The End?
The Season 1 Finale of Ragnarok begins with Magne informing the authorities about the barrels but unfortunately Vidar gets there first and moves them before they can suspect it’s him. (Quite where he’s moved 2000 barrels to remains a mystery but he’s moved them nonetheless.) Believing Magne is lying and mentally unstable, he’s suspended from school but Gry remains suspicious. Back home, Turid berates Magne but Laurits pipes up and tells her she should focus on being a good mother instead. As she heads to the shop to get milk, Wende tells her not to let the darkness consume her. As she begins spiraling at home, Gry flunks her exam after admitting to the examiners that her entire project was completely ironic and compares Edda to North Korea. Magne throws all the junk food out the house and agrees to go to the doctors. While they conduct a psychiatric examination on him, Laurits gets a haircut but overhears Ran gossiping about Magne. As he spins around, he asks her for the opportunity to do a speech at the upcoming school event and she agrees to think about it. Vidar receives a call from a man named William and negotiates with him to move the toxic barrels. Fjor overhears though and heads to Gry’s house where he offers up 250,000 in money to her Father. He doesn’t take it though and instead, Fjor and Gry head out together and kiss. He later visits Magne who gets his results from his doctor’s appointment – medication to keep him calm – and the two confront one another. Fjor tries to make things right and his words are enough to encourage Magne to make a stand. Unfortunately Fjor’s betrayal makes him a target to the rest of the family and he drops to his knees, given one final task to prove himself – that task being to kill Gry. Constitution Day arrives and all the students take their seats as Magne watches on, scowling at the group. However it also turns out someone has dropped some of the toxic barrels off at the police station and this causes Vidar to immediately start back-tracking. However, the officer is having none of it and reprimands him. While Saxa sings the national anthem for the class, Fjor heads off with Gry to an abandoned warehouse. As he does, Laurits takes to the stage dressed as Ran and delivers a speech about greed and corruption. Fjor and Magne go toe to toe and although Magne overpowers him, Gry stops him from dropping the sledgehammer on his face. Vidar shows up and starts speaking old norse. He beats down Magne, knocking him through the walls and beats him outside until he’s a bloody, bruised mess. At the last second he screams to the heavens and conjures up lightning to strike them both as Wenche watches from afar smoking and narrating that Ragnarok is simply the beginning, not the end. As rain hammers down, Magne clenches his fist and appears to wake up as the episode ends. With a trademark cliffhanger ending and plenty of unresolved questions hanging over this one, Ragnarok saves its best material for the final 10 minutes of the show. Some of the characters have felt very under-utilized here – especially Laurits who really hasn’t had an awful lot to do this season. Most of the material has revolved around Magne and while his character has been good enough to carry the show, there just doesn’t feel like there’s enough substance beyond the teen drama weighing heavily over this one. Whether this will be renewed for a second season or not remains to be seen but for now, Ragnarok bows out the season with some promise toward the end but is this too little too late for this troubled Norweigan series.
