The Witcher season 2 review: a grander and more serious story

Amusement

The Witcher season 2 gets a trifle too serious on its quest to answer some big questions

The new season is grander, but less playful, than the first

By Dec 10, 2021, 3:01am EST

The initiative season of Netflix's live-action adaptation of The Witcher was a thrifty balancing act. In some shipway, it was the service's do to Pun of Thrones, a bloodthirsty illusion epic with a story that spanned a continent (and many years). But, in keeping with the source material, IT was also a lot of merriment. There were creepy monsters to hunt each episode, some great comical embossment in the form of an annoying bard, as cured As sticky bath scenes and a full-on orgy. It had everything.

Season 2 attempts to improving the fantasy stakes by focusing on some of the bigger, more than existential questions approximately The Witcher universe, from the origins of monsters to why a schoolgirlish princess's screams create earthquakes. The result is a show that has a more challenging, epic spirit and extraordinary that also loses some of the personality that made it such a hit in the first place. These issues mirror the trajectory of the books, but they look more pronounced in a animate-activeness series where so much depends on the characters and their performances.

Note: this review is based on the first six episodes of The Witcher season 2 (there are eight in summate) and contains light spoilers.

The story picks up right after the events of season 1's final sequence, in which 2 important things happened. One, Geralt (a monster-search change played aside Henry Cavill) and his ward Ciri (a princess with strange powers played past Freya Allan) finally reached from each one some other after spending the past eight episodes seemingly jetting in parallel across an entire celibate. At the same time, a huge fight finished afterward the mage — and Geralt's connected-again, off-again love interest — Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) channeled just about dark forces to temporarily defeat an entire army. These events left the cast in some fascinating places, which is flop where season 2 kicks off.

There's a great deal going happening. At the outset, Geralt, forever the lone wolf, is now a father figure and takes Ciri with him to Kaer Morhen — a secluded spot in the mountains that serves as the headquarters for the witchers — in edict to keep her safe and plot his future move. Ciri takes this chance to power train. Later outlay the initiatory flavor almost entirely as a victim on the guide, she wants to suit strong enough to defend herself. Yennefer, lag, is a POW who is immediately troubled with a very personal loss.

Amidst all of the individual struggles, season 2 of The Witcher attempts to broach some big, universe-defining questions. At the center of it every is an event, much spoke of in overtaking, called the conjunction. Essentially, before the conjunction, thither were different realms, or spheres, keeping like mankind, elves, and monsters separate. Merely the co-occurrence saw them nonvoluntary together, creating the world as we know it in The Witcher. So more things are even to this event — the sudden show of new monsters, Ciri's powers, the being of the witchers to begin with — that it serves as the connective tissue for pretty much everything happening. (If you're looking even more backstory, I highly recommend the revived prequel movie Nightmare of the Wolf, which provides many great circumstance for the history of witchers and monsters.)

It's interesting to see these larger questions at play, but the best part of this complex frame-up is that it lets you see the main retch from all original perspectives. Geralt has become such a dad, focused almost entirely on Ciri's swell-organism, even if IT means upsetting the other witchers WHO just want to kill things and sleep for the overwinter. Ciri makes a dramatic sprain into an incredibly determined undeveloped warrior, while Yennefer is forced to deal with life after losing a defining part of her life. I South Korean won't spoil too much about Jaskier (Joey Batey) otherwise to sound out he is no longer a devil-may-care bard — more like a lover scorned later on his split from Geralt. (Badly, just wait until you get word his virgin hit song.)

This season also brings the woefully underused mage Trish Merigold (Anna Shaffer) into a much more prominent position and turns the on the face of it spiritless Fringilla (Mimi Ndiweni) into a surprisingly likeable loss leader. At the cookie-cutter time, The Witcher introduces some key new faces. Among them: Geralt's mentor and father number, Vesemir (Kim Bodnia), World Health Organization is resolute to keep witchers from going extinct, a dark mage named Rience (Chris Fulton) tasked with finding Ciri, and Nenneke (Adjoa Andoh), a priestess who helps guide Geralt through this new (for him) territory.

And so yea, on that point's very much active happening, but information technology's actually a little easier to keep things straight this time because, dissimilar season 1, everything is on on the same timeline. (The show even pokes fun at the complexness of finish temper with a great self-mindful joke.) I do miss the monster-of-the-week structure from 2019, only season 2 works because its central mysteries are so interesting, and the shifting perspectives on the of import cast help keep open it feeling distinct from what we've already seen. IT's non just more of the same. And the show still offers plenty of what I want from a Witcher story. On that point are terrifying monsters (including a particularly unsettling vampire in the first installment), at least unity sad death, and that very Witcher-specific kind of tragedy that makes you feel high-risk when a jumbo bug monster is murdered.

But the bits it's missing test to be very important. The Witcher is full of political intrigue and fantasy drama, but a kernel contribution of the appeal is besides all of the sexual activity and jokes. Mollify 2 is nonexistent both. We yet receive Geralt's sarcastic, dried quips, merely I definitely realized how noteworthy Jaskier's comedic ministration was once it was almost only gone. Information technology's cool to see a spick-and-span side of the character, but I wish he didn't deal all of the jokes along with him. Likewise, for a franchise where well-nigh every iteration — from the computer game to the Zanzibar copal to the live-action series — is closely coupled with an image of a buff man in a bathing tub, IT's noteworthy how sexless this season is. The Witcher is one of the rare dark fantasy stories where the sex is amusive and joyful, rather than oftentimes laced to force and rape. Now IT's most non-existent.

Don't get me wrong: I still binged through and through the season incredibly quickly because I sportsmanlike had to take in what happened next. The back season has great momentum that keeps it moving forward, on with an even more well-bowfront cast than before. But it also felt like the show was lento moving away from much of what made it so sharp. I get it on observance Geralt slice apart monsters and accidentally get caught risen in political turmoil as much arsenic anyone. But few laughs along the way would be nice.

The Witcher temper 2 debuts on Netflix on December 17th.