I’m Worried About the Vikings! - by Katie Love

I’m worried about the Vikings and whether they’re getting enough to eat.

I’ve spent weeks, perhaps years of my precious streaming life watching these super-sized warriors and I assure you that their caloric intake is not meeting the Recommended Daily Allowance.

In every plotline, they’ve just returned from a savage war, adorned in grizzly furs, stained leather kilts, and mid-calf Uggs, covered in the spattered blood of their enemies. There’s a lot of grunting, moaning, and cheering as they tend to their hopelessly infected wounds. We, The Viewers, aren’t sure if they’re going to make it, so we choose the most charismatic and handsome Viking who blurts the most dialogue in any given scene, and we cheer for him, because we think he’s probably the star (?) and will live through the last episode of this limited series. 

 Capable Women of the Viking Village appear out of nowhere – or the barn, carrying buckets of sloshing water, their heaving, bosom-friendly dresses darkened by the relentless mud that encompasses every nook and cranny of this village, indoor and outdoor. Mud, everywhere. Even the Actor Pigs are sick of the mud and refuse to root on cue.

But I digress. Back to Shot!

The Viking Village Women rush to their assigned warrior/husband, (a marriage arranged by a wizard who is the only clean, almost-human for miles), and they go to work, dabbing! The more the women dab at the wounds with torn scarves made of alpaca fur or the remnants of a puffy pirate shirt, the faster their gnarly wounds disappear. Like magic. Dab on the deep cut of a ragged, rugged face or a rippled and bruised torso, and the Viking’s anguished snarl turns to a smile, his fever breaks, and he’s ready to fornicate.

No one talks about this miracle. It just is. The Dabber Wound is the injury you want in an accident. At the hospital, ask for a Dabber Nurse. Let the nurse dab that wound ever so gently under terrible conditions and even worse lighting, dipping a bloodied cloth into a dank bucket of sloshy water that probably held frogs earlier in the day, and accept your miracle! Ye are healed!  No matter how critical the viral contagion/poison/broken limb or curse, you’re going to heal before they can itemize your bill on a leather scroll which could also be categorized as beef jerky, and is in fact, edible.

Now that everyone is dabbed and bandaged, and the decapitated heads of their enemies have been hung on the village entry gate, the Vikings sit down to have a celebratory meal. There’s usually about twenty of these giants, gathered around a fantastic Spanish-style table; gorgeous, refined rustic, a table you’d squeal over inside of a high-end furniture store. Levitating above this urban-village-chic table is a rod iron candlelit chandelier, barely hanging from the rafters of a roof, which is made of wet grass and mud. In the summer, the grass and mud never seem to dry out, so do not be distracted by the open flame next to the reedy grass in the upcoming warmer season. Mud is a well-known insulator in early Viking architecture and again, this is a limited series. The entire set may only last through wintery plot lines.

Back to Shot!

Twenty Vikings are seated at the table. Twenty! And in comes a guy with two golden-roasted chickens. Two. For twenty, 6’6”, 275-pound men. This is a confident chef, boldly standing before these heathens, with his two Ina Garten-Jeffrey-Married-Me-For-This-Chicken-Recipe dinner. Side dishes are seedy, unwashed grapes and bread that may have fallen in the mud.

In the next scene, everyone has a full plate of chicken! Wine is served in silvery goblets. There’s cajoling and singing and then our main Viking, the one we’re rooting for, starts spewing dialogue, pontificating their victory and how it makes them impervious to future attacks. But We, the Viewers know better, because the camera is suddenly on the decapitated heads - yes, during dinner, and we understand that one of the decapitated enemies’ firstborn sons is already gathering forces to wage another war. What?

Prepare the Viking ER with more sloshing buckets of murky water and ripped-up contagion rags!

New characters are introduced at the table: Sturdy, Sexy Viking Warrior Women, who, as VIP guests, are also served golden-roasted chicken – from the same two slain fowl we met earlier. These women are Viking Legacy. Viking Elite. Yet none of them inquire about the chicken and whether there is enough to sustain  them through the haunt of winter, or through that day’s filming! We never get to see the bones picked and sucked-clean carcasses after dinner. Instead, there is more fornicating, and the chef is off doing Pagan-God knows what, when he really should be making the obligatory carcass soup for the warriors.

I know the Vikings are still hungry!

Across the lot, a dusty, dirty cowboy is cooking a miserly kettle of pinto beans over a campfire, in the Flatlands of Nowhere. It’s very dark. There are eighty-seven, dusty, road-weary cowboys, gathered around this fire, waiting, eyes darting, cannibalism-level hungry.

And in comes a guy with two freshly skinned rabbits, on a skewer. Two. For eighty-seven dusty cowboys.

I’m worried about the cowboys.

The end.