decision, for me it was the latter. And the fast travel was ridiculous but that was to be expected

Now the second half on the other hand feels like it’s written by completely different people. It carries immense emotional weight, it has great dialogue, the character conclusions are perfect & the ending battle was incredible. Once again this show proved why the battles are the most realistic, tactical & thought about battles on tv. The scene of uthred almost dying witnessing the chaos around him, peak cinema. Beautifully shot, incredible acted and with an amazing score. Ingrith’s death was something I wasn’t expecting. “The woman you love”, she meant finan not uhtred damn. Beautiful scene that almost broke me. And now we come to the ending, uhtred’s character got the most perfect conclusion possible, I love the open ended nature of the ending, if uhtred went to valhalla to feast with his fallen comrades, or if he chose to stay alive & live a peaceful life with eadgifu & his friends. Like book of nora & made in american, this ending will also have people discuss what actually happened over the years. Even tho aethalstan’s writing was weak here, his conclusion was still very good. The ending made me cry ngl. It was just beautiful. And the transition to the present day. Just icing on the cake. 

All in all, even with it’s flaws & being very rushed. I absolutely enjoyed Seven Kings Must Die. I was so happy when the intro started, I was so happy to be back into this world & by the time it ended I was in tears thinking that I have to say goodbye to it now. At the end more than complains & mixed thoughts, what I had was this feeling of emptiness & bittersweet happiness. This was a perfect conclusion to UHTRED OF BEBBANPEAK!

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