Well … that was a short cliffhanger, wasn’t it? The previous episode ended with our heroes stranded in another world and hunted by a giant centipede they had no idea how to kill. The first 60 seconds of this episode provide a pretty straightforward solution to both of those problems: Go back through the portal, which conveniently chops the monster in half.
As ever, Blood Origin doesn’t really have time for anything more interesting or complicated than that. Fortunately, this turns out to be the best installment of Blood Origin so far — albeit one that still pales in comparison to even a decent episode of The Witcher — because it actually feels like it’s about something and not just a string of character introductions haphazardly thrown together.
What it’s about is something that Blood Origin promised from the moment it was announced: The birth of the very first witcher. It comes when our heroes — now, at last, the Seven promised by Minnie Driver, as Meldof finally joins the gang — debate how they’re going to kill the giant flying monster Balor summoned at the dawn of the Golden Empire. Their conclusion, in the end, is a complex process that involves magic, herbs, elixirs, and the corpse of a monster. (Witcher diehards will recognize this as a prototypical version of the Trial of the Grasses, a process described only vaguely in Andrzej Sapkowski’s original books.) If the person who undergoes this process survives it, they’ll have the power of a witcher.
So the question becomes which one of the Seven should do it. Éile insists it should be her, with her sole request being that her new friends hold a wake in her honor before her likely death in the morning. And so we get what Blood Origin has needed all along: a chance to get to know these characters and see what happens when they goof off with each other.
There’s drinking, there’s singing, there’s storytelling, and there’s a round of a game that, sadly, does not look like Gwent. Most of the characters get a moment in the spotlight; the best by far is Meldof, who explains how she mixed the ashes of her dead love Gwen into the ore for her battle hammer before she forged it.
But all of this is really just a preamble to Blood Origin’s inevitable, if largely unearned, enemies-to-lovers arc: The love story between Éile and Fjall, which shifts here from sassy quips to long, soulful looks. The pair splinter off, talk about being star-crossed lovers, then make out as the rain starts to fall. It’s all very The Notebook.
When Éile wakes in the morning, having failed to set her alarm, she learns her elven lover has decided to take her place in the Trial of the Grasses after all. She tries to stop him, but it’s too late: He’s already chugged the elixir, he’s getting all grumbly and feral, and his eyes are turning yellow. Yes, we have our first witcher.
And none too soon because Empress Merwyn is already consolidating her power. With Avallac’h having failed to draw upon the full power of the monolith, she returns to Balor for help, flattering him and setting him free on the condition that he serve her as Chief Sage. Merwyn’s time in the school of political skullduggery has been brief, but come on, there’s no way she actually trusts him here, right? She must have a plan to stab him in the back as soon as she gets what she needs.
Then again: The episode’s other “twist†shows Merwyn may not be the savvy power player she’s currently cosplaying as in that very cool set of armor. When Scian arrives at Xin’Trea, promising to deliver Fjall and Éile as prisoners, Merwyn is dumb enough to give her a bunch of money, a squadron of soldiers, and the promise of that stolen sacred blade she’s so been hungry for.
Blood Origin makes a half-hearted effort to trick us into thinking Scian’s betrayal is genuine, but come on — you’re not going to cast Michelle Yeoh just to burn her off in a sudden heel turn. Scian leads her Golden Empire soldiers straight into a trap, and our heroes get the armor disguises they need to march right through the gates of Xin’Trea.
With just one episode left of Blood Origin, the closing moments of the episode helpfully lay out our heroes’ plan: Break into the grain stores, incite the commoners into rioting, kill the monster, destroy the monolith, kill Merwyn. It’s a pretty long to-do list, but hey, at least they have a witcher.
Stray Arrows
• Yet another episode where we barely hear from Minnie Driver, revealing how much Blood Origin didn’t need this framing device.
• In a brief interlude, Zacaré and Syndril discuss their past, when they apparently used magic to revive their dead mom, who came back, Pet Sematary–style, as a ghoul or a demon or whatever. Given how little time we have left, I’m guessing this hasty backstory is the most we’ll ever learn about these two.
• At long last, we meet Uthrok One-Nut, who swears his name is unrelated to his testicles.
• Dimeritium, the rare metal that prevents Balor from casting spells from his prison cell, is still in use in the Continent some 1,200 years later.
• A legendary sword called the Soul Reaver? It’s been done.
• Not sure what to make of Meldof conspicuously quoting The Terminator. Maybe she took a brief trip through a portal that led to a multiplex circa 1984.
• Everyone rolls their eyes at Brother Death’s suggestion that they kill the monster by feeding it a poisoned sheep, but I don’t know, it seems to me like a better idea than “turn one of us into a monster through a super-painful ritual that probably won’t work.â€
• “It’s a long story,†says Brother Death. “The only stories worth telling,†says Meldof. And now it feels like the show is self-flagellating about cutting its six episodes down to four.