The Witcher Season 3 Part 1 Review: An Uneven Swan Song for Henry Cavill
While Henry Cavill remains as engaging as ever in his leading role, nothing about The Witcher's third season convinces viewers to keep watching after Cavill's departure at the end of the season. Over the course of the first five episodes, viewers are reminded just how much Cavill's brooding but compelling take on Geralt elevates the show from the standard fantasy B-show fare that is Netflix's bread and butter to one of the platform's top shows. While Cavill shines (or more accurately glowers with radiance) whenever he's on screen, the pacing, effects, and acting from most of the remainder of the cast paints a grim picture for what the series will do when Cavill leaves the show at the end of the two-part season.
For those who have lived in a bubble for the past few years, The Witcher is an adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski's The Witcher novels, which stars a mutant monster-hunter named Geralt as he tries to protect his adoptive daughter and princess-in-exile Ciri from the various forces that want to use her for either her political clout or her uniquely magical Elder blood. Although Sapkowski's novels are nearly as violent and full of courtly prestige as George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels, Netflix's adaptation somewhat reduced the franchise to focus more on the monster hunting and magic and less about the struggle of a man simply trying to do his job and keep his daughter safe as the world burns down around him in fires of their own making.
The first five episodes of The Witcher are a loose adaptation of Time of Contempt, the second book in Andrzej Sapkowski's The Witcher novels. It's a meaty book with a lot of moving pieces and critical events and builds upon the politics and worldbuilding laid out in its predecessor Blood of Elves. The first half of the season focuses on Geralt's investigation of Rience, a pyromancer attempting to capture Ciri (Freya Allan) on behalf of a mysterious employer, while Ciri and her new tutor Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) journey to the magical school of Aretuza to help Ciri control her magic. Meanwhile, multiple factions pursue Ciri for their own agendas, including the aggressive Nilfgaardian Empire, the pragmatic Redania, and the oppressed elves led by Francesca. While Redania and Nilfgaard both desire Ciri for various reasons – the Nilfgaardian Empire is ruled by Ciri's birth father while Redania sees Ciri's heritage as the heir of fallen kingdom Cintra as a political tool – the elves believe that Ciri's Elder blood could help them finally regain a homeland after centuries of diaspora. Of course, Nilfgaard, Redania, and the elves all have internal conflicts to some degree as well, creating a tangled web that The Witcher attempts to navigate from episode to episode.
One of the major complaints about The Witcher (at least in Season 2) was how much it deviated from the plot of Blood of Elves. Although the third season at least tries to broadly follow Time of Contempt, its past deviations from the source material really hinder the show as it wades more and more into the geopolitics of the world. The motivations of most factions seem to stem from the same desire of power, which makes all the subterfuge and moving parts feel a bit hand-wavey and superfluous as a result. In the books, all of the competing factions and politics were detriments and obstacles for Geralt and his allies to overcome (the books are notoriously anti-political, a direct counter to the regional politics that often consume Eastern Europe), but here they feel more of an attempt to capture some of the juicy intrigue of Game of Thrones but without the compelling characters. To be blunt, The Witcher struggles with making its politics -- or more importantly, the characters driving those politics -- compelling and the show loses its viewers whenever it moves away from Geralt and his trio of close friends.
While Henry Cavill is every bit the A-lister you'd expect in The Witcher, bringing a solemn broodiness and really exemplifying that singleminded desire to protect his friends in every scene he appears in, his co-leads are mostly solid in their roles, although they sometimes struggle a bit as their characters evolve in the series. Joey Batey does a fine job at bringing a sense of resigned anguish to the jovial and quippy Jaskier, but Anya Chalotra is too subdued playing the now humbled Yennefer and Freya Allan feels a bit too one-note at times when capturing Ciri's defiance. Some of this is due to uneven script writing, but the acting sometimes fails to match the character's growing complexity. However, the show shines whenever some combination of Cavill, Batey, Chalotra, and Allan are on the screen, as the four have a strong chemistry that has developed over the course of three seasons. As stated before, much of the secondary cast comes off as one-dimensional either due to limited screen time or limited acting.
The strongest bits of The Witcher is when Cavill gets to draw his sword to face weird and horrifying monsters. The monsters are definitely terrifying this season and one thing the show does well is make Cavill look believable as a professional monster hunter who is equally proficient at killing people. The fight choreography and direction during these scenes in The Witcher are still a highlight, although the show's plot somewhat regrettably means we have fewer of those fights this season.
Watching the first five episodes of The Witcher, it's clear how much the show benefits from Cavill's presence, as he really understands the subtle complexities of his character and his role in the show. He carries The Witcher and elevates it from forgettable streaming platform schlock to something that resembles compelling television. And therein lies my big fear with The Witcher -- we've seen that Netflix's attempt to expand the franchise past the core series end in messy disaster and nothing about these five episodes has convinced me that the show can survive Cavill's departure, even with Geralt being recast by Liam Hemsworth.
The initial draw of The Witcher was Cavill getting to play a character he loved and watching him fight monsters and grunt his way through sticky, magical situations. But as the show evolves into a geopolitical magic thriller, The Witcher won't be able to rely on Cavill or cool monster fights much longer. It's a fascinating thing to watch -- The Witcher show made its name based on Cavill killing monsters, but its underlying source material used those fights as a way to introduce Geralt to readers. And while The Witcher novels delighted fans with compelling characters and a great storyline, the show has failed to pivot to match the source material and is quickly running out of time.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
The Witcher Season 3 Part 1 hits Netflix on June 30th.