The first season of The Witcher may have been far from perfect, but in retrospect it’s impressive it worked as well as it did. Burdened with the challenge of building an expansive fantasy universe that would welcome existing fans in addition to total newbies, the series chose to braid together three different timelines — an approach so confusing, it necessitated a whole cottage industry of explainer articles. Still, some combination of cheeky humor and over-the-top drama coalesced into something genuinely satisfying by the end of the season, which finally saw the timelines converge at the explosive Battle of Sodden.
The second season of The Witcher benefits from all the groundwork laid out by the first. While the characters are still reeling from battle, the show itself feels much more assured in the first six (of eight) episodes sent to critics for review. The narrative arc is cleaner, with everyone on the same timeline. The characters are better explained — including key supporting players like Fringilla (Mimî M. Khayisa), who felt frustratingly opaque in season one. The themes are more polished. And in the most pleasant surprise of all, the series feels more emotionally effective than it ever has before. If season one was worth watching mostly to see what bizarre new monsters Geralt (Henry Cavill) might slay or what irresistible new tunes Jaskier (Joey Batey) might sing about them, the second feels worth watching simply because we give a damn about all these people.
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'The Witcher'
The improvements come with some noticeable tweaks in structure and tone. Gone is the “monster of the week” format that shaped most of Geralt’s storylines before. Though he still spends much of his screen time battling scary creatures, the season as a whole is built more like Game of Thrones, with heavily serialized arcs crossing paths here and there. (This does mean you’ll still have to keep track of lots of fussily named characters, places and magical artifacts. I suggest watching a recap of season one before diving into season two, and maybe keeping Google handy even then.) Perhaps no character benefits more from the added heft and momentum than Ciri (Freya Allan). After spending most of season one as a damsel in distress — albeit one with a very formidable power — the character turns out to be quite a charismatic hero in her own right when she grasps a greater sense of her own agency.
The tone, too, feels more unified this time around. There’s far less of the steaminess that, depending on your outlook, was either the most obnoxious part of the first season or the best reason to keep watching it. Both Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) and Geralt are too busy with other concerns to indulge in much sexual activity or show much skin; this season, when someone offers Geralt a hot bath, he turns it down. Meanwhile, a reduced role for Jaskier comes with a corresponding decrease in laughs and catchy songs — though blessedly, he does show up long enough to address fan complaints about the first season in a playfully meta way.
In place of all that funny business, The Witcher introduces a new sense of softness. Parenthood becomes a driving theme of season two, as a trip to the witcher home base of Kaer Morhen brings together three generations of non-biological, non-traditional family: Geralt and his fellow witchers; their tough but caring father figure Vesemir (Kim Bodnia); and Geralt’s own Child Surprise Ciri. Fatherhood agrees with Geralt, even if he’s come by it reluctantly. It brings out a more tender side of the lone wolf, and affords Cavill the opportunity to do more than just grunt, sigh, and mutter the word “fuck.” Plus, it gives us the low-key comedy of Geralt making very dad complaints about how Ciri never listens to him — much to the amusement of those who knew Geralt well enough as a kid to note that he himself was exactly the same way.
With that softness comes shades of well-earned depth. The Witcher is not particularly trying to plumb the darkest corners of the human experience. It’s having too much fun whipping out cool video game-y action or unveiling new species of expensive VFX monsters to take itself quite that seriously. But there is something movingly human in Geralt’s protectiveness of a kid who looks up to him, Yennefer’s existential crisis after a serious blow to her self-identity, or the elves’ struggle to carve out a future in a world that feels hostile to them. And who in 2021 can’t sympathize with the fear of impending doom that pervades nearly every storyline?
At least regarding that last part, Geralt claims to be unbothered: “I’ve lived through a whole dark age and three supposed end of days. It’s all horseshit,” he scoffs. But fans know well that while he may be exactly as tough as he claims to be, he’s not nearly as jaded. “You witchers, you pretend not to have emotions, but you do. I know you feel it too. All of it,” someone tells him midway through the season. “Normal love, normal hatred, normal pain, fear and regret, normal joy, and normal sadness.” In its second outing, The Witcher feels confident enough to open itself up to that whole array of feelings.
