Canute is back and seems to be sharing Vinland Saga Season 2 Episode 10 with Einar and Thorfinn for the first time. How did this episode bring them together? Let’s find out in this review!
Vinland Saga Season 2 Episode 10 Overview
Vinland Saga Season 2 is an action, adventure, and drama anime that serves as the sequel to its highly acclaimed and fan favourite Vinland Saga Season 1, which aired in 2019. The series is based on an award-winning manga written by Makoto Yukimura. Read the review of the previous episode of the series here!
The show’s second season is being animated by Studio MAPPA, a different studio that the one which did its previous season in Studio WIT. However, most of the personnel behind the series have been retained. Director Shuuhei Yabuta, of Inuyashiki and Attack On Titan fame, is returning to direct the series.
– Vinland Saga Season 2 Episode 10 Review does not contain spoilers –
Vinland Saga Season 2 Episode 10 Review- The Cursed Head
For a series that was supposed to be slowing down quite a bit after Season 1, we are still moving at an unexpectedly fast pace at this point in the show. We are already at the end of Thorfinn and Einar’s slavery, as the final tree has been uprooted, and their field is almost ready for being tilled, sowed, and reaped. Things are going smoothly for the pair. Too smooth. So smooth that this feels like the biggest red herring that we’ve seen in the show so far.
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At this point, it is really hard to believe that anything good is ever going to happen to Thorfinn. He had given up on this happening long ago, and the audience is also getting what he is all about now. Thorfinn is about as positive as one can be after going through all that he has, but he still doesn’t know what he would do with his freedom if he received it. He doesn’t really believe it is going to be as easy as his master suggests, and that sentiment is shared by the audience.
Einar has his own problems to deal with, as the person that he likes does not have the same luxury of being set free as he was granted. His story is going to lean more towards love and his attempts to rescue/move forward from this situation. This all relies on their master keeping true to his word. He has been shown to be a relatively kind and reasonable person in the past, so that’s not the big issue right now. The big issue is that he made a decision in Vinland Saga Season 2 Episode 10 that put him in the path of the most dangerous person in the show right now- Canute.
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Canute is in the middle of a fascinating arc right now. He is haunted by his crimes and the floating head of his dead father, who reminds Canute of everything he did to get to come back to Denmark once again. His relationship with his brother, Harald, king of Denmark, was also explored and taken to a horrifying conclusion. Watching him make horrible decisions like these so easily indicated a heavy shift in his writing and direction from the first season, which makes him a perfect parallel to Thorfinn’s new anti-violence policy.
Vinland Saga Season 2 Episode 10 was a scary episode for all the right reasons. It made you scared about the future of every character, no matter how good or evil. The show has taken us so far into Thorfinn and Einar’s misery that it feels impossible to assume that anything good happening to them must be a ruse and to prepare for another lifetime of misery. In the same vein, seeing as the show’s philosophy is so against violence, anything Canute does pushes us deeper into the dark hell of violence that we saw in the previous episode.
Verdict
Vinland Saga Season 2 Episode 10 was a great look at the new direction the show would be headed in after this one and raised a lot of interesting parallels between the characters.
Click here to read the review of the next episode!