Vikings Valhalla season 3 episode 7 recap: all roads lead to Norway

As Vikings: Valhalla season 3 episode 7 begins, Freydis (Frida Gustavsson) and her people are packing to leave. A ship of traders arrives with Aki's body, which they pulled from the water. When they discover Aki has ax wounds, Freydis immediately knows what happened.

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She calls out Erik (Goran Visnjic) and demands he be tried for murdering Aki. But since Erik is the leader of the community that's not going to happen. Freydis then challenges him to a trial by combat. Freydis and her father fight by the dock. Freydis gets the upper hand and gets Erik on the ground with an ax to his neck. As she's getting ready to kill him, Erik tells her if she does she will never see young Harald again, as Erik hid her son as an insurance policy. If she or her people hurt him, they'll never know where Harald is.

Erik then knocks Freydis out and locks her in the storehouse. With Freydis incapacitated, Erik makes another pitch to her people to convince them to stay in Greenland. He tells them if they work together, they can turn Greenland into the golden land.

A questionable miracle

Magnus (Set Sjostrand) decides he will create a second "miracle" to make sure his father is sainted by the Pope. He gives one of his crew his father's necklace, then with his father's axe he kills the man, and destroys his face so no one can tell who he is.

He declares the fresh corpse is the body of his father, which has miraculously not decomposed at all in the seven years since Freydis killed him. He forces Bishop Grimketel (Horatio James), the senior cleric with him, to lie and say he witnessed the miracle.

Maniakes takes over

In Constantinople, Maniakes (Florian Munteanu) makes himself the emperor. He gives Zoe (Sofia Lebedeva) two options: she can marry him and stay the empress or be killed. Zoe agrees to marry him to save herself.

Meanwhile, Harald (Leo Suter) has one day before his execution. In the pit, he is given a loaf of bread and some wine. He feeds some of the bread to a crow that has flown into the pit and tells the crow to bring his friends.

Canute chooses a successor

Magnus returns to Norway, barreling into the great hall in Kattegat to greet King Canute (Bradley Freegard). Svein (Jakob Femerling Andersen) explains that Magnus is just back from Jomsborg. Canute mentions Leif (Sam Corlett) was just at Jomsborg too, looking for his sister. That's when Magnus realizes who Leif is. Magnus covers his tracks, telling Leif a plague must have taken the settlement before they arrived.

The assembled company enjoys a puppet show that recounts the history of King Canute's reign. During the feast that follows Leif asks to see Olaf's body to see the miracle. But, he's told he cannot.

Canute chooses the feast as the time to reveal who his heir to the throne will be. He goes through all of his sons one by one, questioning them about their qualifications to be king. Canute declares that Harthacanute (Huey O'Meara) will be king in Denmark, with Harefoot (Pyry Kähkönen) as regent until Harthacanute comes of age. Alfred (Henry Proctor) and Edward (Cal O’Driscoll) will return to Normandy and rule there. Svein will continue to rule in Norway as well. In a surprise, Queen Emma will take the throne of England.

When dawn comes King Canute and Emma return to England. The others all scatter to their respective assigned countries.

Freydis gets a chance

In Greenland, Stigr (Leander Vyvey) enlists Hilde's (Carrie Crowley) help to find out where Erik took Harald. Reluctantly, Hilde tells Stigr Erik probably took him to the Kalaallit people in the North. Stigr plans to go after Harald, but needs Hilde's help to talk to Freydis before he leaves.

Hilde tells the guard to get a drink so Stigr can talk to Freydis for a few seconds. He tells her he's going to get Harald. Hilde goes a step further, bringing Freydis her sword, some supplies and telling her to go with the traders to Kattegat; Hilde will distract Erik until the traders leave.

In Kattegat, Leif goes to Bishop Grimketel and gets the real story of what happened in Jomsborg. He tells Leif everything about the poisoning, the escape and that Magnus is lying about Olaf’s body. Grimketel tells Leif Magnus has already left to go north and get the Jarls to declare for him so he can take over the throne of Norway.

Harald Hardrada

Waiting for his execution, Harald soaks bits of bread in wine. He feeds them to the crows. While they eat he pulls strings from the clothing of a skeleton, and ties the string around small bundles of kindling he assembles using tools he has hidden in his wrist brace. When the birds pass out from the wine he ties the strings to their feet.

The crows wake up. Harald lights the kindling tied to their feet with his torch. They fly away to their nests in the eaves of the prison, setting the wooden roofs on fire. As Harald is lifted out of the pit to be taken to execution the torch lights up his carving on the wall: Harald Hardrada.

Maniakes, Zoe and the Archbishop are at the prison for the execution. Just before entering the execution location, Harald frees his hands and swings the shackles, killing the guards. He grabs a sword from a dead guard and runs into the courtyard, calling out for Maniakes to fight him, which he does. Harald kills Maniakes.

Zoe, finally free, runs from the dais down to Harald, but Harald is gone by the time she reaches the bottom of the stairs. Harald is going home to fulfill his destiny as the ruler of Norway.

All episodes of Vikings: Valhalla season 3 are now streaming exclusively on Netflix .