Midnight Scrum

Midnight Scrum is the third episode of Dragons: Race to the Edge, Season 4. It aired on Netflix on February 17, 2017. The name of episode was first revealed in the Everything Geek Podcast Interview with Douglas Sloan and Art Brown.

Overview
When Viggo puts a bounty on Hiccup's head, every Dragon Hunter in the world is after capturing Hiccup, so Toothless and the Riders must rescue him.

Plot
While exploring an island, Hiccup and Astrid are attacked by a horde of random assailants who pursue Hiccup for unknown reasons, but they are fended off by Toothless and Stormfly. After fleeing, Toothless picks up a left behind poster and realize that Viggo Grimborn has put a bounty on Hiccup, presuming that Viggo will reward the successful bounty hunter with Berk's gold. Heather advises Hiccup to be in a low profile but he refuses and plans on attending Berk's 400th anniversary celebration.

At Berk, crowds are decorating the village in anticipation of the event but only limited as Berk's gold is still depleted. Once Stoick spots Hiccup and the Riders arrive, he instantly is reminded of the unfortunate loss of their gold supply to Viggo but manages to keep his anger from showing and awkwardly greets the Riders. As Stoick leaves, Astrid asks Hiccup if he would tell Stoick the bounty hunting situation he is in, he decides not to in order not to add more weight to their problems.

The celebration goes swell throughout the night as Vikings and Dragons are entertained by the Riders' display of performance in the sky. As Hiccup watches the crowd, the situation gets to him, as he finds a group of unfamiliar Vikings congregating to each other seemingly to be bounty hunters. He and Toothless aggressively confront and demand their names, but Sven calms him down as he identifies the men to be only his three uncles visiting, Hiccup apologizes of the interruption and flies back, unknowingly passing by two bounty hunters who have identified their target.

Hours later, after the celebrations are over, Hiccup and Astrid gather inside the Great Hall as Hiccup discusses being stressed about the danger he is in, Astrid again advises Hiccup to tell his father, but Hiccup nevertheless remains adamant and leaves the place alone. In the middle of the night, Astrid is awoken from her sleep from the cries of Stoick looking for Hiccup, indicating he was kidnapped from his home.

Hiccup wakes up, and finds that he has been tied up in the deck of a ship now sailing. With his arms and legs bound by rope, he struggles to free himself, but to no avail. Spotting a protruding nail on the other side of the deck, he squirms and wriggles his way over to it, and tries to cut his bindings on the nail. Suddenly he hears his captors approaching: two bounty hunter brothers, named Amos and Berthel. It is revealed that it was them who had lost the bounty posters (Amos complains he couldn't hold on to it as he has two hook hands). Hiccup tries to warn them to let him free lest they be attacked by the Riders, but are not convinced. Suddenly, unknown footsteps are heard, Amos and Berthel assume it's the dragons and run up to the deck to confront them. Hiccup seizes the moment to cut himself loose as he hears Amos and Berthel quickly beaten, he shouts his location to his rescuer, but in reality another bounty hunter arrives to take him, Savage. Meanwhile, the Riders are in pursuit of finding Hiccup, Stoick is frustrated as he realizes that Hiccup didn't tell him about the bounty due to what he said earlier to him. They find the previous ship that had Hiccup, Stoick finds Amos and Berthel climbing back to their own ship, and he angrily demands Hiccup's whereabouts, they confess that Savage took him and they are again thrown back to the ocean.

Savage explains to Hiccup that he intends to take Hiccup to Viggo for some respect and garner the huge reward, Hiccup tires in vain to negotiate and resorts to jumping the ocean to escape, but Savage manages to pull him back and take off his prosthetic leg to ensure no more escape attempts. But suddenly Savage falls unconscious by a dart, and reveals it was fired by Throk of the Defenders of the Wing. While it initially seems he is out for the bounty as well, it is revealed he plans on rescuing Hiccup after Mala found a copy of the bounty poster of Hiccup, as they prepare to leave, another bounty hunter emerges and fights Throk. The hooded bounty hunter is no match for Throk, but he manages to catch him by surprise by firing a dart at him and also at Hiccup, taking him captive.

Not long after does Stoick and the Riders arrive and interrogate Savage, he reveals that the masked Viking is likely heading to the island where Viggo and Ryker are prepared to give the gold to anyone who manages to bring Hiccup to them. Before they leave, Savage mocks Hiccup saying it was his own fault being entangled in this mess, that ignited Stoick's anger and is about to kill Savage but Toothless stops him.

The masked bounty hunter arrive at the island and is about to offer Hiccup to Ryker, the two briefly pause as Ryker takes an observation to the masked man being familiar, but he doesn't comply to his questions and demands the reward. Ryker drops the sack, revealing not gold, but rocks. The masked viking responds by refusing to handover Hiccup, Ryker gives the signal to the Dragon Hunters prepared to take Hiccup by force. In the ensuing fight, Hiccup grabs the opportunity to flee once the masked Viking lets go off his metal chain leash to fend off archers, however, Ryker and some of his hunters spots him.While running, Hiccup tries to look for a dragon to train but ends up with a flock of sheep instead, he uses his flaming sword to scare the sheep and charge towards Ryker. Hiccup is then tackled by the masked Viking by surprise, he accidentally removes his mask revealing to be the man who was present during Viggo's last auction Hiccup struggles to break free, and both roll over towards the side of the cliff, Hiccup manages grab the edge while his assailant grabs his prosthetic leg to hold on. He asked for Hiccup to be pulled up, but to this shock, Hiccup removes the locks to his prosthetic leg, and the bounty hunter falls to the lake along with the prosthetic leg.

However, Hiccup's hand is slipping but he is grabbed by Ryker and lifts him up and is tossed to the ground. Fortunately, the Riders arrive in the nick of time and fends off the hunters. Ryker is confronted by Stoick and Toothless, he puts Hiccup closer to him, threatening him to be killed, but Toothless attacks aggressively by blasting away his sword and stripping some of his armor. Ryker collapses and is in the verge of being shot by a plasma blast but Stoick aborts it, he lifts up Ryker and orders him to send a message to Viggo before being brutally punched in the face.

Astrid helps Hiccup up as they prepare to leave, but Ryker quickly regains consciousness and is about to throw a dagger at Hiccup but is suddenly knocked out again by Hiccup's prosthetic leg. The man who threw it is Hiccup's bounty hunter, Krogan, alive and well. He observes that he is outmatched in every direction, and realizes that its futile to capture Hiccup again, so he exits the scene by jumping back down to the cliff. Hiccup and the Riders observe down below and finds he is no trace of him can be seen.

As the Riders fly home, Stoick finally spills their discussion by saying to Hiccup that it was also his fault about the gold incident, Hiccup interrupts him by finishing for him that he should've told him about his situation since he is Stoick's son, Stoick expands it even further by saying that they should have no secrets between them if they want to serve and keep the people of Berk safe.

Characters

 * Jay Baruchel as Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III
 * America Ferrera as Astrid Hofferson
 * Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Fishlegs Ingerman
 * Zack Pearlman as Snotlout Jorgenson
 * Andree Vermeulen as Ruffnut Thorston
 * T.J. Miller as Tuffnut Thorston
 * Mae Whitman as Heather
 * James Arnold Taylor as Throk
 * Nolan North as Stoick/Berthel
 * Chris Edgerly as Gobber
 * Tom Kenny as Silent Sven\Amos

Enemies

 * JB Blanc as Ryker Grimborn
 * Hakeen Kae-Kazim as Krogan
 * Paul Rugg as Savage

Dragons

 * Toothless
 * Stormfly
 * Meatlug
 * Hookfang
 * Barf and Belch
 * Windshear

Transcript
The transcript for this episode is here.

Trivia

 * Towards the end of the episode, Hiccup seemingly loses his prosthetic leg and kills Krogan, but both are resolved by the end of the episode.
 * Strangely the kidnappers opted to tie Hiccup's legs together to prevent him escaping, instead of simply taking off his prosthetic leg.
 * Savage reappears in this episode, with the Outcasts not having been seen since Stoick and Alvin made amends.
 * Hiccup and the other riders (excepting Heather) wear their Dragon Race face paint for the celebration. The face-paint is similar to how it was in Dawn of the Dragon Racers.