Star Henry Cavil absolutely disappears into the character of Geralt of Rivea his gruff mannerisms and carefully hidden but still present wry sense of humor, the weary yet assured way he stalks through the woods in his leather armor. This playfully thoughtful approach extends to the performances in The Witcher. Old premises are questioned with modern concerns who possesses power or agency and who does not are just as vital to a Witcher story as is the question of how to kill “a Leshen.” It playfully reworks fairy tale tropes - for example, what binds Geralt to his love interest Yennefer is effectively a wish he made to a genie - as it actively interrogates them. The world of the show (along with the books it is based on, as well as the popular video game adaptations) is not one without wit. Yet The Witcher is still a pleasure to watch in spite of these substantial shifts, largely because it is so damn charming. Questions that were answered by implication in the previous season are answered more explicitly - namely, what Witchers are, how they’re made, and are there any more - and while these answers are crucial to the plot, there is something lost when a fantasy show stops to explain most of its rules instead of simply showing its strange world at work. In the first six episodes made available to critics, the monster-of-the-episode morality tales are largely gone (with one wonderful early exception) in favor of fantasy sprawl. The result is a Witcher series that is a little more conventional and a little less odd. Now that all of these main stories have converged, season 2 spends much of its time spinning them out again, this time in chronological order. In retrospect, it was a good way to blend a serial story about the origin of the sorceress Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) of Vengerberg (the earliest timeline), episodic adventure stories following Geralt (the middle timeline) and meaty world building (the “present” timeline following Ciri). While The Witcher’s writers made the initially confounding decision to have that first batch of episodes unfold nonlinearly across three timelines, the plot threads were relatively free of knots when laid out in order. In fact, so much of season 2 consists of careful plot bricklaying that it highlights how little was explained in the prior season. As the world of The Witcher expands, it attempts to develop a meatier texture that isn’t always elegant. Did you remember that the world of the Witcher is racist towards elves? I did not. Structures called Monoliths are causing natural disasters and introducing new monsters to The Continent, and the disparate Northern Kingdoms must contend with the presence of Nilfgaard without, and unrest within that mostly manifests as fantasy racism towards Elves that may inadvertently fuel a violent uprising. Meanwhile, the world shakes, literally and figuratively. Ciri wants her revenge, and she feels she must become a Witcher to have it. Ciri, as she’s called, is still motivated by grief and rage stemming from the events of the first season, where the invading empire of Nilfgaard laid siege to her home, the Kingdom of Cintra, killing her family and nearly capturing her. Geralt of Rivia (Henry Cavill), genetically enhanced monster hunter, is now the apprehensive adoptive father of Cirilla (Freya Allan), a princess in exile with a mysterious heritage that gives her incredible powers no one fully understands. While this is partly a reflection of the source material - Andrezj Sapkowski’s Witcher fiction begins with short story collections that eventually give way to a five-novel epic - it’s also a significant retooling of the show’s structure. So it’s a little bit of a disappointment that The Witcher’s second season, out on Netflix today, builds out a more intricate and serialized story in the Game of Thrones mold. ![]() ![]() This was a good thing! Game of Thrones was pretty great at times, but it was never a particularly fun ride, and it never gave us the hit single “ Toss a Coin to Your Witcher.” The irony here is how poorly The Witcher fit that mold a show just as interested in pulp Xena: Warrior Princess-style episodic adventure as it was intricate world-building and amoral politicking. There’s this fall’s The Wheel of Time, which will be joined next fall by a Lord of the Rings series on Amazon, in addition to HBO’s proper follow-up to Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon. When The Witcher arrived on Netflix in 2019, it was received by some as an early contender for the title of “ next Game of Thrones.” If that translates to “expensive adult fantasy show with prestige TV ambitions,” it’s a field that’s quickly getting crowded.
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