The Witcher Season 3, Part 1 is a little messy – especially when it comes to anything that doesn’t involve Geralt, Yennefer and Ciri. In a way, everything in the first three seasons was leading to the dynamics we get with the three of them in Season 3, Part 1, which means those seasons – and Season 2 in particular, now feel like a waste of time. But the three remain as engaging as ever, and the growing dynamics between Ciri and Yennefer, as well as the way the season finally allows the ship to be more than just a will they/won’t they makes for a very good watch when they are on screen.
Sadly, they are not on screen all the time, which means we still are required to care about politics, a lot of mages, elves, Jaskier and his love life and only one of those things can even hold our attention, much less make us care in a way.
And caring is …well, kinda essential for what The Witcher is setting up for Season 3, Part 2, which is …
Yeneralt Setup
Ship-wise, we have never been in a better place. Yennefer and Geralt are finally fighting for the same thing, and they both know it. They’re a family, and they are united in the singular purpose of protecting Ciri, yes, but they are also two people who love each other and who dream of a future together, one that is not just about their kid, but about the two of them. They want that simple life, one that is about waking up together and getting to just be, the thing they’ve never had.
In a way, they’ve longed for that for decades, but they never let themselves put it into words. It felt like they shouldn’t want it, like it wasn’t real. Ciri has given them validation, an outside reason why it makes sense to want to be together, and the rest is just Yennefer and Geralt together, against the world. I wouldn’t want to be the person going against the two of them.
Family Dynamics
Ciri has had a dad – a real one, no White Flame nonsense, almost since the beginning of this tale. That’s what Geralt very quickly became. And she’s got a mom now, because that’s what Season 3 cemented Yennefer as in her life. Tissaia saw it in 0.3 seconds. So, with the family unit now together, the question is – what else can The Witcher do? Other than, of course, pulling them apart for some added drama.
Jaskier is the worst uncle, we know, we know. Keep it in your pants, Jaskier. When you’re told to babysit, can you actually babysit? That means inside the house, Jaskier!
But if the entirety of this show is now going to be the three main characters finding their way back to each other over and over again, with some great family moments and great ship moments thrown in there for good measure, I mean …is anyone really going to complain about that? Okay, anyone else who hasn’t already complained, I mean?
Will the Politics Ever Make Sense?
The Witcher’s politics only make sense if you take three steps back at the end of every season and just …don’t think about what you just saw. There are a lot of things that don’t make much sense in the ways the characters relate to each other, and there is very little coherency in the storyline in general. A lot of it has to do with Yennefer, of course, and the show’s desire for her to be everywhere at once, which means she has to do things and then disappear to do somewhere else, even if that means, plot-wise, she has to set something on fire or set someone free that, rationally, she never should have. They’ll just hand-wave the consequences later.
Stregobor, at least, makes sense. Vilgefortz is both transparent and nonsensical, and Tissaia is a character that is either very badly written or just contradictory, it’s hard to tell yet. But between them and Philippa and Dijkstra, something’s gotta give in this regard, and likely soon. Everyone’s in the same place. That’s not concerning or anything, nah.
And that’s not even going into the elves. The elves. Not that we care about them, but they’re an issue. One that’s likely to become problematic when we least expect it.
Oh, Liam Hemsworth is coming
The one thing we know for sure is that Liam Hemsworth is coming – in Season 4. This means we only have 3 more episodes of Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia, and we’ll get those in a little less than a month. How they transition from one actor to another is anyone’s guess.
They could just …not do anything. Pretend nothing happened and just start Season 4 with Hemsworth in the place of Cavill and pretend like that’s just the way it always was. Or, they could pull an 80s bad potion transformation, with Yennefer looking at Geralt and saying “You look different, but the same,” or something along those lines, and we’d have to go along with it, because what other choice do we have?
I’d almost wish they go the first route. We don’t want the change anyway. We’re not gonna be happy no matter what they do. If they’re going to convince us, it’s going to be because the storyline is really good – and because of Anya Chalotra and Freya Allan. So, there’s some power in not even trying. Just go for it, and then write a good story. That’s the only thing that might bring us around.
The Witcher Season 3, Part 1 is now available to stream on Netflix. Season 3, Part 2 will be available to Stream on July 27th.
