By John Ruberry
Moving to a new town, particularly after a tragedy–the death of your father–is a painful experience. Which is what high school student Magne Seier (David Stakston) and his younger brother, Laurits (Jonas Strand Gravli), confront when they move to the small Norwegian town of Edda in the Netflix series Ragnarok.
And Edda isn’t just any town. The largest employer there is Jutul Industries where their kindly but weak-willed mother, Turid (Henriette Steenstrup), finds a job. More on Jutul in a bit.
How does Magne cope? By becoming a reincarnation of the Norse god Thor. And if “jutul” sounds familiar, they are the enemies of the Norse gods.
Over the first two seasons, Magne, for the most part reluctantly, puts together a new gathering of the gods, including assisted care home resident Wotan Wagner (Bjørn Sundquist) as the new Odin, another high schooler, Iman Reza (Danu Sunth), as the new Freyja, and Harry (Benjamin Helstad), a mechanic and a boxer, as the new Týr.
While Wotan/Odin wears an eye patch–the mythological Odin was one-eyed–he doesn’t ride a an eight-legged horse. The contemporary Odin travels around Edda in a motorized scooter. But he does look into the future with rune stones. There is also a tip of the hat to the importance of dwarfs in Norse mythology. A minor character, Halvor Lange (Espen Sigurdsen), a doctor at Wotan’s nursing home, is a dwarf.
Magne of course has Thor’s hammer.
Laurits is the reincarnation of the devious trickster god, Loki, and it’s difficult to ascertain whose side he is on. As it is with his “child,” his onetime tapeworm, the Midgard Serpent, who Laurits calls “Little O.”
In the third and final season of Ragnarok, the gods expand their crew, adding Kiwi (Ruben Rosbach), as Heimdall, and Laurits’ love interest, Jens (Vebjørn Enger), as Baldr.
Ragnarök, according to the Norse mythology, is the end time of the world, when the jutul or jötunn, often sloppily translated into English–as it is for this show–as giants, battle each other. In the first season, we are introduced to the Jutul family, led by Vidar (Gísli Örn Garðarsson), his wife Ran (Gísli Örn Garðarsson) ,and their high school age children, Fjor (Herman Tømmeraas), and Saxa (Theresa Frostad Eggesbø). Vidar is the CEO of Jutul Industries, which is poisoning the fjord off of Edda, and Ran is the principal of Edda High School. All of this is quite awkward, to say the least, for Magne.
The following paragraph contains Season Two spoilers.
A battle between Magne and Vidar at the end of the first season in inconclusive, which is not that case with their second confrontation; Magne kills Vidar with and ancient axe. That is one of the few ways gods and jutuls can be slain. That leads to a power struggle between Saxa and Fjor for control of Jutul Industries. Ran withdraws into depression, and Laurits, who we learn is Vidar’s son, plays both sides of the conflict.
As Season Three begins, Turid is planning her wedding, inevitable conflict is coming, and oh yeah, final exams and graduation at Edda High School loom. As for that battle, the two sides line up, as in a western movie, or more accurately, as with the final showdown in Akiro Kurosawa’s Yojimbo.
While I enjoyed the first two seasons, I see Season Three as a big letdown. The performances are still compelling, the cinematography still great, and an enjoyable presence who was largely absent in Season Two, the radio announcer (Jeppe Beck Laursen), briefly returns. Ragnarok’s unseen announcer is reminiscent of the one in the M*A*S*H television series.
And I have to say it, the Laurits and Jens romance is very in-your-face one–as if the writers are yelling out, “Look, they’re gay! Gay! Gay! Gay!” Much more is left to our imaginations with Magne and his female love interests. The creepy romantic encounter at a party with Ran and two male students from her high school in the first season is mostly off-screen. Are the writers and directors trying to compensate for the decades of absence of gay characters in movies and in television series? Oh, one more failing: the CG to create the Midgard Serpent, is unconvincing.
As a whole, Ragnarok is still worth your time, particularly if you enjoy coming-of-age dramas and ancient mythology, but don’t expect so much in this final season.
As of this writing, it is the seventh-most popular offering on Netflix.
Ragnarok is rated TV-MA for violence, sexual situations, marijuana use, and underage drinking. It is available in Norwegian with English subtitles as well as dubbed English. Besides Norwegian, there are smatterings of Old Norse and English throughout Ragnarok.
John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.
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