The Witcher, season 4: the beginning of the end (review)

Liam Hemsworth struggles in the costume of Geralt of Rivia. And with him, the whole saga seems to be looking for a new lease of life. We feel that the conclusion is near.

No matter how much the (indispensable) recap that opens season 4 tries to hide Henry Cavill’s face, the English actor is no longer Netflix’s Witcher.

It is now the Australian Liam Hemsworth who is hiding under the gray mop of hair. And it’s an understatement to say that the change has not gone unnoticed.

Where Cavill imposed a real presence – a mixture of power, irony and gravity – Hemsworth appears as a diligent but lackluster replacement, a ghost who crosses the frame without ever leaving an imprint. Worse: it sometimes appears in the copy. We have the impression that he is trying to repeat what his predecessor did, as if to mitigate the substitution. But she made too much noise. It’s too obvious. Impossible to pretend…

Certainly Chris’ little brother accepted an impossible job. But its out-of-time approach is all the more glaring as, at the same time, the production is making the (laudable) effort to relaunch the series on new bases. It must be said that two and a half years have passed since the release of season 3. The events of the Battle of Thanedd are a long way away. Reinvesting in the convoluted mythology of the Continent is no easy task. It takes time to get used to the Witcher again. And not just because he changed his mind. The issues are a little vague. The clans and camps are quite poorly drawn. But it might be worth hanging in there.

Season 4 takes shape, episode after episode. Because, fortunately, the series no longer rests solely on the shoulders of the Witcher alone. Anya Chalotra confirms her status as a fantasy icon with a sovereign Yennefer who leads the war against the charismatic black mage Vilgefortz. Jaskier (Joey Batey) puts on a show every chance he gets. And Laurence Fishburne arrives under the fangs of an enigmatic vampire, breathing a little nobility into a plot that gets lost in an overflow of exhausting subplots. Like the side adventures of Ciri (Freya Allan), which go desperately in circles.

This is also the major problem of The Witcher (beyond just Cavill’s departure): the saga already seems exhausted, even though it has not really begun to explore the immense Lore of the universe imagined by Andrzej Sapkowski. The great story of the Conjunction of the Spheres is only touched upon, constantly. The script gets lost in conjecture and never seems to want to get to the heart of the matter without us understanding why… Problem of resources? Writing? Direction?

We thus watch this fantasy epic pass by, now realizing the obvious: The Witcher will undoubtedly never succeed in exploiting its full potential. It will never be a great series. The production itself seems to have accepted this. Netflix too. The ending is already set for the next season. The enormous franchise (it should be remembered that The Witcher already has two ancillary animated films and a prequel spin-off series) seems destined to disappear without making any noise. The narrative is tightening today. Ostensibly shedding the complexity of the original story, as if to get straight to the point. And maybe it’s better that way.

The Witcher, season 4, in 8 episodes, to watch on Netflix.