Summary: Geralt is searching for a djinn when Jaskier comes across him. Geralt finds it but Jaskier breaks the jar and releases it. The djinn finds its next vessel in Geralt and Jaskier is badly wounded by it with his life in danger. Geralt takes him to a mage nearby - Yennefer, who has settled in a town looking to find a way to restore her ability to give birth. She cures Jaskier but attempts to make herself the vessel for the djinn to fix herself. However, she incorrectly presumes that Jaskier is the vessel for the djinn when it is Geralt. Geralt realizes this and goes in to save Yennefer, realizing that she's going to die. Yennefer persists on continuing and Geralt uses his last wish, which gets everything to stop. After, Geralt and Yennefer have sex.
The Good: It feels good to finally see some crossover between the main characters. The previous episodes have all been hurt by having three wildly different stories happening at once, and they haven't felt cohesive. Now we finally get that bit of cohesion as Yennefer and Geralt meet each other. This has finally given the story some forward momentum, and I was engaged to see how Geralt and Yennefer interacted and what kind of relationship they would form. I enjoyed their interactions throughout the episode and their attraction to each other was obvious. I'm curious to see more of them together. The plot of this episode is very interesting. There are intriguing mysteries throughout like the nature of the djinn, Geralt's sleeplessness, and Yennefer's intentions. The plot held my attention the entire time, which is more than I can say for the previous episodes. This was much more engaging, interesting, and exciting. Yennefer's story has been well written to get her to this point. After the first few episodes, it seemed like she was destined to become a powerful and successful mage. Instead, she's now languishing in a small village, doing whatever she can to earn a living to have that baby she so desperately wants. Her decent is easy to understand, and it has been written well. I bought into her crazy actions in this episode, such as her trying to capture the djinn. The Bad: This episode had huge tonal issues that took away from the experience. By all rights, this feels like it should be a dark and gritty story considering Yennefer's story and how the show tries so hard to present her as scary and intimidating. This has been the tone that we have seen throughout Yennefer's story and it has worked. But with Geralt's story comes an absurdly lighthearted tone, the kind that you only see in a series that isn't taking itself seriously. These two tones clash in some really frustrating ways throughout the episode. The first main issue is unfortunately Jaskier. His presence is out of place here and his comedy has no place in an episode as tense and serious as this. It deflates the tension in almost every scene and many of the jokes aren't funny. The end of the episode is also ruined by a really stupid moment as Jaskier and Chireadan see Geralt and Yennefer having sex and offer up some ridiculous commentary. The whole episode has random scenes like this, and they do not work at all. Another problem is the constant unnecessary nudity throughout the episode. If you want to build Yennefer up as scary as intimidating, having her naked in most of her scenes, and including an orgy does not accomplish that at all. The show does not strike the right atmosphere because of this, and it is hurt further by the constant jokes with Jaskier. Instead of making us fear Yennefer, this makes her feel like a joke. I'm still disappointed with the Yennefer/Tissaia relationship. Their scene together should have been impactful, and I should have felt the emotion of Yennefer going rogue and how upsetting this is for Tissaia. But the relationship between these two has been so rushed and underdeveloped that I felt nothing during the entire scene. It was just another conversation because I haven't connected enough with the characters to feel for their struggles. I don't know how they feel about each other, so it is difficult to care about their decisions. Ciri's story continues to feel woefully out of place. There is a decent development here with the doppler meeting with Ciri, but this is the third episode in a row where her story's development has been limited to a cliffhanger. The Brokilon forest story was completely flat. I haven't seen enough of Ciri and Dara to care about their relationship, and I haven't seen enough of Brokilon forest for it to become a fully realized location. It was very difficult to care about what happened in this story. The Unknown: What exactly are djinns? How do they work? How did Geralt know where to find one? Apparently Witchers were created by mages. How? Also they apparently have a slower heartbeat. How does this affect them? Does this extend their lifespan as well? What was Geralt's last wish? Was it to cure his insomnia or something else? Geralt did sleep immediately after having sex, but perhaps this is just a red herring. There is likely a reason that Geralt's wish was hidden from us. What are the dopplers? How are they able to do their magic? Do they have other abilities? Do they have a true form? What is this doppler's plan to assassinate Ciri? What is the White Flame? Does Tissaia actually have a use for Yennefer? What happened to Yennefer in Aedirn? It sounds like things went very badly. Did they discover that she was part elf? Best Moment: Geralt and Yennefer's conversation in the bath. The sexual tension didn't do much for me, but what was much more fascinating was the way that these two characters sized each other up and tried to maintain dominance while learning more about each other. It was a rare sequence that had some excellent dialogue. Character of the Episode: Yennefer. Conclusion: This episode makes me more optimistic for the future of "The Witcher", even when it is bogged down by tonal issues and questionable character developments. This show isn't compelling yet, but I see potential. Score: 57
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Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
March 2024
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