The Witcher season 3, volume 2 review: Henry Cavill deserves a better exit
In the star's final episodes on the Netflix series, Geralt contemplates something that's been obvious from the start
TV Reviews Henry Cavill
Late in The Witcher’s third season, the second volume of which premieres July 27 on Netflix, Geralt (Henry Cavill) is having a reckoning. “I’ve always tried to stay above the fray,” he says. “To shut everything out. And life always finds a way to force my hand.” He flashes back to Renfri, the princess he killed back in season one—or the cursed child born under a bad moon, as the sorcerer Stregobor saw her.
Geralt never really believed Stregobor, but he didn’t have to; he was still clinging to his neutrality then, still trying to convince himself that staying out of it—the politics, the petty squabbles between men, the greater good or lesser evil, all of it—was the best way to stay alive. He kept telling himself this, and Ciri, too, decades later, all the way through the first volume of season three. He kept telling himself this right up until Dijkstra held a knife to his throat and told him, “You should’ve picked a side. The Redanian side.”
That’s where volume one ended, and where volume two picks up, in the middle of the Thanedd coup at Aretuza. In episode six, the first of three entries in volume two, both Vilgefortz and the Nilfgaardians and Dijkstra, Philippa, and the Redanians are trying to take over the magical school at the same time, and Geralt, Yenn, Jaskier, and Ciri are caught in the middle. Nearly all of the other mages have secretly chosen a side, and as the battle plays out, Geralt once again refuses to join either one. Instead, he focuses on getting Ciri out of there, away from all the people who want to use her. It’s a wonderfully tense, violent episode, a beautifully rendered explosion of pressure. And it’s where the season should have ended. Instead, the last two episodes drag on, leading to an anticlimactic—and even worse, boring—end for Henry Cavill’s time on the show.
When Cavill announced he’d be leaving after season three, many people assumed the show would end, too. He was, and is, the perfect person to play the mutant monster hunter; he’s an avowed fan of the novels and games on which the show is based, and he’s got the look, the grunts, and the “Ah, fuck”s down pat. He’s probably a bigger Witcher nerd than most people who watch the show. (Rumors claim that he left the series because it diverged too far from the books, but there’s no real evidence to back that up.)
So the decision to recast Geralt for season four—Liam Hemsworth will take over the role—was met with confusion at best and derision at worst. Since then, showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich and executive producers Steve Gaub and Tomek Baginski have been trying to hype up both the transition and Cavill’s exit.
To be clear, the Geralt switch won’t happen until season four; season three was already done by the time Cavill announced he was leaving. The best they could do was try to give him something of a heroic sendoff, but that’s hard to do without killing the character completely. Even with those difficult constraints of saying goodbye to an actor without saying goodbye to their character, volume two still leaves you with a sense that Cavill deserved better than this.
Yes, Geralt gets a big final fight scene, but it feels oddly toothless. The characters he’s fighting are unimportant, and the choreography, while good, isn’t exceptional. And it stands out even more because of the direct parallels it draws to the Blaviken fight from the show’s very first episode, arguably the best in the whole series.
Ciri, meanwhile, joins up with the Rats and leans into her darker side while dodging her pursuers. It’s an interesting storyline that’s poorly executed; an entire episode is dedicated to Ciri wandering a desert, experiencing hallucinations and fighting to survive. But the sameness of the landscape makes for an exceptionally dull entry, and it’s hard not to think that at least half of it could’ve been cut. Geralt and Ciri have spent a good portion of the show separated, but their stories were woven together much more deftly in the past. This time, the series can’t find the right balance to keep things engaging.
In season one, Geralt walked away from Blaviken even more convinced that he should remain neutral. He took Renfri’s brooch as a reminder of what happens when you get involved: You get a whole lot of fear and resentment and a nickname you’d rather not have.
Geralt’s final fight in season three is meant to show his evolution, that he’s done with neutrality, that he’s ready to go to war with Nilfgaard, or whomever else, to protect Ciri. But, as Geralt himself admits, it’s not really that much of a change. He’s never been able to stay out of it, so he’s finally giving himself permission to get involved. Three seasons into The Witcher, we’re almost exactly back where we started, except this time, Geralt’s finally running toward his destiny instead of away from it. It might be a revelation for Geralt, but it’s unfortunately nothing new for the audience.
The Witcher season 3, volume 2 premieres July 27 on Netflix
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Haven’t watched the second half of the third season yet, I will drag myself through it, but I will admit of being a little bit heartbroken by the reviews so far. Don’t get me wrong, I think the show ran off the cliff during Season 2 and majority of the first half of Season 3 was mind-numbingly dumb, but I realized reading these that I was hoping that they would still pull it off during the second half. That the show would realize what they had in two of the main leads, and the unique relationship between Geralt and Ciri, and find a way to make it work.I’ll have more exact thought after finishing the season, but I can’t remember the last time a show left me as disappointed as Witcher. I didn’t think the first season was great, but it had the seeds of something special. And for a while the second season felt like it was able to built on that, even if the political stuff remained dumb. But then the way it devolved was almost sad to witness.
A lot of the books’ political stuff was overly convoluted and besides the point…and the show somehow made it so, so much dumber and worse!The worst part is that it tended to come at the direct expense of the characterizations of the series’ most important characters, like Yen and Cahir.
All the elf and Evil Spirit shit from the second season was invented wholesale, presumably from some of the writers’ rejected scripts.I’ll probably revisit the first season at some point, but I’ve reached the point where this really is a good riddance to bad rubbish situation.
One of the cardinal sins of this show is how convinced it is about its own cleverness. Not even that they think that they can pull things off, but that they seem to consider it one of their big strengths. As a result they lean even more heavily on the political stuff that is necessary, in the process making everything worse and muddled.On Cahir I agree that it really hurt his characterization as the Nilfgaardian political stuff was just… huh, but with Yen I think their approach to the character to begin with was fundamentally flawed.And on the last point, yeah, I don’t see myself watching the fourth season. At this point it’s not even fun to watch it with someone to mock its relentless stupidity as there is just something inherently sad about the wasted potential here.
I actually really enjoyed S1 Yen! Chalotra’s performance there would have perfectly transitioned into her falling for Ciri as the daughter she always wanted but couldn’t have. Instead, these genii had Yen try to sell Ciri’s soul for power!
What the fuck, seriously?I’m glad the first episode was dumb enough to keep me away from this show.
Yep. After the first season ended with a battle that included CAHIR overpowering VILGEFORTZ, the second opened with Yen having “lost her magic,” and deciding to sell Ciri’s soul to the devil to regain it.
I eventually just turned my brain off during anything involving the Elves. Less talking more monsters, please.
I’m not a huge Witcher fan, but enjoyed the first season. I was pretty blown away by how cheap and rough the first half of season 3 looked, and the mid-season finale thought itself so clever but was so poorly executed. Kind of an unceremonious end to one of Netflix’s crown jewels, at a time when they don’t have many left.
Few things summarized to me the unintentional hilarity of the mid-season finale than when the scenes switched and we could hear the performer sing how everything was not at it seemed. Meanwhile the following scenes revealed that everything was pretty much exactly what we thought them to be.Like I genuinely still cannot figure out if it was meant to be a parody or not.
I’ve really struggled to get through the first half of the season honestly. It’s just not pulling me in like the previous ones did. The first couple episodes just felt like such a slog, and the lengthy break between seasons didn’t help because there are so many weird names and factions that it’s hard to keep up without going back and doing a refresher.
The show really does a bad job, in my opinion, of setting up who everyone is, what their motivations are, etc. and by the time I’ve got it all figured out, they end the season (or half season) and then I forget and have to relearn who all the people are. Like half the characters are just “white guy with long brown hair” so I find myself constantly wondering if guy 1 is the same person as guy 2, etc.
I love watching Cavill, I love that he enjoys—sigh, ENJOYED—the role, and I appreciate the monsters, the magic, the blood, the dresses. It was enough to keep me thrilled. But I also was putting up with some of the show’s lesser characteristics.There has, in my opinion, always been a distance between the show it could have been and the show it was—and the show it was was entertaining and mildly heartwarming at best, illogical and silly and numb at worst.I’m both not surprised and also disappointed by the reviews I’ve read of his sendoff. At least it’s not the last I’ll see of Cavill geeking out.
I’ve had more fun re-watching Xena than I ever had with Witcher. Seriously, y’all should just watch Xena, it makes better use of its budget, and the Raimi charm shines through frequently. Bruce Campbell only shows up in a handful of episodes, but he is so goddam charming it feels like he’s in it more than he is. I think Xena is a better lead character too, and her skinny blonde sidekick is better than Geralt’s.
I’m in the middle of reading the series of books (Lady in the Lake) and will have to wait until I’m done with that and then for some time to pass for my mind to accept that they’re different things before watching either part of Season 3. Hopefully Helmsworth isn’t too much of a downgrade for season 4.
Did he though? Like I honestly do not understand why everyone seems to love Cavill. He is a huge nerd, and that is fun for us, but… on screen he really is a massive charisma void that tends to pull everything down with him. Geralt might have been a good role for him, because Geralt in the games was also a big charisma void so the player could imagine himself as that persom but on a show that is not in any way interesting to watch. Witcher Season one was Xena with nudity and cursing, but a much less charismatic and interesting lead.Witcher Season Two was convulted wannabe Game of Thrones mess written by someone with roughly half the talent and interest D and D showed in season 8.Witcher Season Three is dying with a whimper. Which, honestly is the perfect send off to a show and a lead that never got above an amusing distraction with some bad acting.
Season 1 – An incoherent mess with some very strong performances (Cavill and Chalotra)Season 2 – More coherent, huzzah!Season 3 (Part 1) – Struggling to care about any of the political machinations and internal logic of all of the factions at play.Season 3 (Part 2) – Haven’t seen it yet but I’m fearing the worst…
I come at this from a very casual standpoint – my husband played the games and read (some of?) the books, he’s much more into high fantasy than I am. I knew the basic story and characters from seeing him play the games. And I’ve enjoyed the show, for the most part; Henry Cavill was definitely born to play Geralt and I think Yenn and Ciri are interesting characters.But it also reminds me why I don’t usually like high fantasy – I can’t follow the deeper nuance. Too many characters, too much going on, I don’t fully understand the stakes or the references or remember most of their names. Game of Thrones was better about this, regardless of the absolute horseshit way it ended. But I watch the Witcher, and I’m entertained enough, it’s pretty to look at … but I have no emotional stakes in the game because most of the characters are a blur.
I love high fantasy and typically have no trouble following hundreds of characters and dozens of plotlines, and I honestly could barely keep track of season 1. The timeline in that was a big problem, but I finished it having not knowing who was at war with who, or even where major regions were in relation to each other, despite constant mentions of war from the north or south or whatever. When I started season 2 and it was waist deep in that stuff from the beginning, I just immediately tuned out. I don’t think I even started the second episode.
He was, and is, the perfect person to play the mutant monster hunter; he’s an avowed fan of the novels and games on which the show is based, and he’s got the look, the grunts, and the “Ah, fuck”s down pat. He’s probably a bigger Witcher nerd than most people who watch the show. (Rumors claim that he left the series because it diverged too far from the books, but there’s no real evidence to back that up.)This fanboy meme where he’s the most biggesty puristy fan on the show is so weird considering his Geralt is an impersonation of the American VA in the games and nothing like the book Geralt.
The mid-season finale’s unintentional hilarity peaked as the performer sang about deception while the subsequent scenes confirmed our initial perceptions. I’m genuinely unsure if it was meant as a parody or not.
Witcher have 13 regenerations
Do the Witchers also have a Police Call Box to get around in, Nilus…?