The first episode of Season 4 of The Witcherbased on Andrzej Sapkowski’s fantasy novels and the popular game, opens with a nasty, chittering kikimora confronting a broad-shouldered silver-haired man. We see him in profile as he summarily kills the arachnid swamp monster and the first words he says as the camera focuses on him are, “not the worst.”
The Witcher Season 4 (English)
Episodes: 8 (51-60 minutes each)
Creator: Lauren Schmidt Hissrich
Starring: Liam Hemsworth, Anya Chalotra, Freya Allan, Eamon Farren, Joey Batey, Laurence Fishburne
Storyline: Geralt, Yennefer and Ciri follow their paths to an uncertain future
As introduction shots go, it is not the worst and will do for our first glimpse of Liam Hemsworth as the monster hunter, Geralt of Rivia. So much has been written and speculated about Henry Cavill’s departure from the series due to creative differences that it is time to move on.
At the end of Season 3, Geralt, his Child of Surprise, the Cintran princess Ciri (Freya Allan), and his lover, the sorceress Yennefer (Anya Chalotra), are separated. Ciri throws in her lot with the merry band of thieves called the Rats who rescued her. She forms a bond with Mistle (Juliette Alexandra) one of the Rats. A fearsome bounty hunter, Leo Bonhart (Sharlto Copley), who has history with the Rats, is looking for Ciri.
Yennefer has set up camp in Montecalvo, gathering the remaining sorceresses to mount a resistance against the powerful sorcerer Vilgefortz (Mahesh Jadu). Geralt’s ragtag bunch, comprising “two dwarves, a gnome, a poet, a half-dryad, and a vampire”, is on their way to Nilfgaard to rescue Ciri from Emhyr (Bart Edwards), the emperor, who has evil plans for her.
These threads are followed through the show with a dusting of monsters, songs, jokes, battles, and romance. They are framed as a tale within a tale, with an elderly man, Stribog (Clive Russell), telling the tale to a young ingénue, Nimue (Sha Dessi), a hundred years after the events.
Though Geralt has no love for Cahir (Eamon Farren), the Nilfgaardian army commander who invaded Cintra and was hunting Ciri, Cahir helps Geralt’s group escape and fights alongside them.
There is also a mysterious barber-surgeon, Regis (Laurence Fishburne), who knows a thing or two about healing and has the best lines including: “I never understood why survival always manifests itself in boiled greens and a reluctance to dig latrines.”
Jaskier (Joey Batey), the travelling bard continues to sing and dispense witticisms, on the way to Nilfgaard while Milva (Meng’er Zhang), the half dryad archer, has a secret. The battles are quite well staged on land, water, in remote windswept castles and on a bridge. The beasties, including the rusulka, who haunt the waterways allowing passage only after solving a riddle, are jolly.
The pacing is slightly off, with stretches of talk interspersed with bursts of action. Geralt’s reminiscences of braiding Ciri’s hair and the creation of his Witcher name (his first choice was Geralt Roger Eric du Haute-Bellegarde) are sweet and funny.
There is a whole episode, ‘The Joy of Cooking’, where Geralt’s party talks of their past lives. Jaskier speaks of a rival bard who stole his poems, the dwarf Zoltan (Danny Woodburn) recalls being exiled for allegedly selling weapons to humans, and Milva shares memories of her abusive upbringing.
The eight episodes move along smoothly in a flurry of curses, spells, politics and beasties, with nothing particularly standing out. By the time the credits roll on the last episode, ‘Baptism of Fire’ (also the name of Sapkowski’s fifth novel which Season 4 is loosely based on), one would be hard-pressed to remember anything about the show. With filming already wrapped on Season 5, Hemsworth has another chance to prove he can slay the beasties, grunt and get into the hot tub as well as the other chap.
The Witcher is currently streaming on Netflix
Published – November 03, 2025 07:07 pm IST
