After successfully rescuing Mira from her captivity, Spear and Fang must contend with the consequences of their actions.
This episode features the following tropes:
- Animals Lack Attributes: Averted. We're treated to a close-up of Fang's cloaca as she lays her three eggs.
- Armored Villains, Unarmored Heroes: The Chieftain and Eldar's intimidating armor also makes them tougher to take down than their village, combined with their surprise attack on the trio's boat. The Chieftain's armor deflects one of Spear's sword blows and confuses the Neanderthal over how his attack was ineffective, despite it working against the rest of the Vikings before. When Eldar is knocked overboard by Fang, his armor quickly drags him to the bottom, necessitating his father to divest them both of their metallic protection to swim to shore. This winds up making the subsequent fight against the heroes far more even, despite Fang's inability to assist during that scuffle.
- Armor Is Useless: Very much averted, as the Chieftain, and to a lesser extent his son, fare much better against Spear close-range than the entire rest of their village because of their high-quality armor.
- Artistic License – Biology: Fang lays three eggs, which is a rather small amount for a reptile, especially a large one. Their typical reproductive strategy is to lay many to ensure at least a few survive to adulthood. Tyrannosaurs in particular are thought to have had clutches of up to twenty or more. It would make more sense if these three eggs and the two chicks from Fang’s last brood were the only ones that hadn’t been picked off by predators at that point.
- Birth-Death Juxtaposition: Mid-way through the episode, the trio have to make camp to repair their boat after it got damaged in the fighting, with Fang shortly thereafter revealing that she's actually been pregnant ever since her time with Red, and laying three eggs in a temporary nest. The episode ends with Eldar getting knocked off his Giant Flyer steed by Spear and landing messily on a boulder in the middle of a river before his father's horrified gaze.
- Brought Down to Badass: The Chieftain and Eldar lose their armor, weapons and ship attacking Fang and Spear, but are able to improvise impromptu planes out of some quickly-fashioned rope and a nearby giant bird's nest, enabling them to counter Fang's dangerous presence and come close to killing both Spear and Mira despite their losses.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: When Eldar is knocked off the mast and squares off against Mira and Fang, he draws his axe with a hate-filled glare against them, apparently confident of his chances. A few minutes later, the Chieftain is distracted from fighting Spear when he sees Eldar running for his life from Fang, and is shaken around and almost dismembered with ease once she gets her jaws on him if not for his father's rescue of him. This informs their later strategy, as they go with attacking the trio via a nearby group of giant birds to avoid ever confronting Fang close-range again, having underestimated how powerful she is in a fight.
- Death by Despair: When the Chieftain sees his son's bloody corpse sprawled before him on a rocky island in the middle of the river, he just collapses and lets the water drag him away and under, though it's hinted that he may be Not Quite Dead. Eldar's demise likewise has an element of this, as he seems too distraught by his father's apparent Disney Death to properly react to Spear and Mira advancing on him, though his performance throughout the episode has shown that he's not quite as able close-range fighter as his father.
- Didn't Think This Through: The Chieftain's care for his family is made apparent at several points, but it only highlights how short-sighted he is by bringing Eldar along in their quest for vengeance, especially when it becomes clear that Fang and Spear are arguably more than the pair of them can handle. He abandons his attempts to keep fighting the trio whenever Eldar's life is threatened, but it never occurs to him to keep his son away from fighting their enemies at all, and his desire to continue completely evaporates with Eldar's death.
- Dramatic High Perching:
- Eldar stands atop their mast and peppers Fang with arrows to keep her away from his father's close-range assault on their enemies. Mira uses a shield on the boat to grant Fang enough breathing room to smack the mast and knock him down to ground level to face off with the two of them, upon which he fares poorly going two-on-one with a massive beast close-range, swiftly getting overpowered and requiring his father to halt his attack on Spear to save him.
- This gets repeated again by the climax, only with both sides of the fighting struggling with each other at varying altitudes due to them squaring off atop a pair of giant birds. Mira eventually takes a risky drop to move onto Spear's mount from above and aid him against the Chieftain.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: The Chieftain's eyes are framed this way a few times, showing how driven he is by his anger towards the trio for what they've taken from him, notably when he rests by his campfire and sees the vision of Rikka's death and the flaming demon appear.
- High-Altitude Battle: To counter their lack of resources for their second attack on the trio, the Chieftain and Eldar wrangle some giant birds from a nearby nest and turn them into mounts against them, using their flight capacity to stay out of reach of Fang, whilst trying to have the birds attack the humans. This eventually results in all four having a mid-air battle atop the birds, as both sides try to force the other off and Spear and Mira are forced to use their comparative agility to avoid being dropped.
- The Knights Who Say "Squee!": The usually stoic and gruff Spear gets absolutely giddy once he realizes that Fang is going to have babies.
- Let's You and Him Fight:
- The Chieftain faces off in a close-range fight with Spear on their stolen boat with Eldar providing him covering fire against Fang to prevent her from getting involved, forcing Mira and Fang to contend together against Eldar first whilst both men settle their deadly duel. Eventually, the Chieftain is forced to break off his own attack on Spear to save Eldar's life after he gets knocked unconscious in the river.
- The duo later return atop massive birds to compensate for losing most of their armor and weapons, with Eldar's mount snatching Mira skyward in an attempt to drop her to her doom and Spear leaping atop the Chieftain's own to follow, with Fang forced to stay behind guarding her eggs.
- Overall, the concept is Deconstructed, as two members who care about each other fighting solo against different opponents only leads to them getting distracted and wasting opportunities when the other is in grave danger, eventually costing Eldar his life when the Chieftain gets dropped from an apparently-fatal height and he's left alone to contend against Spear.
- Made of Iron:
- Spear and Fang are recovering from their wounds sustained from the last episode by the beginning of this one, Fang in particular having a lot of arrows still stuck in her.
- At the climax of their fight, Spear shoves the Chieftain off their mount as they're soaring a fair distance over a wooded forest. The show does not spare how rough the landing is for him, as he's smashed bodily through several trees and branches, has his sides scraped up and hits his head on a rock at the end, yet amazingly he's still alive. It's implied the branches actually slowed him down enough that the final impact wasn't as fatal as it would have otherwise been, but it's still a noteworthy feat of physical durability.
- Man Bites Man: At the climax of their fighting, with both men restricted to keeping one hand on their flying mount's reigns to avoid falling off, Spear seizes the advantage against the Chieftain by biting his hand whilst he's punching him with the other, tearing a chunk of it out and forcing him to let go, allowing Spear to push him off with ease.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The Chieftain sees a vision of Rikka's death by Fang's jaws, something he wasn't present for, in his campfire before the Scorpion appears before him and he snaps awake from a Catapult Nightmare. It's unclear if he had a genuine supernatural experience or was picturing his family's passing at the hands of his enemies.
- Meaningful Name:
- The episode is named "Vidarr" after the Aesir god of vengeance, fitting with how the Chieftain and Eldar are pursuing the trio for the loss of their entire village and loved ones, and how the Chieftain is putting his only surviving kin's life at risk to achieve vengeance for the departed. Both survivors even repeat the name to each other before wrangling two giant birds of prey to use against the trio, reconfirming their commitment to achieving their retribution before the risky endeavor.
- 'Eldar' turns out to be the name of the Chieftain's eldest son.
- Mighty Glacier: Somewhat. The Chieftain's armor and heavy weapon clearly weigh him down and make him overall slower and less mobile than Spear, but the two of them seem equally matched in speed and strength otherwise. Spear even seizes the advantage against him by using his greater agility to dodge his attacks and kick his helmet clean off his head, forcing the Chieftain to briefly switch to two smaller hand-axes to combat Spear in speed. This gets Downplayed after he loses his armor and returns for a second attack on the trio, as their situation doesn't really allow him much room to maneuver around, but he nonetheless comes off as being less agile and adaptable on the moving back of the bird than Spear or Mira, swiftly falling off once Spear forces him to let go of the reigns.
- Muscles Are Meaningful: The Chieftain's brawny physique not only demonstrates that he's strong enough to seriously contend with Spear hand-to-hand, but also inform his physical durability. When he's dropped from their aerial battle, despite a rough, painful and almost-fatal landing straight through several trees, he's still alive afterwards, whereas Eldar can't stand up to Spear or Fang for long at all, and instantly dies upon his own landing.
- Now That's Using Your Teeth!: After losing almost all their supplies and being without weapons for their second attempt on the trio, when Eldar and Mira's fight has her hanging from their flying mount by holding onto one of the reigns, lacking a knife to cut her loose, Eldar resorts to using his teeth to break her tether instead, which takes long enough that Mira can calculate her angle of descent enough to reach Spear's mount.
- Non-Malicious Monster: The giant birds, they have no interest in Spear, Fang or Mira and were simply minding their own business until the Vikings capture them and force them to attack the trio, once the Vikings are defeated and Mira and Spear set them free they depart without incident.
- Oh, Crap!:
- To underscore just how dangerous the Chieftain is, Spear has a noticeable look of shock at his fighting skills on his face several times as they face off, despite having remained confident of his victory when facing down his entire village before.
- The trio get this when their attackers return for another attempt on their lives just as Fang's recently given birth, riding atop giant bird to counter their lack of resources against Fang.
- The Chieftain has a look of horror on his face when he survives his nearly-fatal fall and recovers just in time to witness Spear successfully kicking Eldar off his mount and his son falling to his doom before his very eyes.
- Papa Wolf: Arguably Deconstructed. The Chieftain cares deeply for his son, and risks his life several times to protect him, but in doing so he wastes opportunities to get his revenge, and makes his further attempts less likely to succeed. He abandons fighting Spear despite having the advantage when he sees Eldar getting savaged by Fang, and when Eldar is knocked into the river and in danger of drowning, he immediately dives in to save him at the cost of losing all their armor and remaining weapons on the ship, forcing them to use the native animals nearby to substitute. His willpower to keep fighting is completely broken when Eldar dies in front of him, allowing himself to be swept by the currents to join his kin.
- The Reveal: Fang mated with Red back during "Shadow of Fate" and has been a Pregnant Badass ever since, laying three eggs in this episode.
- Shout-Out: The visual of the Norseman riding the giant birds might be a reference to War Eagles.
- Soft Water: Double Subverted: Spear kicks Elder off his flying steed as they're soaring above a river, but rather than landing in the waters, Eldar unluckily enough lands on a massive boulder smack in the middle of the river instead, turning his fall fatal regardless.
- Someone to Remember Him By: This episode reveals that Red impregnated Fang before he died—she ends up laying three eggs during the episode.
- Strong and Skilled: The Chieftain shows himself to be quite different than the opponents Spear has faced thus far, skilled enough in facing humanoid enemies to skillfully keep Spear on the back foot despite an unwieldy weapon and making use of his heavier armor to compensate for his lack of mobility. He even counters Spear's attempt to attack him from above using his greater agility.
- Title Drop: The Chieftain and Eldar both say the word "Vidarr" to each other before capturing the giant birds and riding them to battle, as a way of swearing revenge on Spear and Fang.
- Weak, but Skilled:
- Eldar doesn't seem particularly weak, but compared to his brawny powerhouse of a father, his lack of physical might is made apparent. He's able to keep Fang from interfering from afar when he's got a bow in his hands, but gets swiftly defeated when she forces him down to ground level, and gets overpowered with ease when Spear attacks up close atop his flying mount later on. Notably, he faces off more with Mira than either of the more combat-capable members of the trio.
- Mira uses her smarts more than physical might to be of use in battle, aware she's no match for either Viking in a straight fight. She blocks Eldar's arrows with a shield to give Fang breathing room to smack him off the mast, throws a spear at the Chieftain's unarmored face as a distraction, forcing him to dodge, is capable of steering their ships through the rapids whilst everybody's fighting to avoid a fatal crash, identifies that Eldar is controlling his Giant Flyer mount through its reins and disrupts his control over it by hanging onto them, and is able to calculate her descent enough to drop from her mount to Spear's to take over steering it for him, enabling him to focus on the Chieftain.
- Wham Episode:
- It turns out that Red impregnated Fang back in "Shadow of Fate," thus making Fang a Pregnant Badass these last few episodes—she ends up laying three eggs, having finally reclaimed a family after tragically losing her babies all the way back in the first episode.
- The Chieftain and Eldar's hunt for the trio seemingly ends with the latter's death, putting an end to the overarching antagonists of season 2, and the Chieftain's vision of a flaming demon that resembles the Scorpion hints that there are far greater threats involved in their tale than Viking slavers.
