Did she not notice the flowers once a month ? Suspicious
Definitely better than season 1 thus far, but I must say, that scene with Yennefer saving Jaskier was beyond dumb. Knocked the episode down at least one rating for me.
Was this seriously the first episode of the season where we get to hear a few proper Geralt-Hmmms? :sob:
Oh, dear, it's getting real! I liked the fun times with Geralt and Ciri but I guess the story has to progress... :)
I was relieved when Vesemir said that he's hopeful, not desperate. And it was awesome when he said "forget it" to Ciri <3 But unfortunately Ciri was too convincing and he was too weak. Then Triss attempted to save the situation but she got too scared. Ciri and Geralt probably need her - I hope they can convince her to help when she calms down but it doesn't look good at all at the moment... :o At least Geralt came back at just the right time <3 Ciri is already super strong and I wouldn't mind her becoming physically badass like a Witcher (vs. mainly through her chaos) but I don't want a darker version of her (currently she's still a bit of a happy and innocent princess).
The scene where Yennefer spit that alcohol in the face of that evil mage was the best one xDDD Yenn's still super badass, even without her chaos!
It just sucks that she got betrayed that way... :o Tbh I even want her to get a little bit of revenge (that traitor should learn her lesson).
The ending seemed very concerning (Yennefer vs. Ciri)! I hope she doesn't agree to that... Unfortunately she doesn't know yet that Ciri is Geralt's child of surprise :o
PS: Istredd and Geralt are especially interesting together as they both love Yennefer. Not sure if that can end without drama but at least Geralt knows now that Yenner is still alive.
I don’t understand why they’re doing this? taking material from great books and turning it into shitstorm of bad ideas.
I don't know how to feel about this episode. It was still somewhat entertaining, at least, I guess. Hardly any of it felt interesting enough. The most important part was the dialogue about the Conjunction, the Spheres, and the monoliths. I'm sure a lot of people found that super interesting.
The beginning left some question marks for me. How did that Lydia woman know about Cirilla, including a last-known location? I can understand Nilfgaard; particularly, The White Flame/Emhyr, knowing. If you know, you know. I'm not sure if the Nilfgaardians themselves know. Unless maybe Cahir. There's even a more specific reason why Emhyr would know about her.
cont.) To clarify, I'm referring to Cirilla's mysterious powers, although the more specific reason has to be something nobody else knows. Everyone probably knows of her, specifically. She is the princess of a kingdom. A kingdom that recently got attacked and taken over.
cont.) As far as her knowing a last-known location of Cirilla, I can buy that. With the extensiveness of this world and all the players, and 3D chess going on, it makes sense that probably everyone has spies everywhere. What I'm curious about is how she, or more like whoever she's working for, knows enough about Cirilla to where they'd be after her, too, wanting to get to her first.
cont.) Maybe she's someone close to Emhyr, who considered her trustworthy enough to tell her about Cirilla's powers, only she's playing a double game. Or whoever she works for found out somehow. How? I don't know. As far as her character is concerned, she could be one of the significant female mage characters, or just female characters, that I casually read about a while back in The Witcher's wiki. Her name seems familiar.
Another question mark was Rience going after Jaskier. I doubt Jaskier's songs are specific enough for Rience to know one of them could have mentioned Cirilla without mentioning her by name, let alone that by finding Geralt: he'll find Cirilla. But Rience seems to have had a history with Queen Calanthe, so maybe he met Geralt, too, and has a history with him as well. And that going after Geralt has nothing to do with going after Cirilla, as far as he knows.
cont.) Also, how Yennefer rescued Jaskier was a bit ridiculous. So was how she burned Rience's face. It seems like the only reason it happened like that was so Yennefer could burn Rience's face, as I'm pretty sure that was a notable aspect of his appearance in the novels. But I'm sure how it happened in the latter wasn't as ridiculously done as it was in this episode.
Geralt and Istredd taking down those two Nilfgaardian guards was also a bit ridiculous. Lightly hitting one across the head with something you're carrying and pushing the other off his horse with a weak magic blast is more than enough to knock out anyone: so it would seem.
Well, Geralt knows Yennefer isn't dead. Thankfully. That's good. I'm relieved that he knows now, especially after the previous episode's writing with him and Triss, about to learn that Yennefer's alive, then screwing himself. It made sense that he'd not want to hear Yennefer's name because of the pain, but I feel like the writing of that was too convenient. The writers could've made that last longer, so I'm glad they didn't.
Suddenly, the second episode has context. Yennefer's dream didn't make sense, but now, it's not as confusing. Cirilla is of Elder blood and is the seed that will burst into flame; in Yennefer's dream, her and Geralt's child burst into flame and had elven ears when the red-robed figure was holding it. But I don't think that Elder blood has to do with elves/Elven blood. Maybe those with Elder blood have always been elves. Either way, there's probably a correlation there. It's interesting.
Is it just me, or does there seem to be more to that exchange between Fringilla and Francesca? Something romantic, I mean. I seem to remember from when I skimmed through The Witcher's wiki a while back that one of the significant female mage characters liked women.
cont.) It may have been the one who was depicted blindfolded. Or was that Tissaia's depiction? It's hard to remember which one is which; when compared with their counterparts in the show. I can't seem to remember who that one is: maybe Philippa, who we've already been introduced to; if you know what I mean.
cont.) Then again, I don't think any of the other significant female mage characters ever hooked up with her. I could be wrong about that. Still, either way, that doesn't mean Fringilla and Francesca won't have romantic aspects sprinkled among their encounters. But I'm probably overthinking it.
Triss seemed a little hypocritical in this episode. She said that Cirilla gets to decide. Then, she freaks out when Cirilla makes a choice. One that she doesn't like. Granted, Triss was referring to using Cirilla to create Witcher mutagens, not Cirilla being the one on who it's used. But that, too, was still for Cirilla to decide: her choice to make, and Triss immediately goes into tantrum mode.
cont.) And why was Cirilla's idea of needing a moment to prepare for getting injected with the Witcher mutagen, dabbing herself with a wet cloth? You'd think she'd want to do it right away, and the writers couldn't come up with a better excuse. It was only written like that so Triss would find out about it and then be with Cirilla in private. That was also to buy time for Geralt to arrive just in time to intervene when Triss's method still didn't make Cirilla decide against taking the mutagen.
cont.) Of course, the result had to happen. From back when I casually read through some of The Witcher's wiki, I'm pretty sure I read that Cirilla never took the mutagen until the very end of the novels, or the end of the third game, something like that. Or that she never took it at all. Her powers and skills themselves were sufficient enough. I feel like if the writers didn't write Geralt to intervene, it would've been like killing Eskel, only a more significant change, one that would have probably pissed people off a lot more.
All-in-all, this episode seemed on the weaker side, but it was still entertaining, albeit confusing or written a little poorly. I was expecting the season to get more intricate starting with this episode after watching the previous episode, which I was somewhat correct about, I guess. But it wasn't to the extent or like I was expecting, so I feel like what I was expecting may happen in the following episodes, but probably not.
This episode made me little bit confused for the first time ever watching this show. I hope I get back in line in thenext one., And again awesome show., And I mean first season was magic and this is season is even more then that. I just love the world of The Witcher!
Imagine letting Cavill leave because he wanted a show faithful to the books. Since the writers no longer wanted to be faithful to them with season 4.
Imagine letting him leave to replace him with Liam Hemsworth.
Netflix, don't ever again touch something as good as witcher universe, they completely broke the original story.
Rience wasn't cought by Aretuza in the beginning, he NEVER SERVER CALANTHE, MY GOD!
Lydia acts like that? Are you kidding me?
Triss teleports Geralt to Istredd? For some Monolith? Never happened.
I don't think witchers were actually created because of the elder blood.
So they want to make Ciri a witcher? Well, THIS NEVER HAPPENED, NO ONE EVEN TALKED ABOUT THIS IDEA IN THE BOOKS.
AT LEAST SOMETHING HAPPENED IN THE SHOW, WHAT HAPPENED IN THE BOOKS (Yen saved Jaskier and gave Rience a scar from fire).
Review by ladysherlockianBlockedParentSpoilers2021-12-18T22:31:52Z
The episode is completely out of touch with the source material, but nevertheless quite engrossing. The only thing it had in common with the book was Jaskier being kidnapped and tortured by Rience, and then saved by Yennefer (though she was using magic in the novel), everything else is made up, but the scenes with Ciri's vision when she travels into her memory with Triss were impressive, the woman with the baby shown in the vision is some mixture of Lara Dorren and Ithlinne, since she speaks the prophecy about the Elder Blood?
Triss confronts Vesemir about his plans to restore witchers using Ciri's blood, though later Ciri herself insists on doing that and even a sample of her blood is collected for the elixir, but Geralt interrputs the procedure at the last moment. It seems though, that using Ciri's blood to create more witchers would probably be the least stupid way of making use of it.
Geralt has to cooperate with Istredd to learn more about the megaliths and it is nice to watch them learn to work together for the common purpose and overcome their differences. The story of the Conjunction of Spheres is elaborated here in comparison to the novels, when it was on the background and never explained in more details other than it brought all the races as well as monsters together to the Continent. Here we get a more scholarly turn on it, and Istredd is getting a more interesting character as a researcher and academic. And Geralt finally learns from Istred that Yennefer survived the battle of Sodden.
Yennefer, however, is in trouble as she had been captured and is about to be executed, she turns to the mysterious woman from her dream/vision earlier on and it turns out it was Ciri all along, who offers her a way to regain her magic.
Fringilla and Francesca are now ruling Cintra together, in some sort of a partnership, and it is rather nice to see some women in power cooperating with each other. Cahir soon joins them as his ship comes finally to Cintra. I wonder how his story would turn out and whether he would change into the person from the novels. Same about Fringilla, who did come from Nilfgard but was not particularly loyal to Emhyr and his cause, and she was rather a shy and reserved person, and not an antagonist since Geralt has a brief affair with her in one of the later volumes of the saga. The Fringilla from the show is totally different and I guess it is nigh to impossible to change what happened to her in the show so that it would fit her book image more.
Another change from the books is Lydia, Vilgefortz's assistant, she is shown to free Rience possibly on Vilgefortz's orders, so she is complicit in what he is planning, but in the books she was depicted rather as an innocent victim of his machinations, besotted with the mage.