The Witcher finds power and purpose in a confident second season
Geralt’s a dad in season two of The Witcher, and both he and Henry Cavill have never been better.
TV Reviews The Witcher
Leading up to its release in winter 2019, Netflix’s adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Witcher series was generating an all-too recognizable brand of hype. Peppered with wanton violence, moral murk, pretty people getting naked (and oftentimes getting busy), the arrival of The Witcher felt more like the coming of Game Of Thrones 2.0: a big budget, trend-chasing show that seemed engineered to scandalize its viewers into gossiping about the series until it became streaming’s next bawdy hit.
But Lauren Schmidt Hissrich’s vision for Geralt of Rivia’s slate-gray world of monsters and betrayals had a rowdy spark and daffy energy to it that narrowly transcended Netflix’s Thrones-seeking ambitions, and gifted viewers with a rollicking ear-worm, to boot. Season two of The Witcher, which premieres December 17 on Netflix, is more of a wintry, somber affair than what’s come before. It’s sullen in some respects, more determined in its mission now that its cast has grown more comfortable in their roles and its dark prophecy is finally (finally) beginning to take shape. Even the frisky bard Jaskier (Joey Batey) is singing a more maudlin tune this go-around.
Yet The Witcher’s second season is vastly more confident about leaning into the high fantasy and higher stakes of Sapkowski’s lore, opting to let characters such as the wizened witcher Vesemir (Kim Bodnia) speak of forgotten histories instead of taking safer, more randy detours. (Expect the people of the continent to be more likely to keep their costumes on than tear them off.) Encouraging still is its stronger focus on maintaining a sense of narrative momentum (gone is the needlessly confusing time-hopping format of season one), at last bestowing upon The Witcher a sense of direction and purpose.
That’s not to say there isn’t heaps of backstory and world-building to still keep track of, and it saddles itself with an ever-expanding cast of characters who have an alarming tendency to get lost in the shuffle of the first six episodes that were made available for review. But when it zeroes in on its central trio—Henry Cavill’s Geralt of Rivia, Freya Allan’s Princess Cirilla, and Anya Chalotra’s Yennefer of Vengerberg—and when it lets Geralt’s sword sing against the terrible roars of some fell beast, that’s when The Witcher operates at the heights of its powers.
It’s a shame, then, that Yenn is still the odd mage out. Ciri has at last wandered out of her own meandering season one cul-de-sac and entered Geralt’s protection, and her time spent learning how to live under the shadow of prophecy against a foreboding snowy backdrop (while throwing herself at mastering the perilous witcher tradition) features some of the show’s strongest moments. But The Witcher is still casting a wider net than it needs to, expanding on the less interesting courtly intrigues of the cruel Nilfgaardian Empire and introducing the beleaguered elven haven of Xin’trea, a cacophony of subterfuge, trickery, and banal narrative positioning that keeps Yenn deep in the season’s many bursts of action, but far, far away from the warm hearth of the season’s core found-family unit.
The second season of The Witcher burns brightest when set in Kaer Morhen, a chilly, hollowed-out ruin that serves as the final outpost for the world’s last line of witchers and a mostly serene environment where Geralt and Ciri can settle into their roles as a surrogate father-daughter unit. There dwells Vesemir, who darkly worries over what looks to be the final years for his witcher brethren just as a strange wave of hideous monsters begin to stalk Kaer Morhen’s perimeter. Joining Vesemir is Triss Merigold (Anna Shaffer), who uses her chaos magic to find a solution to the witcher’s collective fate and shares a healthy, supportive relationship with Ciri as she attempts to strike a balance between her regal upbringing and her witcherly ambitions. Triss also manages to toss a loaded glance at Geralt every once in a while, just to see if there’s still a spark of romance hidden behind the White Wolf’s chiseled features.
Where Triss’ advances might have been answered with a spirited roll in the hay back in season one, this season’s broodier atmosphere kinda dampens the mood. Geralt’s legendary libido does take a backseat to his paternal responsibilities to Ciri, it’s true—but what’s really squashing the series’ former zeal for onscreen trysting is, apparently, a broken heart. Early on, Geralt is under the belief that his beloved Yenn sacrificed herself in the Battle of Sodden Hill. The Witcher is certainly better served when it keeps its plot mechanics in motion, especially since it’s operating in the shadow of an apocalyptic threat that will remain unnamed to avoid spoilers, but the energy is noticeably more sleepy without the show’s periodic displays of raunch.
Yenn is alive, though worse for wear following the fireworks display at Sodden in the season-one finale. The show may be less tantalizing without Chalotra’s tangible chemistry with Cavill, but at least she gets in some good moments with the jaded Jaskier in-between the season’s long stretches of elven-human strife. (Chalotra even gets to flex some surprisingly formidable comedic muscles during one particularly rousing sequence.) The Nilfgaard/Xin’trea stuff is clearly vital to where this season is going, and it boasts a few compelling performances, with Adjoa Andoh as Mother Nenneke and Simon Callow & Liz Carr’s investigative archivists being key stand-outs. But it remains clear that regal conniving and revolutionary plotting still isn’t The Witcher’s strongest suit.
While The Witcher keeps a linear narrative and mostly sequesters its lead monster-slayer to a mandatory winter vacation in Kaer Morhen, the first episode of this new season, titled “A Grain of Truth,” features the stronger procedural aspects of season one. Set in a forbidden manse which houses a friendly beast-man, Geralt and Ciri fall into the first of the season’s far too few monster hunts. There is rich character work for all parties involved, the beastly skirmishes are appropriately vicious (they set a promisingly violent standard for the future fiends that lurk in the future episodes), and it serves as a nice epilogue of sorts for season one while building towards its own hopefully stirring finale.
At the center of things, as ever, is Henry Cavill, whose performance as Geralt is more seasoned, more assured, and less indebted to voice actor Doug Cockle (who portrayed Gerald in CD Projekt Red’s Witcher series) than ever before. Cavill’s physicality has long been a primary highlight of the series, and while he has plenty of opportunities to swing his sword and blast foes with a dose of Aard, he spends just as much time grounding the series with a newfound paternal energy. It’s a good dramatic fit for the actor, who endured a severe injury during the filming of this season that nearly put an end to his career as a marquee action star. His dedication to the role reflects his character’s dedication to his new charge, which is a charming element that only elevates the series further.
In season two, Geralt carefully measures the frightful portents surrounding Ciri’s growing power, his brow wrinkled with worry. “I want to be a great fighter,” she tells him. “And not just against sacks of straw.” It’s here where things slow all the way down and Cavill provides The Witcher with something it had been woefully missing: an honest, tender heart. But the Butcher of Blaviken still carries his trademark cynicism: “I have known many who wanted to be great fighters in my time. Do you know where they are now? In cemeteries.” Geralt’s a dad in season two of The Witcher, and both he and Cavill have never been better.
49 Comments
I really hope they have better action scenes this season. The one in Blaviken at the end of episode 1 season 1 is fucking incredible but nothing else after that came close. Would like to get more of that this time round and less big army battles.
Hrm.
Really looking forward to this, especially with the introduction of Vesemir and the focus on Geralt/Ciri relationship as I feel that is what makes the show genuinely feel special.Something I am concerned about how hard are they going to shove Yen into things. Don’t get me wrong, I get that she’s one of the main characters and understand why she is featured, but I just found her really insufferable in the first season. Also her and Geralt’s relationship already feels so questionable/kind of toxic to the degree that I’m not certain why I should actually be rooting for these torn lovers? At least I’ll find solace in that dragon telling Geralt that he and Yen would not ultimately end up together. At least unless my memory completely fails me.
A big part of the issue is that Yen was unambiguously the villain the first time she appeared in the books (the story with the genie), and was then given a long, hard redemption story. But with the show being written toward that redemption from the start, it has to struggle with those same actions not instantly turning people off, and doesn’t always nail it.
Yeah, the show treated Yen was baffling. Like when Geralt meets her, she is essentially committing a mass sex offense before brainwashing him to do something that will get him executed. And the show feels that what we should get out of this is that man these crazy kids and their epic love story. It also doesn’t help that they crammed so much story with Yen that it doesn’t like make sense and the show never addresses it. For example, she lost her ability to have children because she chose the Glamour and was warned of that before essentially urging the guy to do it. Yet afterwards she’s blaming the Conclave for taking that ability away from her, which would be a fine character trait if the show ever confronted her about what really happened.
Yennefer was always insufferable and the relationship was always toxic. I never got why fans like her so much.
Sometimes people enjoy complex and toxic inter-character dynamics in stories.
I prefer Triss
“I prefer Triss”…as do all right and correct and generally better looking people 😀
I don’t care if it’s Triss, Tratt or tree other tring!
but triss is whiny and ineffectual
Sexy witch. Hello? Or blonde girl lost in the woods? Go on with you!
As a late sidenote, I really groaned when I read in the review that they are hinting at Triss’s feelings for Geralt. The reason for that is that even if I wasn’t coming to this from Witcher 3, where the stance that Triss >>>>>> Yen is a hill I am willing to die on, even on this show her limited interaction with Geralt was more enjoyable for me than the horror show that is Yen/Geralt.So to kind of dangle that there while insisting that what everyone really yearns for is that toxic sludge of a relationship is just… Not good.
Why do you have to root for anything? Just watch it unfold.
its a place-hopping sword!
I love that the crew admitted they literally just plain forgot that Jaskier should logically be an old man by the end of the first season. I do hope they came up with an explanation in the meantime.
He wasn’t the only one who aged invisibly, it was one my main complaints with the time hopping narrative structure, that they seemed to go out of their way to make it confusing, by having the handful of characters who should have aged not actually age (or so much as change their hair style). At least when Jaskier reappears after the time jump, there is a line of exposition saying something like “it’s been 10 years!” That was one of the only tip-offs in the entire season that they were time jumping, and I think the only indication of how big of a time jump it was (Ciri’s age was another, but the first time I watched I thought the actress playing her mother was the same person, they looked so much alike).
Such a baffling and, for us non-book readers/game players, borderline-sadistic decision. If you are going to do the cutesy time-hopping bullshit at least have the decency to just include a “20 years earlier” subtitle rather than force viewers to piece together a timeline via random snippets of dialogue. “Well in that one scene the Queen lady said the Battle of Valendorazovia or whatever was 23 years ago but in this scene that Mousedick guy said the that battle was seven weeks ago so by my calculations that makes Jaskier…4-years-old4-years-old4-years-old4-years-old at this point? No, that can’t be right.”
Wait doesn’t the actress play her own mother? It’s mainly makeup htey use to make her look a bit younger, but you can tell Ciri isn’t that young I think.
Relieved to know I’m not the only one who was bamboozled by this. They are totally different actresses. I know, because I was drafting an AV Club comment diatribe some months ago, complaining about the lack of visible aging, and among my complaints was the use of the same damn actress to play mother and daughter. But before posting I double-checked whether that was true… and it is not. Different actresses.https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10451372/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t79https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8463347/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t3
No shit, I swore I’d checked this but apparently not. Thanks!
In the books when Geralt and Ciri meet she’s like 6. And of course those were different actresses. Geez.
I think it took me about 3 episodes to even realise it was happening. Up until then, I just thought it was incomprehensible plotting (which I guess it was).BTW what the hell happened with those dragons in S1? Worst CGI evah.
Shoutout to everyone who decided to romance Triss and turn down the opportunity to get back together with Yenn in Witcher 3 because Triss is a more supportive partner for Geralt and his relationship with Yenn is toxic.
First of – the love triangle is very much a game invention born out of the fact that Witcher 1 initially wasn’t supposed to feature Geralt at all, until they pivoted but still wanted to distance themselves from the books (which is why the overarching plot of the first game has so little to do with anything in 2 and 3). Triss in the books is their sexual partner and she has a crush on him, but it’s never anything major.Second, Triss isn’t exactly a paragon of healthy relationships given that she openly lies to Geralt multiple times, politicks behind his back to the same extent as Yen (and Yen at least is primarily motivated by wanting to find Ciri, Triss in the firs two witchers is largely motivated by hoping to find a cushy enough job) and actively avoids talking about his past whatsoever because she wants to keep him to himself.Every single person involved in that love triangle is toxic. Geralt himself is a canonical serial womanizer who literally wished a relationship with Yennefer into existence in the first place. They’re in this tango together and Geralt himself is 100% a willing masochist in all this.
I think the challenge with your argument is that while it is technically correct about the games, the first game presented Triss was massively different how the later two games did that it is questionable to present it as a unified argument. So yes, it is true that that was who she was in the first game, but that wasn’t who she was in the third game.And that gets to the heart of the question as that was the game that presented the choice between Triss and Yen. And within the actions of that game, which by the way included Triss expressing regret over lying to Geralt which you happen to skip in your comparison, it is for me very difficult to argue that Triss was somehow more Toxic than Yen who actively did horrible things in that game.
At no point did I say that Triss is more toxic than Yennefer. I said all three of them are shitty people in general – relatable, human persons, but who did Dumb and Bad Shit.If anything, I’m talking shit about Geralt, who is just as shitty as Yennefer – much of the story came from him being an irresponsible dick. They’re worth each other, even if Geralt does grow as a person a lot.
I think this might be a terminology reaction from me as while I think that that there’s behaviour from Triss that could be described as selfish and dumb, especially in the first two games, I would never describe the relationship as toxic as they never actively cause harm to each other.To keep this on the show, there is this weird comparison in how both Witcher 3 and the show approach the Geralt/Yen relationship. I don’t want the show to do the game and because in the source material it is Geralt/Yen, I’m fine with them doing that on the show even if I dislike her. What I struggle with is that both seem to think that everyone will just automatically just be in to that relationship as it is an epic OTP and there’s absolutely no need to actually establish as a relationship anyone would root for. The game did that to the degree to a baffling degree and then the show did the same thing in that they had the two meet in an insanely questionable interaction which ended Geralt just being utterly in love with her for inpenetrable reasons. To the degree that he starts doing deeply questionable things to ensure they are together.That is what I can’t comprehend. And as I pointed out in another comment, it’s why I’m already not liking that they bringing up Triss’s crush on Geralt as even in that limited interaction they had during the first season, there was already more reason given there to root for the two than anything they gave us with Geralt and Yen.
I’m looking forward to this!I agree that the time hopping was confusing, but I think it actually added rich layers to the story telling. I liked this show more and more over time. There’s so much to watch — way too much — but even though I don’t have that much time, I rewatched season one entirely. Very few shows warrant a rewatch. GoT definitely wasn’t ever anything I was going to go back in and relive. No way. This show I did because that complexity of the world, including sorting out what was happening when and where, was substantively part of how they were building the characters and telling the tale. I checked it out initially thinking it was toss-up whether I’d like it, and highly unlikely it would be better than a B for me. Definitely way, WAY exceeded my expectations. The Nightmare of the Wolf was very good and helped get me stoked for season 2. I can’t wait!
Nightmare of the Wolf is so good, it nearly eclipses the first season of The Witcher for me.
I was hoping the show was done with Jaskier.
Pleased to hear it’s a strong sophomore season. I liked S1 for the most part, but isolating the characters for most of their respective stories felt cumbersome even if I understood the reasoning behind it.
I haven’t seen mention of whether Cavill retain’s the humorous edge that made the first season so much fun, so I’m nervous if this season takes itself more seriously at the expense of the Witcher’s dry wit, but either way I’m very excited to see this.
The humour is very hit and miss when it does rear its head. A lot of the Jaskier bits (he was my favourite in S1) does not land this time around, including a very groanworthy wink wink nudge nudge self-referential joke about season 1 complaints.
I laughed at that joke, it might have been my biggest laugh of the season.Agreed that the humour was indeed in shorter supply this season than it was in the first season, though I still quite enjoyed it, and I think the narrative was more coherent and maintained its momentum in a pretty satisfying way.
I’m excited to see how this goes in S2. I’m an oddball with this property; despite being a heavy fantasy reader for life and an enjoyer of games the Witcher IP was all brand new to me. Overall it was a big success to my noob eyes.Thought the first season was pretty engrossing (if confusing) with some fun performances on the first watch, finally understood the varying timelines on a second watch a year later, but was a bit bored with several episodes & plotlines on the third & last rewatch I did to refresh this week.It’s funny but my favorite non-major character, Queen Calanthe, is apparently way different in the books. Ah well, I liked her portrayal.
I’m definitely of the (apparently minority) opinion that the time-hopping worked. Especially for a season that’s fundamentally about whether or not you can escape your fate, knowing where things were ending up and watching characters slowly work their way to where they needed to end up was satisfying. Even if you missed the two or three obvious clues in the first episode, by the second they put down more than enough track to figure this out. While I think they should have done a bit more to age up/down the characters as necessary (maybe give Jaskier more than some crows’ feet and people’s dye jobs) I’m guessing some of the people who go really confused should just watch the show and not keep looking at their phone through it. It’s not a particularly subtle time-hopping scheme to grok.Excited about season 2.
This largely signals good news and I hope it rings true. Not sure how much of an unpopular opinion this is, but I wasn’t the biggest fan of the first season. The pacing was an issue (I get what they were trying to do with the jumbled timelines though) and the character work (I felt that there was very little chemistry between Cavill and Chalotra) and writing went up and down really jarringly sometimes. But my biggest gripe was that the world felt absolutely barren. Aside from the handful locations that the characters visited, I wasn’t sure whether there actually was a world beyond the borders of a given scene.It was as if the characters were noticeably exploring studio sets rather than an actual expansive lived in world. The Battle of Sodden Hill cemented that feeling for me. Still, I’ll be tuning in, if only for Cavill’s very dedicated performance. And I’ll honestly watch anything Kim Bodina does, so I’m pretty excited for Vesemir.
Never played the games nor read the books. The hype wagon pulled me into the show. The awkward pacing made the first season painful to sit through, barring a few bursts of excitement here and there. I’m in the minority and have the same problem with Wheel of time. The respective fandom seem to celebrate them both as phenomenal. The default answer to this criticism is that they are laying groundwork for the ‘future’ and will improve over time. But that is not how any of this is supposed to work. I’ll give the first two episodes a go. If it is the same B+ criteria as last time, count me out.
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Never played the games loved season 1. This season looks just as epic
Oh, oh hell yes.
Not sure what happened but the writer’s subtly castrated this series because people couldn’t put down their phones while watching then complained that they could not follow the story. Not to mention Geralt all of a sudden has a whole new less grumpy personality now with less violence and sex.
I’ve made it through 6 episodes and honestly I want a Jaskier/Yennefer spinoff.
I’ve watched up tp episode 4 now and- what a fun season so far!
Does Ciri have a little crush on Triss? That’s adorable! Also, Jaskier has written a breakup song about Geralt, truly solidifying his role the Taylor Swift of the Witcher universe.
SPOILERS
I won’t go too far into it but eventually this season makes as little sense as the first season. The big bad’s powers have no definition, so much of the attempts at GoT spymastering are dumb, tons of plotting relies on people not sharing information (triss) or being complete idiots (the elf leaders). And I buried this down here so anti-spoiler people won’t get it: why not have the father of Ciri announce to Ciri that he is her father…she would go to him. On the plus side, Jaskier who should BE old could GET old but doesn’t, that guy is really good at being funny to onscreen silence. Anyway, Cavill is good.