A cursory glance at the internet on any given day has made it perfectly clear that a lot of people aren’t ready, but it’s nonetheless time to bid farewell to Henry Cavill’s Geralt of Rivia as The Witcher unveils the final three episodes of season 3 to send the popular star and indelible leading man riding off into the sunset.
Obviously, this being Netflix, there’s been a month of waiting after the streaming service opted to make the blockbuster fantasy the latest original series to be split in two, which hasn’t quite had the desired effect in the face of review-bombing, dwindling viewership figures, and an overriding sense that you won’t miss much by simply waiting it out and bingeing all eight chapters when they’re available at once.
The cliffhanger that ended Volume 1 is resolved fairly swiftly to render the practice even more infuriatingly redundant, only for mysteries and conspiracies to begin stacking sky high as The Witcher races through a breathless triumvirate of stories that do almost everything except acknowledge the fact Liam Hemsworth is waiting in the wings as Cavill’s replacement from season 4 onward.
Of course, anyone expecting a Marvel Cinematic Universe-style post-credits scene that features Hemsworth emerging from a multiversal portal to say “It’s witching time” before the show cuts to black should look elsewhere, but given the engrossing way Cavill brought Geralt to life and ensured he followed the pre-established mythology to the letter throughout his tenure as the role’s steward, there’s going to be an awful lot of people out there left fuming at the way the finale’s last scenes unfold.
Completely ignoring the recasting furor, though, and The Witcher falls into many of the same traps – and hits plenty of the same high notes – as its predecessor. Volume 2 features action, blood-spurting aplenty, political machinations, revelations, exposition dumps, expansion of the lore, teases for not just season 4 but prospective spin-offs and many more besides, and yet it’s difficult to get excited about much of it when the stop/start nature of the pacing and the weak impressions made by several of the supposed “key players” make it hard to care about what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, or how it’s going to unfold in the years to come.
The sixth episode is the standout by far, and in microcosm captures the magic that made The Witcher such a success in the first place; the pieces zip around the narrative chessboard in exhilarating fashion, all punctuated by major storyline and character developments, punctuated with plenty of eye-popping visuals and barbaric set pieces that are as guttural as they are gorgeous.
Sadly, it’s sandwiched on either side of two installments that are more glacial and perfunctory, with the A-to-B-to-C to get back to B before discovering they should have been seeking D all along fetch quest nature of the plot dragging things down once again.
Redania, Nilfgaard, and Aretuza are all at each other’s throats with Ciri stuck in the middle as per usual, but Geralt is regularly lurking just on the outskirts of neutrality, waiting for everyone to make their next move before he decides what his going to be. Bizarrely, then, Cavill ends up being sidelined in favor of another quest – this one a vision-based Ciri adventure – that continually stalls any momentum and ultimately makes the emotionally-charged moments feel robbed of the urgency they deserve, regardless of the added weight of every one of the actor’s interaction with a major player feeling like a goodbye to the audience, too.
One reason to be cautiously optimistic about season 4 is that – without going into spoilers – it’s beginning to look as though politics will be a less important element of the Continent’s storytelling complexion, with the prospect of a laser-focused tale that focuses on the characters people are actually interested in a promising development after a third season that came close to drowning in its own legislative soup on occasion.
Keeping the “Core Four” of Geralt, Ciri, Yennefer, and Jaskier apart for so long has always been a questionable creative decision given their status as the linchpins of the entire operation that effortlessly generate chemistry and bounce off each other with the greatest of ease, and it’s no shock that The Witcher is at its strongest in season 3 when the gang is back together and doing what they do best.
Unfortunately, it’s too few and far between, and with Volume 2 marking the end of the Cavill era with a fandom ready to turn its back en masse for the show to have the gumption to even dare carry on without its leading man, it remains to be seen if Hemsworth’s impending arrival is either the dawn of a bold and brave new era or the beginning of the end for The Witcher.
Save for the sixth episode – which is easily among the finest in the series’ history – season 3 doesn’t get the pulse racing in anything approaching the way it should, which is concerning knowing what the future holds. It’s not irredeemably bad or an affront to the good name of the IP, but solid without coming close to spectacular just doesn’t cut it for what’s supposed to be one of Netflix’s marquee franchises
