The Witcher (2019) s01e08 – Much More

Did they intentionally wait until the last episode of the first season to bring in the biggest “Game of Thrones” comparisons? Like, not only is there a “Wall” to defend—sorry, sorry, a “Keep” to defend from the North (wait, wait, is it the South)—but the episode opens with Henry Cavill vs. Army of Darkness. Even more, “Witcher” scores with the two “repeat” elements. The zombie creatures in “Witcher” are far more terrifying than anything in “GoT” and the battle for the Wall—sorry, the Keep—is better than any of the battles in “GoT,” any season.

Maybe because it’s a mage war, with Anya Chalotra, MyAnna Buring, and back from long ago (and last episode) Anna Shaffer magicking it up to stop the invading army.

It’s far from perfect—a couple of the one-on-one fights have no intensity because it’s obvious shitty Kylo Ren (Eamon Farren) and his girl Merlin (Mimi Ndiweni) aren’t going to die—or get any better at the whole acting thing—but when it’s large scale battle stuff, director Marc Jobst brings it.

While Chalotra has a battle episode, Cavill disappears after his fight with the Army of Darkness because they need to keep the viewer in suspense about how and when the Cavill and princess Freya Allan story lines are going to converge. While it’s obvious Allan is simultaneous to Mage War, it’s not clear when Cavill’s Bruce Campbell antics occur.

The episode compensates, with Cavill, by giving him some childhood flashbacks before he was a witcher and when he’s just discovering he gets powers from Earth’s yellow sun. Wait, wrong show. It’s a bit of a cop out to do the flashbacks in the last episode of the season and probably would’ve gone far in humanizing Cavill throughout; but it sort of removes him from the show where’s got top-billing. Odd move for a season finale. Especially if he and Allan are destined to Lone Wolf and Cub.

There’s some pretty good stuff with Chalotra bonding with gal pal Shaffer and Buring—some of it even passes Bechdel—but given her relationship with her fellow mages implies history and depth, it just makes Chalotra’s character development between episodes four and, I don’t know, six even more of a shafting. Though jumping ahead thirty to forty-two years isn’t going to go well no matter what. But still… Chalotra’s the best actor the show’s got, her part ought to be better and not, you know, annoying.

Buring’s got some great stuff this episode too.

And Cavill does get a sidekick again at one point—altruistic farmer Francis Magee, who’s perfectly good at being likable. If it doesn’t seem likely he’d survive in a world of monsters.

As for Allan’s part of the episode… eh. She’s a plot pawn, moved around the board. Long fall from her spot in the first episode.

The season finale cliffhanger sets up an entirely different show when it returns, so it’s hard to be anticipating… though I’m sure I’ll be back. Wife’s not going to pass up the Henry Cavill beefcake.

The Witcher (2019) s01e07 – Before a Fall

“The Witcher” never expressly says “we’ve been Westworlding you” but this episode is where they show how they’ve been Westworlding the viewer. It’s Freya Allan’s part of the pilot, only with Henry Cavill mixed in. It’s been twelve years since Cavill was last in Jodhi May’s kingdom, which means Allan is like eleven and a half or something. Okay. Fine. She seems a little older, really doesn’t matter.

So while the show’s revealing how Cavill didn’t actually forget about his responsibility to Allan (which they still haven’t explained other than he feels responsible) and tried to save her in the first episode, May being a tyrannical warlord grandma blinded her to the better choices for Allan’s safety. Again, fine, whatever. If “The Witcher” were confident enough in its story, it wouldn’t have needed the fractured timeline because the show gets nothing out of the fracturing other than some momentary surprises. Lacking momentary surprises.

But while Cavill’s Back to the Future II adventures in the first episode are twelve years after he was last in the castle, there’s also Anya Chalotra’s arc. She’s visiting old boyfriend Royce Pierreson, who’s doing some Planet of the Apes-style archeology to discover the world before the three worlds converged or whatever. He’s basically just a cameo to set Chalotra up for going back to the mage training castle where she spent episodes two and three. There, she avoids mentor MyAnna Buring until the most dramatically effective moment while corrupting the current crop of students. And has flashbacks. Flashbacks to episodes two and three. In case anyone forgot, even though it was only four episodes ago and it’s a Netflix show so the episodes were intended to be binged.

Maybe if Chalotra had been introduced in the first episode instead of second, the flashbacks would… no, they’re just pointless. Worse, they take away from Chalotra getting to act in the present. Because she’s presumably had some character development between this episode and last, only… we don’t get to see it and we don’t get to infer it from her actions because her actions are mostly setups for exposition or flashback.

This episode is the season’s shortest at forty-five and change and it feels like at least ten minutes is reused footage.

The ending has Freya Allan revealing she’s got a different superpower than we knew about before—she’s got some arc about trying to survive among war refugees or whatever, doesn’t matter until the cliffhanger. Only it seems like her time in the magical forest was really important so it’s too bad the show didn’t use that time better.

Also, there’s a big exposition dump from Buring about the bad guys, who are basically medieval fundamentalist Christian Nazis.

But, hey, at least the timelines are all synced? And the “Destiny” drinking game rules are in full effect here as well.