Netflix‘s The Witcher season 2 has finally arrived and it was surprisingly satisfying, brutal, and rich. The problems from the first season are gone and it’s almost everything we want from a Witcher adaptation. Here is the spoiler-free review of The Witcher season 2.
The Journey of White Wolf and Swallow
After the events of the first season, Geralt and Ciri will continue their journey by traveling to Kaer Morhen, the fortress of witchers. One of the things that made this season richer than the first season, is how everything connects. It’s magnificent how every dot connects and puts all focus again on Geralt and Cirilla.
One of the factors that made the Witcher world so dense and intertwined was how everything is connected and in the end, everything comes back to Geralt and ultimately Ciri. We have the father-son relationship, political arguments, racism, and magic, but every single one of them is connected in some way. This was one of the factors missing from season 1 and now that we have it in the second season, the world-building is ultimately much stronger.
The Great Acting of The Witcher Season 2 Cast
Since CD Projekt Red already visualized every character in the trilogy of The Witcher, it was hard for people to adjust to the cast of The Witcher for obvious reasons. But in season 2 of The Witcher, everything feels familiar. The dress, the hair, the face mimic, the walking and talking of each character is simply marvelous; but no one near on how Henry Cavill shows Geralt.
After finishing the season it was hard not to replay The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt again. Every time Geralt – performed by talented Doug Cockle – spoke I could see how Cavill would portray it. Cavill has played many roles including Sherlock Holmes and Superman, but his version of Geralt is a phenomenon. It’s one of those characters that you can’t imagine any other actor playing, and it fully shows how perfect the casting is.
Friendship, Family, and Love
The state in which Geralt lost his lovely companion, Jaskier, and his beloved Yennefer played by Anya Chalotra, was devastating. Rebuilding those lost and broken relationships is hard and not every film or series can make it dramatic and real at the same time. Many things need to be considered and many seeds to be planted so that the moment of reunion would be filled with love and hatred.
Jaskier played by Joey Batey is the best side character of The Witcher season 2 alongside Vesemir. Even though the story doesn’t focus on them, the huge burden of story structure is built upon their shoulder. Jaskier brings laughter, sadness, and humanism to the brutal story and world of The Witcher. And Vesemir, once the father figure for Geralt, has to deal with Ciri and needs to decide between two ways in which neither is worthy.
The relationship of Yennefer and Geralt is much more complicated than a normal relationship. I was afraid the show might put them back together quickly, but it didn’t happen. It seems the showrunner of The Witcher, Lauren Schmidt, decided to show every aspect of Geralt and Yen’s relationship by taking it step by step.
Brutal Action Sequences
Even though the action scenes of Witcher season 2 don’t have the quality of the Blaviken fight scene from the first season, it’s still fun and brutal. In season 2 we see a lot of slow-motion action sequences. The problem with slow-motion is, if not used properly, it can ruin the pace and climax of that action sequence. Slow-motion dramatizes the action scene, but using it too much will make it unreal which makes the action scene almost pointless.
The Witcher season 2 avoided this trap easily. They used the innovative way of showing an action scene in slow motion, that it won’t feel like it’s slowed; moving the camera during fights and actions. This is actually how The Matrix‘s most famous scene was shot and how it feels more climatic than slowed action scenes.
The Top Notch Cinematography of Witcher Season 2
If there is one thing I could talk for hours about season 2 of The Witcher, it’s not the story nor the character development, but the marvelous and on-point cinematography of this season. I lost count of how many times I admired I stopped the episode just to admire the cinematography of The Witcher season 2. It’s not just how each scene is shot and where it is shot, but how the camera moves and at what speed it moves. In the action sequences, the camera lends itself to the fights with some surreal speed. But when it comes to a more subtle scene, especially if it’s in the outskirt, the movement of the camera is almost unnoticeable; like it’s part of that environment.
Is The Season 2 of Witcher Perfect?
Season 2 is way better than the first season, but it still has its issues. One of The Witcher‘s season 2 issues is the length of some episodes, especially episodes from 3 to 6. Many things could have been removed or shortened. This caused the beat and pace of the whole season to go a little bit low, but the last three episodes make it up for it.
The biggest problem though exists in the introduction of some new characters that I can’t tell because it would spoil the story. Some characters and creatures have big roles in the second season of The Witcher but when the season ends, we don’t totally understand why they are doing it and what their true nature is. It seems the showrunner of The Witcher felt that fans would be enthralled by these characters with or without our proper introduction.
Is It Worth Watching?
In short, absolutely. The second season of The Witcher has everything you can ask for from a high fantasy series. It’s brutal, it’s rich, every character has many layers, and it’s only the beginning of it. The Witcher season 2 puts the series on the right track of becoming the next Game of Thrones. I hope the show follows the path they have chosen until the seventh season because it is the right one.
Verdict:
The Witcher season 2 fixes every issue from the first season and adds some more spice to make it even better. The powerful point of this season is how every character has their own conflict and story, and yet connected which leads back to the main characters, Ciri and Geralt. The action, cinematography, and acting are great and one of the best TV series in 2021. If they used the length of some episodes to introduce new characters better, it would have been a perfect season.
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