Netflix’s ‘The Witcher’ nails that distinct ‘Witcher’ feeling: Review

As the witcher Geralt of Rivia whips around the dirty streets of Blaviken, slicing through thugs, he pins his final foe against a building with a shortsword through the torso. Then he backs up a step with his own steel sword and fluidly severs the pinned man’s head from his body in a small shower of blood.

At this moment during the first episode of Netflix’s The Witcher, I thought to myself, “Hell yeah.”

There are so many great moments throughout The Witcher, so many scenes that delighted me with their intensity, humor, and unabashed Witcher-ness. It’s a world that’s easy to get swept up in as long as you can follow along.

That’s the one part that’s a little tricky about Netflix’s take on The Witcher: following along. Throughout the season, there are three main characters — Geralt (Henry Cavill), the princess Ciri (Freya Allan), and the mage Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) — and it’s slowly revealed that their stories are taking place at different points in time. That’s not really a problem, but the show doesn’t make it very obvious. This caused me quite a bit of confusion when I watched the first five episodes and realized that events were not happening contemporaneously.

Once I finished the season, though, all the pieces fell into place, and I was completely satisfied.

Embracing the material

There is one thing I’d like to get out of the way early on: Cavill absolutely nails Geralt of Rivia. Geralt is a mostly emotionless hunk of a man who underwent grueling mutations and deadly trials as a young boy to be turned into a monster-killing machine, and Cavill brings the perfect level of neutrality to this character.

It’s all on display in the first episode, which opens with a battle between Geralt and a monstrous kikimora in a dank swamp — a perfect introduction to the world. Geralt is a monster hunter for hire in a world filled with people who are reluctant to accept him but need him nonetheless.

The show wastes no time submerging you completely in the deep, dark waters of its world. It’s fully aware that it’s built upon the back of fantasy novels, short stories, and video games, which span decades of material.

The Witcher began as a series of fantasy novels and short stories by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, whose first story was published in the 1980s. While The Witcher grew a strong cult following in Eastern Europe back then, it only rose in popularity elsewhere in the last decade with the video game series created by Polish developer CD Projekt Red. The latest game in the series, The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt, really rocketed The Witcher into more mainstream notoriety in 2015.

This show scratches so many fantasy itches

Netflix’s The Witcher takes place before the events that transpire in the games, so for someone like me whose only exposure to this world is said games and not the books, it’s a whole bunch of fresh new stories that I either didn’t know or only heard references about.

The show embraces the lore of The Witcher, its humor, its seemingly nonstop deluge of political backstabbing and war, its characters, and all the weird and fun stuff in between. At times the list of proper nouns feels like it gets a little unwieldy, but the show does a pretty good job of keeping non-important people and places off to the side so we can focus on what matters.

A fantasy cornucopia

Even for folks with no real attachment to The Witcher, this show scratches so many fantasy itches.

Most importantly, there’s plenty of action throughout the series, whether it’s big battles and sieges, smaller fights where Geralt takes on a small group of humans, or the scenes where Geralt is hunting and fighting a variety of different beasts. The kikimora fight to kick it off is a great scene, and there are a half-dozen other fun encounters with all kinds of creatures and cursed beings.

There’s magic, whether it’s combat-related from Geralt or a wider variety of tricks as seen in Yennefer’s story, and plenty of it. There are kings and queens and knights. There are elves and dwarves and druids. There’s also a whole lot of destiny, which comes into play at the core of the story.

There’s also quite a bit of sex in The Witcher, which fans should expect. Geralt always seems to find himself in situations where he winds up naked with a woman, or walks into a situation filled with a bunch of naked people. It happens.

While the fantasy of this show is very strong, it isn’t like the dry fantasy of The Lord of the Rings or the super-serious fantasy of Game of Thrones. It’s very funny and colorful thanks to the great characters.

The best inclusion is the bard character Jaskier, a.k.a. Dandelion, played by Joey Batey. His songs are great and feel very modern despite the setting and his use of a lute. As the comic relief, he brings a great levity to so many scenes that might otherwise just be occupied by the gruff diction of Geralt. His bawdy interjections help give everything that distinct Witcher feel.

Story time

In almost every episode, Geralt is tasked with taking on some kind of fearsome beast or pulled reluctantly into various violent human squabbles. These individual stories feel like side quests in a video game, and while Geralt is unequivocally the star and focus of the show, almost all of his scenes are detached from the bigger picture of the show.

The bigger picture stuff mostly takes place around the lives of Ciri and Yennefer. 

Ciri finds herself in the midst of a war wherein the kingdom of Nilfgaard is sieging the castle headed by her grandmother Calanthe, the queen of the kingdom of Cintra. This War of the Northern Kingdom has devastating affects on the region.

Meanwhile, Yennefer becomes involved with the Council of Sorcerers, which wields immense power and sway over the various kingdoms of the Continent, and she finds herself in the midst of some major conflicts.

The way the show jumps back and forth between the big important stuff and the smaller moments is great. The stakes are equal across the board, because there’s danger everywhere, but going from terrible battle scenes to Geralt getting monster guts washed off his body in a little bathtub is a wonderful juxtaposition.

It’s clear from the beginning that, while the characters are very separated, they are connected, and The Witcher‘s slow burn of bringing them together is like a carrot on a stick. Stopping watching doesn’t really feel like a good option.

That feeling doesn’t subside at the end of Episode 8, the finale. It only made me want more.

The Witcher is streaming on Netflix now.