Netflix’s The Witcher Season Two Early Review

Well the much awaited second season of Netflix’s adaptation of The Witcher is now upon us. This new season has everything fans loved from the first season along while bringing a lot of new aspects to the story. That being said, this review is of the first 6 episodes of Season 2 of The Witcher which were provided prior to release.

The synopsis of Season 2 reads as follows:

“Convinced Yennefer’s life was lost at the Battle of Sodden, Geralt of Rivia brings Princess Cirilla to the safest place he knows, his childhood home of Kaer Morhen. While the Continent’s kings, elves, humans and demons strive for supremacy outside its walls, he must protect the girl from something far more dangerous: the mysterious power she possesses inside.”

Season 2 clearly starts right where the last left off as Geralt and Ciri go on a journey to Kaer Morhen to keep Ciri safe while trying to find what exactly are Ciri’s powers. This season saw a much better performance from Cavill this time around as Geralt primarily for the face that he was given way more lines. As a result, he essentially became a figure to Ciri just like Vesemir was once for him. The pain of losing Yennefer still affects him.

Ciri acts like one would expect a normal teen would as this season gives her more of an emotional range to work with. In terms of acting, Kim Bodnia’s Vesemir is definitely the standout performance. Fans of the series should definitely watch the series’ companion anime, The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf  before starting this season because knowing who Vesemir is and his backstory are important. Going back to places connected to his childhood, these moments add a lot to Geralt’s backstory and aid in worldbuilding.

This season of The Witcher excel in both cinematography and worldbuilding but one thing that lacked here was the complex storytelling. A common major complaint of the first season was its non-linear storytelling. While this season takes a more linear approach to its storytelling, it’s not that impactful. Using that many characters and places and times requires non linear storytelling. Otherwise it just becomes less epic.

The season builds upon the world created in the first season and the companion anime and just makes it even more interesting overall. Elves are now getting space in the continent while the political aspect was awesome. There’s always this mystery with Ciri. Meanwhile, other characters got backstories of their own as antagonists had motivations too and we may have misjudged them as there was certainly more to them as characters.

Following Geralt another with Yennefer (yes she’s alive, that was already confirmed) over the course of concurrent storylines, certain seemingly insignificant aspects of the first season somehow held some significance here therefore a rewatch of the first season may prove beneficial in that regard. That first season already felt complete, telling a story from two perspectives while this new season merely builds up to something bigger that is likely to happen in a presumed third season or soon after. 

In the end, this second season of The Witcher is an improvement over the first in just about every regard from the much better acting, action, worldbuilding, cinematography, and story. The only downside was within its storytelling which felt like a downgrade. At the end of the day, this is only a minor gripe as it is still a must watch series.

*still courtesy of Netflix*

Follow me on Twitter.

If you liked this, please read our other reviews here and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter or Instagram or like us on Facebook.

Anmol Pandhi

**ignore the above Instagram link**

thecinesquad.wordpress.com/