Allowed a last conversation with Ivar before the cripple is dispatched to Kattegat, Ragnar asks his son to return for bloody revenge on Wessex and its king Ecbert. After confiding the crucifix and Athelstan's dying choice for Christianity to Ecbert, Ragnar is sent in an iron cage to his death in Northumbria. Ecbert follows anonymously, disguised as a monk, to observe Aelle's eager revenge 'in the name of God and justice'. Ragnar however gives him no satisfaction form remorse or begging for mercy, instead braves a torturous night and in the morning proudly welcomes his last journey to Valhalla before being dumped in a pit filled with snakes and succumb to venom. Ivar 's return home to report he's probably fatherless already turns even bleaker when Ubbe and Sigurd report Lagertha deposed and executed his mother.
—KGF Vissers