Many fans thought Season 4 was the end of Rollo in the TV series, Vikings. He went on one last raid with his fellow Vikings and was told, in no uncertain terms, that he was not welcome to follow them back to Kattegat. It was a nice way to say goodbye to Rollo without actually having to kill him off. Moreover, considering the actor who plays Rollo, Clive Standen, had recently taken on the lead role in NBC’s Taken, it seemed a given he would not appear again in Season 5 of Vikings. However, it seems Rollo will be back in Season 5, and he will be making sacrifices — of the Viking kind — as well.

SPOILER ALERT: This article discusses Season 5 of History’s Vikings as well as the historical counterpart of the character, Rollo. Please proceed with caution if you wish to avoid potential spoilers.

Not a lot of information has been released regarding Season 5 of History’s Vikings, except in the case of Rollo’s (Clive Standen) upcoming involvement. Both History Channel and the actor who plays Rollo have been keen to remind fans Rollo will be present in Season 5 of Vikings — and not just in a token role either.

Recently, it was revealed by TV Guide that Rollo’s return in Season 5 of Vikings would be “explosive, but not in the ways that you’d expect.”

[Image by Bernard Walsh/History Channel]

The history books involving Rollo’s real life historical counterpart suggest that his storyline moving forward into Season 5 of Vikings could revolve around his involvement in the Norman conquest of England. Although, it was his heirs that were, traditionally, more involved with this period of history. History Channel, however, has fiddled with timelines and timeframes previously in Vikings, so it not outside the realm of possibility to have Rollo involved with this period. It could also, more specifically, indicate his closer involvement with King Harald Finehair (Peter Franzen) since some sources place Rollo and Harald Finehair in the same time frame, one source even indicating Rollo and Finehair were brothers.

However, a new interview with Clive Standen via the Emmys magazine suggests Rollo’s storyline in Season 5 of Vikings will involve an internal struggle with faith rather than being involved in the normal Viking need for the battlefield.

“In Season 5, he’s almost a completely different man. Playing a character who’s a pagan for so many years, not just on the show, but in the span of the years of the character, it all becomes about the gods, the monsters, the pagan belief system and what it is to be a Viking, and he’s almost disinherited all of that, disowned all of that to become a Frankish duke, which itself comes with all the fashions of the time, the etiquette, and most of all, the religion.”

[Image by History Channel]

Clive Standen reveals that Rollo will struggle with his old Pagan beliefs and his newer, Christian beliefs in Season 5 of Vikings. And that struggle will see him hedging his bets regarding his old gods and the newer Christian god.

“[Rollo], not knowing where he was going to end up in the afterlife, so, he supposedly put 100 Christians in a hog pen and had them all beheaded. So, he was kind of hedging his bets by making this huge sacrifice to Odin but then sent hundreds of pounds to the church to try to hedge his bets as to which one he’d end up in in the afterlife.”

Standen admits this upcoming scene is one of the few spoilers he can reveal about Season 5 of Vikings.

Are you looking forward to seeing Rollo’s return in Season 5 of Vikings? Let us know your theories and predictions about Season 5 by commenting below.

Vikings has been confirmed by History Channel as returning in 2017 with Season 5.

[Featured Image by Jonathan Hession/History Channel]