Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Witcher’ Season 3 Volume 1 On Netflix, Where Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri Fight Their Most Powerful Enemy (2024)

Season 3 of The Witcher finds the trio of Geralt (Hanry Cavill), Ciri (Freya Allan) and Yennifer (Anya Chalotra) wandering the Continent in search of a safe place where the three of them can put down some roots. But there are lots of entities after Ciri, and it feels like they’ll never be safe. Read on for more.

THE WITCHER SEASON 3 VOLUME 1: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A group of men walk into a shop in the middle of a meadow. They’re looking for Ciri and Geralt. They’re sent by Reince (Sam Woolf).

The Gist: When the group finds Geralt, we’re reminded about how powerful he is, as none of the posse makes it out alive.

Geralt, Ciri and Yennefer have been wandering the Continent, looking for a safe place where Reince can’t find them. All the while, Yennefer is trying to train Ciri to hone her magic skills. Despite the fact that they’re travelling together, Yennefer and Geralt still trade letters to talk about each other’s adventures. They find a remote cabin owned by Yarpin (Jeremy Crawford), an ally who they trust to not give away their position.

Reince, now trying even more extreme means to find Ciri, finds a handler of a vicious monster called a jackapace, gives him a vial of Ciri’s blood, and hires him to find the elven girl.

Reince isn’t the only one looking for Ciri; so is Francesca (Mecia Simson), who wants to bring Ciri back into the elven fold. King Vizimir (Ed Birch) of Radania is also looking for her, as he was promised months ago that Ciri would be his new bride. He decides to put his brother Radovid (Hugh Skinner) on the case, and Philippa (Cassie Clare) begrudgingly volunteers to babysit him.

At a festival where the women show up in disguise, the jackapace finds Ciri; Geralt knows that, as long as Reince has her blood, he’ll keep sending creatures to find her. This is when they come up with a plan to use Ciri as bait to flush out Reince, and recruit Jasiker (Joey Batey) to accompany her, which is interesting because Radovid and Philippa have recruited the playboy to bring Ciri to Radania.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Witcher is definitely in the Game Of Thrones area of fantasy shows, with lots of violence, nudity and cursing.

Our Take: At this point, you’re pretty much either all-in on The Witcher or you bailed long ago. It helps that in Season 3 it seems to be Geralt, Ciri and Yennefer against the world. Geralt now has an enemy, ultimately the person who has recruited Reince to find Ciri, and it’ll be interesting to see his abilities focused on a particular person or entity, especially as he strikes out on his own to find that person.

The show certainly has more of a sense of humor than it showed early in its first season, especially with characters like Jasiker and Radovid, and the interplay between Yennefer, Ciri and Geralt seems to have a bit of a warm, familial feel to it.

Somehow, though, we still can’t help but feel there could be more to the story than what we’re being presented. We still don’t have much insight into the characters’ backstories and motivations. It still feels like a quest-type of show, where the ersatz family moves from place to place in order to stay safe. Don’t get us wrong; that and the kinetic action sequences may be more than enough for fans of The Witcher, whether they came to it via the novels or the video game, but for fans of good drama, there is still a sense of something lacking.

Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode, but it only seems to be a matter of time before we see some.

Parting Shot: Emhyr (Bart Edwards) burns pictures of various people, but holds on to a portrait of Ciri as a toddler. Is he the evil Geralt needs to defeat?

Sleeper Star: There are times when Joey Baty, who plays Jasiker, is performing in a comedy while everyone else is being dead serious, and we like having such a charming goofball like him in the middle of all the darkness.

Most Pilot-y Line: “You’ll be fine,” Geralt says to Jasiker after a massive battle with Rence and his men, where the Elves also get involved. “Your lute, however, has seen better days.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. Season 3 of The Witcher has enough story and action to satisfy fans of the show. We just wish the characters had a bit more to say.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.