I like a good cliffhanger as much as anybody, but it’s hard not to question the wisdom of The Witcher’s taking a monthlong break right before the best episode of a pretty rocky season. After six installments of careful table setting, the show finally sweeps its arm across the top and knocks everything right onto the floor. It’s much better for it.
When we last saw Geralt, Dijkstra was standing with a knife to the witcher’s throat, sneering that he should have chosen a side. But long after it’s obvious that major bloodshed can’t be avoided here, Geralt — true to the witcher ethos — refuses to side with any of the rival factions descending on Aretuza.
To be fair, the options aren’t great. Nilfgaard is a crusading empire hell-bent on devouring the entire Continent, and Cahir didn’t make a great first impression. Redania, the North’s best hope at holding back the Nilfgaardian army, is ruled by a petty and petulant widower king who won’t give up on making Ciri his next bride, while the elves are on their own crusade to wrestle Ciri away from her caretakers. The Brotherhood is governed by arrogant old men and traitors, and many of the sorceresses seem more invested in their internal games and rivalries than in any of the hard work that might actually help the people of the Continent.
It’s an interesting choice to play out a scenario in which all of Geralt’s options are bad. It’s even more interesting when Tissaia frees the captive mages — quite literally taking the handcuffs off — and this long-simmering conflict explodes in fire and blood.
It’s not quite the Red Wedding because we don’t lose any major major characters, but the episode is still packed with dying familiar faces. Lydia gets throttled by Triss. Filavandrel gets blown up by an explosive spell, absolutely drenching Francesca in blood (and setting her up for a very Carrie-like revenge on the rest of the room). Brotherhood leader Artorius is killed by his own niece, Fringilla. Even Rience — the fire mage Geralt has spent literally the entire third season chasing — gets dispatched in surprisingly efficient fashion when Geralt chops his head clean off.
That last kill — as well as Stregobor, who has irked Geralt since the series premiere — is the tip-off that The Witcher is ready to elevate a new baddie. We learned in the closing moments of “The Art of the Illusion†that Vilgefortz is the real traitor. Unfortunately, Tissaia wasn’t there to see that revelation, which means we get to watch Vilgefortz break her heart by revealing he never cared about her or Aretuza.
Both Tissaia and Aretuza itself are forever changed, maybe destroyed, by the events that follow. When an elite group of elven warriors called the Scoia’tael arrives to sack the magic school armed with arrows that can penetrate the mages’ protective shields, Tissaia snaps. She climbs the tower and casts Alzur’s Thunder. It’s powerful enough to kill anyone she looks at, and Yennefer forebodingly calls it a “spell of last resort.†It comes with a cost: By the end of the episode, Tissaia is spent, white-haired, and wild-eyed.
But while mages and elves decimate one another with shocking violence, our other white-haired hero has his eye on Ciri. To get her to safety, Geralt quickly realizes, he’ll need to take down Vilgefortz himself.
We’ve seen Geralt battle a lot of monsters, but despite his being basically on his deathbed in the season-one finale, we have never seen a fight go quite so badly. As the witcher and the mage cross their sword and staff, Vilgefortz complains that the hardest part of his lengthy deception was hiding his true strength. He’s not bluffing. By the time this very one-sided fight has come to an end, Vilgefortz has broken Geralt’s leg, sword, and spirit, leaving the witcher lying on the ground bloodied and utterly defeated. “Today, you begin your new life as my warning to the Continent,†Vilgefortz sneers.
Defeating Geralt gives Vilgefortz a clean path to Ciri, and he takes it, following her into Tor Lara and begging her to let him take over as her new ward and teacher. It’s a little surprising that a man as calculating as Vilgefortz has somehow failed to comprehend that beating Geralt to a pulp isn’t the quickest way to win Ciri’s trust. Instead, she focuses on a mysterious swath of Elder writing on the wall, setting off a magical chain reaction that leaves the surviving sorceresses, including Yennefer, watching in horror as the tower begins to collapse. Whatever Ciri just unleashed, it seems to have consequences, and neither Geralt nor Yennefer is in any condition to help her deal with them.
Stray Arrows
• Vilgefortz’s takedown of Geralt is even more violent and humiliating in the novels — so much so that some fans had speculated the show would use it as an excuse to transition from Henry Cavill to Liam Hemsworth, guessing that the beating and recovery could require that his entire face be reconstituted. As Geralt reflects in The Time of Contempt, “His only mistake was made before the fight. He ought to have fled before it even began.â€
• Meanwhile: Jaskier is disappointed, albeit unsurprised, when he realizes Radovid slept with him (at least in part) to get to Ciri. This star-crossed relationship was too rushed to conjure up any real feelings about it, and Radovid is still barely even a character. But it’s never a good thing when Jaskier gets hurt. (“I thought I’d seen through your mask. Turned out there was nothing behind it†is a pretty good kiss-off line, though.)
• Cahir has flipped sides enough times that I’m honestly not sure what his deal is anymore. Was killing his elf buddy and receiving a brief pep talk from Fringilla about “thinking for himself†enough to make him flip on Emhyr again?
• Shortly before Geralt gets beaten down by Vilgefortz, he similarly pummels Dijkstra, even breaking his leg. But the Redanian spymaster lives to fight another day; if you need someone to save you at the brink of death, it helps if they can turn into an owl.
• Just as I started groaning when Vilgefortz began one of those clichéd “We’re not so different, you and I†villain speeches, Geralt jumped in with the perfect meta-commentary: “Enough with your parallels. You lack originality.â€
• Triss and Istredd are definitely a thing now, so get ready to read all the #Trisstredd gossip in the Continent’s equivalent of People magazine.
• If you’re hungry for Witcher lore, you can read more about Alzur — the mage behind that eponymous thunder spell — here.