Know Thyself
Episode 5 of Ragnarok Season 2 begins with Magne awakening from his bad dream. Only, it turns out he’s gone blind and unable to see. He’s back to wearing his glasses again and seemingly regressing away from being a God. Meanwhile, Fjor starts to turn further toward his Father, slicking his hair back and taking up the big seat at work. He decides to grab Jutul Industries by the reigns and takes the power away from Saxa. He’s going to kill Magne and avenge their father. He even kicks Saxa out the building too. Magne heads back to see Odin, who confirms that his powers have been taken away. After shouting to the heavens and praying in a church for a God he doesn’t believe in, he’s now been taken out of this fight and forced back into normality again. In fact, Erik encourages him to write about the moral implication of killing and weather it’s good or bad. Even Iman refuses to speak to Magne. Given Iman can control people, does this mean she can control Magne now? There’s no time for that though, as Iman heads to the school office and controls Ran, unaware that she’s actually one of the giants. In doing so, she bags herself a higher grade. Laurits however, is still mourning Vidar and most certainly still sporting his powers too. Ran is not happy and refuses to accept him into the family. Well, Laurits has his own problems when Turid finds he’s keeping his tapeworm as a pet in his room – as you do. Magne continues to feel conflicted about his lost powers, especially when he sees both Harry and Iman abuse theirs. In fact, he eventually heads back to see Laurits, telling the truth about his powers and apologizing. In doing so, the pair hug it out and patch up their differences. Meanwhile, Fjor cancels all meetings with the environmental ministers. He even goes one step further and fires Turid due to “personal matters.” When Magne finds out, he’s furious and heads up to confront the newly appointed giant. As one would expect, Magne is completely humbled and beaten down to the ground. In fact, he heads back to Wotan and decided to pick up where he left off as a God again. He wants his powers back but in doing so, it would involve killing. Wotan smirks when he tells Magne this, prompting the teen to change his mind again. So off Magne goes, believing there must be another way to settle this dispute beyond killing. Meanwhile, trouble in paradise sees Fjor make rash decisions while Ran stands by and claims it’s “nice to have a man in the house.” A disillusioned Saxa heads out, determined to usurp her brother from his position by leveraging Laurits’ claim as Vidar’s son against him. Laurits hastily agrees when he finds out what she’s up to, partly for the money but also to cause chaos. However, Fjor is wise to this game and tries to win Laurits over, claiming he’s cheap and easy to sway. Laurits eventually ends his evening by calling Ran his step-Mother and calls her out for being a barren. This enrages her and she heads straight into his house and threatens the trickster. It’s not until Magne shows up that she stops. Of course, Magne doesn’t have his powers and is completely manhandled, thrown to the ground. This is enough for Magne to head back and speak to Wotan again, ready to bring his team together and forge Mjolnir. In order to do so though he needs to betray his brother in order to save him.
The Episode Review
So Ragnarok goes round in circles, with Magne having a change of heart and deciding that he’s going to live up to the Thor name after all. It’s one step forward and two steps back for this show, and after the intriguing ending to season 1, we’re back to Magne leaning into getting his powers back. Those same powers he fought so hard to control in the first six episodes. I’m not quite sure what Magne thought would happen with Vidar in this season, especially after their fight at the end of the finale. He literally zapped Vidar with lightning and didn’t really bat an eyelid at hurting him. Yet now he has a change in conscience when he actually achieves what he set out to do. I understand this feeds back into the hero code but it feels clunky, serving as an unnecessary roadblock for Magne to face before the “war” – which is still not here. This second season has not been one to remember and the issues inherent with the first have simply been exemplified and exaggerated here. Hopefully the finale can finish with a bang.
