Before we start, Yes, Henry Cavill is in all of The Witcher Season 3 Part 2. No Liam Hemsworth
doesn’t appear but the producers assure us he’s quote unquote ‘awesome’ and
Henry wil have a ‘flawless’ exit.
That remains to be seen and after I was disappointed with Part 1 I went into this thinking it was
gonna be something that would kill off the show. Thankfully I think part 2 vastly improves
on the first half of the season and there's way more to like here.
Now this does make it kind of bittersweet as we know Henry’s exited the show for
the world of Warhammer. This we know this is his major passion and after losing Superman
I'm glad he's going onto something he's really exited to do.
Now was Henry’s exit flawless? Well we'll get into it and I think this season does suffer
a bit for having more endings than return of the King. We're gonna get into it all but
obviously heavy spoilers ahead and if you enjoy the video then please hit the thumbs
up button. We will be covering more witcher stuff at the channel too so make sure you
subscribe if you enjoy the video. With that out the way, huge thank you for clicking this
now let's get into the Witcher Season 3.
Now a big problem is that the producers and showrunners wanted to add an artificial cliffhanger
after episode 5 having been inspired by Stranger Things' stunning one in Season 4.
That worked as not only did we see the long awaited events of the Hawkins massacre being
shown but we also got the reveal of Vecnas backstory.
Part 2 picked right back up where we left off as the terror continued.
However with this it feel like they just added it in as a last minute thought with the cliffhanger
being something just to draw out the season.
Netflix have been trying to get people to come back and adapt and almost weekly binge
model whilst also staying to true to having lots of episodes at once. So I think that
this was added just for the sake of it cos there's no way anyone thought Djistkra could
kill actually kill Geralt.
Here the continuation just feels like a natural next episode but I have to say I really enjoyed
the sixth entry.
Now where we leave the world of The Witcher at the end of the season feels like a reset
for the show. There's a lot of members of the cast that end up dying and most of the
plot lines get wrapped up.
During season 3, much was made of Geralt’s neutrality and wanting to be above everything.
He intended to keep his child of surprise, Ciri, as safe as possible but with her being
who she is everyone wants her dead...or impregnated.
Looking at her resume she's got a lot going on and here's just some of the things that
she actually is.
The Emperor’s daughter, the child of Elder blood aka saviour of the elves and also the
rightful ruler of Cintra.
We saw in Season 3 how many sides petitioned Geralt to have her but his neutrality stopped
this. He refused to play politics and as we’ve seen throughout the show politics can be a
dirty game.
His refusal to take a side or go all out to take out one side specifically to save her
ended up putting her at even greater risk. But where did we leave off in who wants Ciri?
The Emperor wanted her as she is his daughter as in the books, he wanted to marry her and
have a child with her believing the prophecy that her descendant would become the most
powerful being.
VIlgefortz has allied with him in secret all this time as he wants Ciri believing she will
help him increase his magic level, possibly over 9000. He has been using the kidnapped
mages to make a fake Ciri who we see later at the end of the season.
The Wild Hunt also want Ciri so that they can use her powers to bring more and more
troops across the multiverse and take over and enslave all beings and Francesca wants
her due to the prophecy that at the end of everything she will find a safe home for the
elves.
Problem is, she has united with Ciri’s father.
Vizimir wanted her to ensure Redania was the most powerful in the North and by handing
her over to Nilfgaard, they will receive Redania. There's just one problem, the king is an
idiot. Thus Djisktra and Phillipa engineerd Vizimir to hate Nilfgaard and make certain
the Emperor doesn’t get his secret daughter.
They have attempted to get Ciri and as we learn have started a plot to purge all Nilfgaard
allied sorcerers. In the books this is known as the Thanedd Coup and happens during the
book Time of Contempt.
The events here play out a little bit differently with Ciri being used as a lie detector medium
in the books but here she runs off and even comes into contact with Cahir. More on her
in a bit as she has some full on Homer Simpson esque fever dreams when he ate that really
big chilli.
Djistkra thinks that he’s got one up on almost everyone but as usual, he takes a fat
L here. It comes to light that VIlgefortz is working with Rience and Nilfgaard which
adds some more issues into the mix.
One problem, the mages are tied up in demeterium and Francesca and her Scoi’atel having shacked
up with the emperor by way of Cahir are here to take Ciri and Aretuza, oh and Frinjilla
arrives. She’s attempting and does get back into favour with the Emperor after being imprisoned
for lying about killing Francesc’as child.
This episode was a pretty decent one mainly for the action and sheer savagery that we
got on display. For me it was the highlight as the show was allowed to actually be fun.
Francesca gets instant trauma as her husband is literally exploded in front of her face
despite her crew having demetrium arrows which can go through force fields.
Rience a villain seasons in the making meets a swift end as he instantly loses his head
and seeing the mages and elves fight is a brutal affair.
It’s capped off by Tissaia realising that the Brotherhood is essentially over and Yennefer
sees her power up her ult to wipe out the forces using a spell which will kill everyone
in her gaze irregardless of allegiance.
She uses something known as Alzurs Thunder who’s name sake Alzur was an immensely powerful
and back story involved creating Witchers and the spell is also a card in the in-universe
game Gwent.
Unleashing her unlimited power it turns her hair witcher white, hey at least her face
didn’t get messed up like palpatine and is distraught after being played by Vilgefortz.
And this marks the end of her story as she ends her life marking an end to the brotherhood.
Some things to keep in mind is our boy Istredd who went off to get the book about monoliths.
We get a sense of where things are going at the end of the season as the successor is
set up. We get the first meeting of the Lodge of Sorcerers but this time no geezers allowed
and will try and help Ciri and play major roles in the games Witcher 2 and Witcher 3
which act as unofficial sequels to the book series.
This sort of ends the battle meanwhile Geralt and Vilgefortz have a showdown just like the
books.
Now I don’t know about you but I never found Vilgefortz all that menacing or an interesting
villain in the show and while their showdown was expected, it felt anti climatic. He was
defeated by Cahir earlier so it kind of nullified this defeat of geralt.
Cavill’s dedication to the choreography and fight scenes really shows this season
but it lacked a fair bit of punch and seeing him knocked on his butt would have made a
better cliffhanger in my opinion. 90% of the last episode of Part 1 could have been cut
to allow his battle to cap off that part.
The last two episodes deal with the mop up and really just centre on Ciri and where the
major players go next. With Geralt defeated, Vilgeofrtz pursues Ciri leading an unstable
portal being exploded in the books which appears similar here. This was the Lara Portal built
by the elves but due to it being unstable it explodes destroying the tower.
The tower explodes which leaves VIlfrotz disfigured and Ciri is sent to the Korath desert where
she is helped by and later helps a unicorn. The unicorns will play majorly into the future
multiverse stories Ciri will experience.
Here she comes across visions of her mother and grandmother asking her mother why she
left on a boat without her. This is a major and important point in her backstory as Ciri
is unaware her father is still alive.
In the books vilgefortz approached Emyr after Ciri’s birth offering a way to use Ciri
to reclaim Nilfgaard as he had lost his birthright to a usurper who killed his father and took
the throne. This involved faking his Pavettas and Ciris death on a boat but Pavetta found
out and this end in disaster leading him to inadvertently kill Ciri’s mother and his
identiy of Duny was dead and went to take nilfgaard back.
I would imagine we will learn this fully in the show including all of the backstory next
season. In the books Ciri has a vision of herself ravaging the continent which is a
possibility of the many prophecies surrounding her but here we meet Falka.
Falka has been mentioned in the past as Stregobor used her story to justify his racism towards
elves.
Falke ws a child of Redanian King Vridank who was supposedly very elven looking but
lost her heritage after fer father remarried. Later she would lead a rebellion and kill
her father but would be burned at the stake. She would state that the descendants of her
executors wuld suffer at the hands of a child of her bloodline.
This is the other prophecy while Ithlinne’s prophecy said only elves will survive the
end of the world by an offspring of the elder blood aka a descendant of Lara Dorren which
Ciri is.
It’s muddy as Ciri is thought by some to actually be Falka’s daughter as her troops
imprisoned a woman named Rhiannon, a descendent of Lara Dorren and both Falka and Rhiannon's
kids were mixed up and no one could know who birthed who.
Yeah we got pretty deep there and the show is pretty darned simple. Falka is just saying
to Ciri she needs to break the wheel and burn it all down, hold up Daenarys? She ends up
using incredibly dangerous flame magic to help heal her Unicorn and will now be asked
to be called Falka.
We leave her with a group known as the Rats just like the books. These are a group who
steal from the rich and Netflix is actually making a Rats spin off. Not too sure that’s
wise after Blood Origin was one of the worst fantasy shows of all time.
It hasn’t been officially announced but the website Redanian Intelligence who have
been highly accurate with leaks reported it has been in production. In the books Ciri
joined The Rats before being pursued by Vilgefortz once more and her meeting with Avallach who
you will know from the books, games or Blood Origin if you made it through the latter.
I managed it but I had a lot of booze and a cheese board at the time to dull my senses.
The Rats aren’t exactly liked and I am sure adding a load of millennial writing to a group
disliked by fans will be a recipe for disaster.
All while this is going on we get a rather dull story of Geralt healing with the Dryads
who themselves are harbouring refugees from the war and most of this latter half of the
season follows the events of Time of Contempt and parts of the next one, Baptism of Fire.
We meet Milva played by Meng'er Zhang who you may recognise from Shang Chi. She helps
Geralt heal and will later join him on his quest to find Ciri. Another future partner
is Cahir who we saw actually help Ciri and weirdly in the books he was in love with her
and wanted to help her fulfil her destiny.
Here he wants his life to be taken by her which she doesn’t but it just seemed pretty
out of the blue and I have to say there are far too many plates spinning for the writers
in my opinion.
We mentioned previously how Geralt must shed his neutrality and shackles of the past. It’s
clear what he did to Renfri has sat with him for a while as he kept seeing her in Season
1.
He’s healed by Yennefer to set off and find Ciri who she calls her daughter in her own
way and actually comes across vilgefortz experiments on the fake Ciri.
He in his discussions with Milva decides to finally go all out and attack. It’s him
and Dandelion with Milva as he does what he wouldn’t before and kills Nilfgaard soldiers
and threatens to take Ciri from the emperor not knowing she’s the DoppleCiri.
His change is underscored by Yennefers voice over which says how they will be the last
to fall. She and the Lodge will be working to take out Vlgefortz and I did like how we
saw Crach and Craite once more who was played by a different actor here but here is played
by a game of thrones actor and played a big role in Witcher 3.
She wants to make the world safe for Ciri and I expect next season to finally see off
VIlgerfortz for good and move towards the endgame and deal with The WIld Hunt and the
elves trapped after the conjunction of the spheres.
Now I find it very very weird that, complete with the experiments and seeing the Ciri look
a like he didn’t think hold on, Ciri is on her way to the emperor but Vilgefortz is
aligned to the Emperor. Maybe he has the fake one?
The Emperor has given this fake Ciri her titles while in the books he knew instantly she was
a fake and in reality an orphaned child of nobility.Presumably in the show he knows she's
fake and is using this to give him time to find the real one which is also no doubt what
Vilgefortz is thinking too.However the evil mage no doubt wants her for his own gain.
But nonetheless he heads off and that marks the end of Cavill in The Witcher and time
will tell how we get our face changed.
The show does a good job of setting a brand new status quo and one that is so far heading
into a more book accurate way. The Lodge has been set up, Geralt is with Milva and Dandelion
off to head to find Ciri.
Radovid is finally king of Redania after wanting to run off. Phillippa comes in clutch for
Dkistrka and kills Vizimir just like she used the same assasin for his wife and Radovid
is now king.
While in the books at this time he was young, he’s much older here and his timeframe is
more similar to the events of the game Witcher 2 Assassin of Kings. I do wonder if they will
start to blend some of the game stories into this as with Cavill gone and the quality plummeting,
it’s questionable how long this show will run for to even get to
the games.
Francesca's deal is paid off as she has her own land for her people. Albeit she must turn
over the Scoi’atel to the emperor. It’s also finally revealed to her how it was actually
the Emperor who killed the baby which will no doubt cause a major rift between the new
queen of the free elves and the emperor.
The next season will no doubt follow the rest of Baptism of Fire and Tower of the Swallow
which follows Ciri and the rats and even introduces the vampire Regis.
Overall it was sadly a largely dull season with the source material beloved and rivals
that of Game of Thrones the show should be challenging House of the Dragon in quality
but has fallen majorly short.
It at times lingers on things for far too long with almost a whole episode of Ciri wandering
the dessert when an episode where the characters are allowed to take the weights off like Rock
Lee, was gripping and fun.
But once again, Henry Cavill is failed largely by people who think they know better. I wish
him all the best for Warhammer as shows like Invincible and to an extent The Boys prove
being lore accurate is a key to success.
Anyway, I’m off to paint my Space Marines in anticipation and I hope you enjoyed our
breakdown of the show.
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