‘The Witcher’ Season 2 Review: Netflix’s Monster Hit Embraces Chaos

The more time I spend with The Witcher, the more I’ve come to respect Lauren Schmidt Hissrich’s adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski’s novels. Somehow Hissrich and Netflix have managed to create the most customizable big-budget franchise ever brought to television. If you want to submerge yourself in lore, The Witcher is dense enough to give Game of Thrones a run for its money. It even has two making of shows and an anime movie to help guide you through this universe. If you want to tune that out and watch Henry Cavill battle badass monsters or be a grumpy dad, that’s there too. By fully embracing its constant chaos and distinct style, The Witcher Season 2 is a saga of television that can be everything at once for anyone, without ever pandering. That’s a feat so ambitious and impressive, it puts Ciri’s training course to shame.

This isn’t to say that The Witcher Season 2 is more confusing than Season 1. In many ways, the opposite is true. Thankfully, gone are the three competing timelines. The series has also finally decided to explain the basics of this world, like what a witcher is and how many there are. (Spoilers: They are mutated monster hunters for hire, and there aren’t many of them.)

Yet while the essential facts of this story feel more established, the series continues to maintain Sapkowski’s in media res approach to fantasy. Like with the novels and games, you’re dropped in the middle of Geralt’s (Cavill) reckoning with his destiny. You can either roll with the narrative punches or fret over not knowing every detail of about Elder Blood, leshys, or the White Flame. Either way, The Witcher doesn’t care. Geralt has monsters to fight, and Ciri (Freya Allan) has a world to change.

It feels odd to praise a series for refusing to explain itself, but that lack of hand-holding has always been what has made this universe feel distinctly alive. At its core, this is the story of a man who doesn’t care about politics adopting a surrogate daughter and, for her sake, being forced to care about the madness around him. It should feel like there are a million convoluted things happening at once because that’s how Geralt, Ciri, and to a lesser degree Yennefer always feel. They don’t have time to sift through dense lore or trace back centuries of ancestors for fun. They’re pawns of destiny whose only goal is to stay alive. Cavill, Freya Allan, and Anya Chalotra beautifully channel that panicked energy every time they’re on screen.

As wild as its narrative swings consistently are, they almost always work because The Witcher never forgets the humanity of its core characters. In this way, the series has refined its source material. As Geralt guides Ciri through Kaer Morhen, the witcher keep, there’s an edge of worry and fear that Cavill brings to his grumbles. Due to Ciri’s ambitions, he has to learn one of the most difficult lessons of parenthood: letting a child take risks so they can learn to stand alone.

While Cavill captures Geralt rediscovering his heart, Allan excels at giving Ciri’s recklessness depth. Most of Season 2 involves various characters revealing that they need to use Ciri for some reason or another. The pressure of Ciri’s own helplessness in the face of destiny is practically baked into this story. Allan does a fantastic job of transforming Ciri’s impulsiveness and stubbornness into the story of a young woman desperately trying to find control in life that seems devoid of the concept.

And then there’s Yennefer. Aside from Joey Batey’s charismatic Jaskier, no performance has given The Witcher series more empathy in this cruel universe than Chalotra’s ever-proud Yennefer. In a twist that will be surprising to even the most diehard fan, Yennefer is forced to reexamine who she’s become and who she can trust after the Battle of Sodden. The way Chalotra can hide this broken, struggling woman behind even the most biting insult remains remarkable.

As hinted before, The Witcher Season 2 will be returning to a world fans have never seen before. Whereas Season 1 took liberty to fill in the details about things such as Ciri’s escape from Cintra and Yennefer’s training as a sorceress, Season 2 is even more ambitious in the plot points it alters. For those who are sticklers for details, these changes will likely enrage. But aren’t these wild swings what make this universe exciting? Isn’t the thrill of the books that you never quite understand how intricate each adventure will be? Isn’t the fun of the games come from how sprawling this world is?

In that vein, The Witcher Season 2 is the best kind of adaptation. It takes something known and creates something wholly unique while always respecting its source material. No matter if you’ve read and played everything or if you’re entirely new to this world, you’re going to have a blast.

All episodes in The Witcher Season 2 will premiere on Netflix Friday, December 17.

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