So this episode, set sometime after the last episode as far as Henry Cavill and Anya Chalotra are concerned but still before the first episode as far as Freya Allan’s storyline (there’s some exposition about the political situation leading up to the attack in that first episode, but still just proper noun-filled blather), is where “The Witcher” all of a sudden seemed like it was revealing itself to be a romance novel. Only it’s not—the wife reminded me romance novels have a particular structure and the show doesn’t follow it; it just looks like a romance novel whenever Cavill’s making eyes at Chalotra; he makes all their embraces look like a romance novel cover, which seems to be the point of the show.
Anyway.
This episode’s probably the best in the series so far. Like… it’s an actual good hour of television. They’re all going dragon hunting. Cavill and now steady but still unaging despited the indeterminate advance of time between episodes Joey Batey join up with fun old man Ron Cook (who’s got two sidekicks of his own, warrior women Adele Oni and Colette Tchantcho) while Chalotra’s babysitting royal idiot Jordan Renzo. There are also a group of dwarves and another of “Reivers,” who are just crappy humans. It’s a race to kill the dragon. The casting is mostly good, especially with the dwarves and even though Cook isn’t great, he’s fun. It helps. And Chalotra, Batey, and Cavill have a good dynamic together. Plus Cavill and Chalotra are effective making eyes at each other.
Though there is a scene where Cavill’s got to fall asleep and it’s so awkward you wonder if he’s never actually fallen asleep in real life. Like, he doesn’t seem to know how to do it.
Meanwhile Freya Allan’s in danger with the assassin as they go through the forest. Not the blissful forest from the last couple episodes but the crappy forest where you wonder how Allan and her elf sidekick, Wilson Radjou-Pujalte, aren’t freezing. Radjou-Pujalte is better this episode. Allan’s arcs have, frankly, been crap for the majority of the season at this point, despite her being established as the protagonist in the first episode. This episode’s suspense arc doesn’t make up for the previous episode’s weak plots for her, but it does start to get her on solid ground.
Decent CGI with the dragon and an okay surprise at the end… like I said, it’s an entertaining hour of televised amusement. Took the show long enough.
There’s another Batey song over the end credits and I’m even more convinced they paid him with exposure because there’s no good reason to have the song there. Or maybe someone thought Batey’s bard—who lionizes Cavill over the years through song—should be more important than the script writers did. “The Witcher”’s got a lot of problems with narrative perspective, narrative distance. It’s never good enough to really matter but still… the problems are there, even if they don’t matter much overall.
Oh, and now revealed to be main villains Eamon Farren and Mimi Ndiweni (his mage, who has history with Chalotra) really aren’t anywhere near good enough. Like, Farren’s terrible, sure, but if Ndiweni were stronger she could cover it. Only she’s not strong. At all. Ineffectual would be the appropriate descriptor. How “Witcher” manages to cast so many parts well, then so many parts poorly… it’s unfortunate, as uniform performance quality would help a bunch.
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