The Witcher (2019) s02e08 – Family

It’s the worst-case scenario for our heroes, with Henry Cavill racing to the Witcher Winter Wonderland where he’s sure an eternal evil spirit is after Freya Allan. Anya Chalotra is tagging along with Cavill, desperate to convince him she’s not just really sorry she was going to give Allan to that same evil spirit; she’s also now convinced her purpose in life is to help Allan. Live vicariously through Allan’s magic; it’s okay for Chalotra not to have magic of her own, she says. Cavill isn’t listening; if all the people last episode telling him to give Chalotra a chance got through to him, the current crisis has him pushing it away.

We know things are bad at the Witcher Winter Wonderland because Allan is dreaming she’s back in her old castle, back with old friend and protector Adam Levy (a first season favorite). And not just Levy, but Jodhi May’s actually back as well. The way they shoot the back of her head, it actually makes me wonder if she was the back of the head cameo a few episodes ago too. Everything’s just right in Allan’s memories, better than it ever could’ve actually been….

Which is good because, in reality, the evil spirit has possessed Allan, and she’s walking around the Witcher keep slicing every Witcher throat she can find. Good thing Cavill gets there in time to stop her from doing in Kim Bodnia; if she’d done Bodnia too, the very nice father and son arc for he and Cavill wouldn’t get its conclusion. Instead, it does; these two warriors are eventually able to bear their emotions to one another. It’s a great moment and possibly Cavill’s most successful of the season. “Witcher” is Cavill doing likable soulful brute amid better performances that caricature plays off.

Cavill and Bodnia and the rest of the Witchers have to fight Allan, who’s not done killing Witchers; she just wanted to take a break to make everyone sad about the situation. The evil spirit gets more powerful the more tragedy in the world—so when elf queen Mecia Simson abandons Mimi Ndiweni to go north and kill a bunch of human babies, it makes things worse for Cavill and Bodnia. Especially since Cavill’s trying to save Allan and just get rid of the evil spirit. Bodnia’s on the fence.

Chalotra and Joey Batey team up to do science stuff—a potion to separate the evil spirit—which is good because Cavill’s plan is to convince Allan to break through and regain control. Except Allan’s not just in her best memories, she’s in her best dreams—this world she’s found herself in doesn’t just have May and Levy alive; Allan’s also reunited with her parents. It’s everything she ever could’ve hoped for.

There’s a lot of political intrigue going on elsewhere—Eamon Farren convinces Ndiweni he’s a really smart co-conspirator, and they should lie about getting Simson and the elves on the warpath. There’s some more with plotter Graham McTavish, but surprisingly nothing about hundreds of babies incinerating or whatever. Given the epilogues have a whole new setting and job description for MyAnna Buring, it wouldn’t be surprising to discover some of the political machinations got cut.

We also get an idea of what Royce Pierreson will be doing next season, a surprise reveal for Farren and Ndiweni’s arc, and a continued delay on evil fire mage Chris Fulton’s employer. Guess the show only wants to have one unknown but known big twist villain at a time.

But at a certain point in the A-plot—which has Cavill and friends fighting some very nasty dinosaurs (you can tell they’re dinosaurs because of the feathers) before a convenient and well-executed resolution—it’s all just about the promise of season three. The episode checks in with the main cast to go over their responsibilities for next season. They could’ve had Batey make some quip about being ready for the next season and got away with it; the A-plot is so successful for Cavill, Allan, and Chalotra. While Chalotra and Cavill did action together last season, it was never epic. They’ve been building towards Cavill and Allan as a team this season, but always with a missing ingredient. Chalotra. Because they really are doing the surrogate family thing, and they’re leaning in on it.

There are some terrible CGI skies. “Witcher” has real problems with CGI skies.

But, otherwise, they’re set.

The wait between first and second season was fine because the first season was just entertaining and often problematic. However, this finale makes it clear the show knows what it’s doing, and it’s just getting bigger from here on out.

So it’s going to be a long wait for season three. Thank goodness they’re already renewed. Cavill does a fine job “leading” the show while Allan and Chalotra’s performances are getting better as their characters develop. Like, I said, they’re set.

The Witcher (2019) s02e07 – Voleth Meir

Lots gets done this episode. An almost unimaginable amount, given all the characters in play.

The episode begins with Henry Cavill apologizing to Adjoa Andoh for fighting in the temple (no fighting in the temple is one of the rules), but it’s not his fault; it’s bad guy Chris Fulton’s fault. Andoh forgives Cavill and suggests maybe he ought to pay that forgiving forward to Anya Chalotra. Cavill’s pretty sure Chalotra has kidnapped Freya Allan; he just doesn’t know why. So at this point, he does not know it was Allan who magicked open a portal and got them out of there.

Meanwhile, Chalotra and Allan escaped Fulton to find themselves in a less dangerous but still upsetting setting. Fulton tracked down some of Allan’s friends from the first season and killed them, horrifying Allan. Chalotra–indeed acting with malicious intent–lies to Allan about Fulton capturing Cavill in the temple fight, and now they’re going to have to go rescue him. From the city where the bad guys have been giving the elves refuge and where Allan ran from last season, and where she unintentionally unleashed a bunch of monsters when she escaped Eamon Farren. This episode’s going to be a backtrack for Allan’s arc and then a catch-up one for Cavill. Separately. I can’t remember if callback events happen in the previous season finale. It just feels late to return to them, like the last six episodes have just been transitory.

Back at the mage base, we find out MyAnna Buring is making the beast with two backs with Mahesh Jadu, who has assumed control of the Mage Brotherhood since we last saw him. Or I completely missed a scene explaining it. But Jadu’s the boss, Buring’s his lady friend, and Anna Shaffer has come back in a panic after discovering Allan’s a warrior princess with elven blood.

Then the action cuts to Mimi Ndiweni and her troubles hanging on to power. Farren and the human generals in the South are sick of the elves not wanting to fight and are convinced there’s a spy somewhere. So they’re indiscriminately killing elves. It had seemed like there might be some complicated morality at play with the South kingdom like they were trying to help the elves against the racist Northern rulers. But the Southern people are just as bad.

So there’s Chalotra and Allan, Buring and Shaffer, Ndiweni and Farren. And then Cavill and Joey Batey. There’s a great scene where Cavill busts Batey out of jail, lots of action, lots of solid jokes about that action.

Cavill and Batey have some catch-up before Cavill figures out Chalotra’s in league with the Baba Yaga (Ania Marson). Only they need fresh horses, and they happen upon some more season one returnees to get them.

There’s character development for pretty much everyone, usually an equal share—though Batey’s mostly just for laughs and then Buring co-opts Shaffer’s. The character arcs for Allan and Chalotra are the best, especially as Chalotra proves the most successful person yet at teaching Allan how to use her magicks.

The hard cliffhanger has Marson making at least one big move while someone else crosses a point of no return in Ndiweni’s arc too. Monumental ramifications. It’s an excellent episode for Ndiweni in particular. She and Buring have an interesting “even mages are misogynists” juxtaposing.

It’s real good. Very impressive they were able to do so much in the penultimate episode of an eight-episode season. Like, it hasn’t been lackadaisical by any means, but they did take their time a lot in the first half and made then maintained a busy, brisk pace for the rest.

The Witcher (2019) s02e05 – Turn Your Back

I neglected to mention there’s a scene last episode with Joey Batey defending his popular song’s use of deceptive timeline chicanery (oh, if they’d called it Westworlding). It’s only important here because the first scene in the episode doesn’t resolve anything from last time; it instead introduces an evil mage, Chris Fulton. Fulton was imprisoned by Jodhi May, Freya Allan’s warrior queen grandma from last season, and since she’s dead, he’s going to get out. As long as he agrees to hunt down Allan.

It happens at some period before Anya Chalotra meets up with Batey again (from last episode) because we return to that scene and find out not everyone on the Continent thinks Batey’s good at the barding thing. It’s a nice funny in what’s going to be a wry episode; Haily Hall gets the script credit. There’s a lot of wry one-liners.

And pronounced grunting from Henry Cavill. “Witcher: Season Two” does really feel like the scripts know what works in the show and leverages accordingly.

So when Batey goes missing after helping Chalotra and her elf friends to safety, it’s going to turn out Fulton’s got him and is going to torture him for information. But, of course, Batey doesn’t really have any information because Cavill dumped him last season, and he’s no longer in the know. Chalotra’s big decision at the cliffhanger was either staying to help Batey or escaping (since she’s on the lamb). Turns out she stayed. Even though it takes about an entire scene to confirm it.

The episode pairs off characters—Chalotra and Batey, Cavill and Royce Pierreson, Allan and Anna Shaffer. Chalotra and Batey have to escape not just Fulton—who’s a fire mage, which complicates things—but also the local authorities. Cavill and Pierreson are investigating fallen monoliths and new monsters, discovering a bunch of world-building backstories. For example, everyone thought the planet resulted from three different worlds colliding; it turns out there might just be giant teleportation devices. Plus, Cavill and Pierreson get to talk about Chalotra—though Cavill doesn’t explain the reason Pierreson’s love will forever go unrequited is Cavill and Chalotra’s love spell—and so “Witcher” is not going to drag out Cavill knowing she’s alive until the season finale.

Another difference from first season.

Speaking of first season, Shaffer takes Allan on a magical flashback to her life pre- “Witcher” war and drama. Only there aren’t any big first-season cameos. Jodhi May’s supposed to be there but just from the back of the head. Otherwise, it’s all about Allan seeing her parents, Gaia Mondadori and Bart Edwards, again. They’re actually back from the first season (I had to check). And lots of scary magic, which breaks Shaffer’s spell and puts her in danger.

Given the only reason they’re doing the magical mystery flashback tour is because Allan wants Kim Bodnia to turn her into a Witcher so she can unlock hidden memories, and Shaffer wants to save Allan from being injected with a potentially fatal mutating agent.

The cliffhanger is Chalotra finding out what the Baba Yaga (Ania Marson) wants her to do in exchange for getting back her magic: hunt Allan too.

There’s also some check-in on the politics stuff with Mimi Ndiweni and Mecia Simson realizing it’s nice to have a partner in power right before Eamon Farren gets back from the enemy lands. Farren’s immediately a dick, and everything Ndiweni worked for is in danger.

Iffy opening with the threat of more Westworlding, and the character names are way too similar and way too indistinct, but a strong episode.

The Witcher (2019) s02e04 – Redanian Intelligence

Lots goes on this episode, including the return of a season one regular, the return of a season one guest player, and a new political intrigue subplot. Still, nothing’s more important than the Kevin Doyle guest spot. It’s the episode of “The Witcher” with Mr. Molesley from “Downton.” Everything else is secondary.

The episode opens with Henry Cavill training Freya Allan in the mountains. They’re running along in helicopter shots, and I really wanted Cavill to yell out, “This is the Quickening!” But alas, no. Allan will have a good character development arc involving Cavill and Anna Shaffer. Shaffer’s at the Witcher Winter Wonderland because Cavill wants Allan to get training for her magic. Allan’s still slightly distrustful of Cavill as far as her powers go, and the episode does a fine job getting them communicating. In no small part, thanks to the Shaffer’s presence, it helps to have another woman in the Witcher Winter Wonderland, especially one who doesn’t put up with their shit.

Otherwise, it’s kind of a bridging episode. Maybe for everyone but Allan, actually.

Anya Chalotra is still teamed up with Dollar Store Kylo Ren (Eamon Farren), trying to escape the north. They’re going to go to the southern city Farren’s troops captured, which has become a refuge for the elves all the northern kingdoms are rounding up for slaughter; Doyle’s one of the elves. But, only less important because it’s Mr. Moseley, Joey Batey’s the coyote. Batey, still stinging from Cavill ditching him last season—when is unclear, their friendship being one of the confusing parts of the Westworlded narrative structure—is nonetheless still a good guy, and he’s going to help the elves.

Even if he’s got to work with pseudo-nemesis Chalotra. Their bickering might be the most fun “Watcher” has had in season two. Everything else is serious and sad. Batey and Chalotra being cattish is very welcome.

It seems like a done-in-one cameo for Batey until the third act makes it more consequential and potentially derails Chalotra’s arc. It’s very effective and balanced. The episode very nimbly trades Farren for Batey for Chalotra’s sidekick.

The political intrigue involves foppish king Ed Birch, his advisor Graham McTavish, and their pet David Bowie from Labyrinth owl. McTavish is trying to convince Birch to invade the city in the south and take it from Farren’s guys. But first, they’re going to need some intelligence, so they’re going to send Wilson Mbomio (Allan’s elf friend from season one) as a spy.

There’s also a contrived reason for Shaffer not to tell Cavill about Chalotra being alive, some more hints at Allan’s unique heritage and powers, including her blood probably being magic, and then a big team-up for Cavill for next episode.

The episode—“Mr. Moseley from Downton is on the Witcher”—gets a lot done, most of it successfully. Some very good acting from Allan, Chalotra, and Shaffer. And Batey’s return is well-executed.

The Witcher (2019) s01e06 – Rare Species

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.

The Witcher (2019) s01e05 – Bottled Appetites

This episode has storylines converging, something I really thought they’d wait to do until the season finale cliffhanger. Instead, Henry Cavill and Joey Batey run across Anya Chalotra in their quest for a cure to Batey’s magically inflamed throat. The episode opens with Cavill trying to find a djinn’s bottle so he can wish for sleep—the episode’s set an indeterminate time after the previous one, at least for Cavill and Batey (something Batey mentions but with an intentional lack of specificity, maybe because Batey still looks the same age—I’m assuming Cavill doesn’t age normal because he’s a mutant). Because Cavill and Batey are bickering, things go wrong with the djinn and Batey gets a magical owie; they need a mage, Chalotra turns out to be the mage.

Since we’ve last seen her, she’s become a rogue mage who’s trying to recover her ability to bear children, something you have to give up to be a mage. At least if you’ve got a uterus. It’s unclear if gonads get snipped.

Chalotra’s ostensibly a prisoner but has been mind controlling the populace and keeping them going in an Eyes Wide Shut party with season two “Game of Thrones” level nudity.

Cavill’s fun playing the tough guy, especially with Chalotra and Batey around—not sure there’s so much been character development in the series as better writing for what Cavill can do and do well. Plus Chalotra and Cavill trying to get the djinn stuff sorted out lets Cavill play hero in a better situation (he’s trying to save sympathetic regulars—Chalotra and Batey—not fighting for what’s right). There’s a lot with the three wishes and some emphasis on the third mystery wish. “The Witcher”’s predictable, but in a well-executed sort of way.

Now for the poorly executed stuff. Princess in hiding Freya Allan is still in the magical forests of Endor playing with the… oh, wait, wrong franchise. She’s still in hiding with the forest Amazons and since they’re warriors, the bad guys can’t get in. This episode finally gives chief bad guy Eamon Farren a lot to do. Shame he’s terrible. At least when he’s on horseback wearing his silly bird head—it looks like something Gonzo would wear—he’s not emoting or delivering dialogue. He gets off the horse this episode and gets some shapeshifting monster to help him go after Farren.

Adam Levy’s back as the Allan family mage; he’s good. Wilson Radjou-Pujalte’s around as Allan’s young elf friend. He’s not good.

Shame there are only three episodes left, as the teaming up of Cavill, Chalotra, and Batey has paid off better than anything else in the show so far.

Last thing—apparently there are songs (bard Batey’s) over the end credits now. His “Witcher” theme song was a few episodes ago but this one has what the wife described as a poorly written Nick Cave song over the end credits. What’s strange about the songs is they’re done without fanfare, like they promised Batey to put his songs in without paying him for exposure.

The Witcher (2019) s01e04 – Of Banquets, Bastards and Burials

Is tricking a viewer with time periods called a Westworlding it yet? “The Witcher” does a soft Westworld this episode; initially I thought they were just cheap with the CGI establishing shots—Henry Cavill and returning sidekick Joey Batey go to a royal wedding auction (we get a little about the gender politics, but not a whole bunch) and it’s the same city as from the first episode. The one princess on the run Freya Allan runs away from. Because it turns out Cavill’s story is in the past from Allan. How far in the past depends on Allan’s age, which hasn’t been discussed, but it appears to be at least fifteen years after Cavill’s timeline.

It’s not so much a narrative trick as a way to simultaneously introduce characters regardless of time period… if they’d announced the time difference with onscreen titles, it’d be perfectly fine. They don’t and it’s a bit of an eye-roll but still basically fine. Because Cavill and Batey hanging out with Jodhi May and Björn Hlynur Haraldsson is pretty good. May’s great. Björn’s great. May’s particularly fun giving Cavill crap. They talk a bit about how the aforementioned gender politics work. There’s something called “male tradition,” which is pomp and circumstance and the women who rule would rather just go out and kill their enemies and not have silly traditions. What’s so weird about the gender politics is they still seem to be weighed towards patriarchy—May’s daughter (Gaia Mondadori, who’s not good but also doesn’t have enough material to be good) is being married off at this ceremony. Mom May doesn’t like the situation but it’s (male) tradition so her hands are tied. She also really doesn’t like Mondadori’s true love, Ossian Perret, for some obvious but bad reasons.

There are a lot of exposition dumps, some better than others. The multiple ramblings about “destiny,” which is basically the Force in “The Witcher,” comes up multiple times. Then there’s a Quickening scene straight out of Highlander but it turns out not to have anything to do with Destiny or the Force or magic and is just filler before May gets more to do. So long and kind of tedious, but May’s great so it doesn’t really matter.

It’s so much, of course, I haven’t even gotten to Allan or Anya Chalotra yet. Allan goes into this hidden forest place—basically a de facto Amazon (if there are dudes, they rarely get screen time) Green Place—where she can drink a magic potion to forget her past and live a magical future in Ferngully or whatever. It’s fairly disappointing stuff as the Allan stuff was the best part of the first episodes.

Chalotra’s story is about her miserable life in the present; thirty years have passed since she became a mage last episode and basically all she does is nursemaid idiot royals. The idiot royal in this episode is Isobel Laidler, who’s not as good as she ought to be. Chalotra’s completely passive until the end of the episode—odd move considering they’re reestablishing the series’s strongest character basically from scratch—and she still manages to occupy her scenes with Laidler. “Witcher”’s casting is either good or ineffectual, with Cavill basically being the only in-between. He’s got undeniable presence, but mostly a physical one. Though he’s a lot more fun playing civil at the wedding than monster hunting.

As for the “Witcher” drinking game, any time Adam Levy says “Destiny,” you drink. Levy’s May’s mage who’ll go on to be Allan’s pal in the present. What we now know is the present. Or whatever.

It ought to be a lot more uneven thanks to the Westworlding and Allan’s back to nature arc being lackluster, not to mention Chalotra’s entirely different character, but May’s performance is strong enough in the A plot to hold it all up.

Oh, and the episode finally ties at least two of the first episode’s outstanding threads together… with exposition obviously, not scene. Because “Witcher”’s all about that exposition.

The Witcher (2019) s01e02 – Four Marks

Another episode another main character… this time introducing peasant girl Anya Chalotra, who’s got magical powers. She’s got a spinal birth abnormality, leading to a pretty big hump and something going on with her jaw. She’s hated by all—including her father (who’s half elf and so it’s his fault she’s got the birth abnormalities but also why she’s got the magic, also because she’s a girl… no magic for man elves or something). The father sells her to witch MyAnna Buring, which is kind of weird since the previous episode said something about only dudes could be witchers. Or something. There was so much talking in the first episode, I’m sure I glazed over on some of it.

Anyway, the episode’s split between Chalotra and her troubles becoming a super-sorceress, Cavill as he gets a singing sidekick (a trying way too hard but vaguely adorably Joey Batey) and discovers his monster prey is actually just trying to help out exiled elves, and also princess Freya Allan, who’s living in the forest, on the run, and coming across other refugees from her kingdom. Chalotra’s got the most affecting arc, as she’s getting involved with hot boy Royce Pierreson but also trying to get her magicks on. Cavill and Batey’s arc is an exposition dump about the state of things with the elves. There’s way too much elf-related exposition, but at least it matters for almost everyone involved, not like the constant blathering about faraway kingdoms last episode.

The CG on Cavill’s monster prey is pretty bad, which certainly seems to suggest the reason there isn’t more monster hunting is they don’t have the budget for monsters.

Lars Mikkelsen’s back for a particularly dumb reveal.

Allan’s arc is somewhat effective, but more because she’s discovering what a crappy world she really lives in. Not even the monsters or the bad soldiers or whatever, her country people are awful too. Good thing she makes an elf friend (see, every story arc has something to do with elves, so all the exposition informs rather than bewilders).

Though Chalotra’s the big upswing. Even if she’s got absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the plots yet.

Still not “worth watching,” mind you. Just… on an upswing.