Norsemen, aka Darkest Sitcom Ever Filmed

Cafe Society
1

My wife and I just started watching Norsemen, a Norwegian comedy (sort of a sitcom) set in the age of Vikings. Season 2 just came out on Netflix.

Holy shit.

So far, big laffs have been wrought from:
-Old people throwing themselves off a cliff so that the young people won’t starve
-A Viking woman raping monks and then wearing their penises as a necklace
-A Viking man smearing his shit inside a slave’s mouth, and then pissing in his mouth the next morning
-A Viking warrior splitting a wealthy Norse farmer in two with a sword, so he can take over the dead man’s farm and family

and more.

I can’t decide whether this show is ingenious or horrific. I think it’s both. It’s got the anachronistic humor of Galavant, with the violence-cranked-up-to-11 of Game of Thrones.

Have others watched it?

2

Yeah, I really like it. Clearly a spoof of “Vikings”. My favorite bit this season was Orm explaining how it may have started as cheiftan rape, but by the end, he was actually raping Torstein with his anus.

3

I laughed a bit at the first episode or two, but when the thrall got his eyes graphically gouged out for laughs, I had to turn it off. Let me know if that was a rare bit of ultra-violence (also I have special trouble with eye-focused violence), but if it’s common through the rest of the run I’ll probably stay away.

4

Just finished season 1 and we enjoy it. It’s Monty Pythonesque in some respects, but way more violent. But the violence is so unreal and over the top I don’t find it actually disturbing.

It’s definitely anachronistic with a flair for dark humor.

5

I found it funny in theory, albeit not in practice. One episode was enough.

6

Yeah, the violence is almost like little bits of Kill Bill at times. The centerpiece ninja fight at the end of the first Kill Bill was also super-cartoonish but left me kind of freaked out; there’s a level of body horror that’s much harder for me to handle than simple gore, even when it’s over-the-top and played for laughs.

7

The third season is a go, by the way. I’ve seen both seasons so far, and it is definitely a no-holds-barred farce, where anyone can die at any time(last episode of the second season is a good example). I am beginning to wonder how large a village it was in the beginning, considering all the villagers that have been offed so far.

8

Fantastic show in that dark Scandinavian way, being Finnish the humour works for me.

A bit of Monty Python, Blackadder, Kill Bill and some great throw away lines make this a don’t miss.

9

I watched both seasons, only 12 episodes or so in total. I liked it and will watch season 3. I was a bit bummed out by the last episode of season 2.

Some of it is quite strange, like a man straight up hitting a woman in the face - not something you would currently see on TV. Definitely, a dark tv show and my wife kept giving me funny looks.

10

It sounds too disgusting to be funny. The violent humor I like would be, for example, “Deadpool” or “Hitman’s Bodyguard”.

11

My wife and I just finished season 2. A lot of gory stuff and “needless” violence and it definitely feels like a parody of Vikings but we thought it was very funny. Much of the verbal humor is understated, which is an interesting juxtaposition of the gorier stuff.

12

Loved the 1st season. I liked the second, but not as much, and that last episode, oy vey.

13

Just started watching it. Liking it.

I do like dark humour but I’m not sure this counts. It is much more of a gross out style. More “disgusting The Office” than the pitch blackness of " The League of gentlemen".

14

I find that it feels more like a 10th century version of “The Office”–petty politics, mundane everyday life, the universal struggle between competence and incompetence. But with swords, blood, and dismemberments, of course.

15

Yes! That’s the best way to describe it. With Orm as Michael Scott and Rufus as Dwight.

16

Season 3 drops on Netflix later this month. It’s a prequel, so fingers crossed Froya is back.

The scene from season 1 where they discuss helmet horns and fashion absolutely destroys me every time.

17

That sounds like something straight out of Oglaf comics.

18

I think it’s done (and certainly has some of the actors) from the people who did Lilyhammer…

19

I binged this during a couple of nights when I couldn’t get to sleep. There’s only 6 hours of it, doesn’t take that long. It wasn’t really grabbing me in the first couple of episodes but I could see the potential in it and kept going. It’s a little slow and low key much of the time but little things finally hooked me. One example of this is a Viking waiting for someone, looks at his wrist where a watch would be in modern times, then says “I just like to look at my wrist while I’m waiting”.

20

Yeah, I enjoyed this. Similar to the wristwatch joke, in one scene a Viking was wearing a helmet with horns (which Vikings never actually wore) and another Viking comes along and says (paraphrasing from memory) “What’s with the stupid looking helmet? Those horns will just get in the way during battle.” “Yeah, guess you’re right, I just thought it looked cool.”

And one dark humor scene that stands out in my mind, a group of Vikings are having a picnic or something on the seashore (again from memory, having watched awhile ago), looking very idyllic. One Viking is putting a pole into the ground, as if he’s setting up a tent or something, while making pleasant small talk with another Viking. Then the camera pans out and he’s actually setting up the severed heads of conquered village people on pikes along the shore.