Enjoy his wide jawline and soft growl for a while, because this summer you will see Henry Cavill for the last time in ‘The Witcher’. The protagonist has one more season to go as Geralt, after which the fantasy series will continue without him. The first five episodes will be on Netflix from June 29. They immediately kick off nice and bloody.
The second season of The Witcher closed in 2021 with a major cliffhanger. Blessed with rare and valuable gifts, young Ciri turned out to have a powerful and nefarious father. This Emhyr wants to find his daughter, and he’s certainly not alone. Both elves and humans try to get hold of the girl. Work to be done for her protectors, Geralt and Yennefer.
Geralt can therefore immediately draw his razor-sharp sword, in the first minutes of the third season. Thick gobs of blood gracefully fly through the air in slow motion. But it doesn’t always go as smoothly as that opening scene The Witcher . Yennefer, Ciri and Geralt continue to run from new villains and fantasy monsters. Their house has not yet burned down or another gigantic woodlouse rolls towards our main characters.
Old romance between Geralt and Yennefer
This latest season also clearly focuses on their mutual bond. Although the trio is not really related to each other, it does look like a small family. In Star Wars -like scenes, Yennefer teaches her gifted child some magic, while Geralt’s main concern is for Ciri’s safety. In the meantime, we can’t forget the old romance between Geralt and Yennefer. Will something bloom again?
The political scheming is also back in this latest season, as is the division among the fighting elves. The Witcher bases this on the series of the same name by Andrzej Sapkowski, which now has six books and fifteen short stories. Showrunner Lauren Hissrich likes to take the liberty of expanding on the original books. For example, she previously indicated that she wanted to give more attention to Ciri’s sexuality. “The books hint at that, but never really go into it in depth. That is coming to us now, very nice.”
Terrible ruler
Meanwhile, the lines between good and evil remain deliberately blurred in this series. “Villains believe they are doing what is best for themselves, their people and country,” says Hissrich. “Emhyr, for example, is a real warrior. A harsh and terrible ruler. But suddenly you realize that he wants his daughter back. And your family is worth fighting for.”
The latest season mainly focuses on the book Time of contemplation released in the Netherlands as The years of contempt . “Of course we can’t film every page,” Hissrich said earlier. “But Time of contemplation gave us an awful lot of big action sequences, plot twists, major character development, and massive revelations. There is so much to do that we were able to stay very close to the books this time.”
critical fans
Fans were not always happy about the latter until now. The Witcher would deviate too much from the original material. A writer of the series, who has since retired, even said that several former colleagues were not fans of the books, or of the popular game series that appeared on The Witcher was based. It is unknown which screenwriters this was exactly. The third season has at least received a number of new writers.
But the big loss of course remains the protagonist. Cavill never said why he is quitting, which quickly started the rumor mill. Was it perhaps related to creative differences? However it may be, viewers will have to get used to the new interpreter from next season. That will be Liam Hemsworth, who we still know as Gale Hawthorne from The Hunger Games series. But that will take another year and a half. Let’s just wait for the end of this third season. The last five episodes will appear on July 27.
To be seen on Netflix