Spoilers for the First Episode “The End’s Beginning” of The Witcher Below. 

The Witcher is a long running fantasy series first published in 1986 by author Andrzej Sapkowski and rose to a cult classic when CD Projekt Red took the rights to create a video game series based off the series. Netflix’s adaptation is based of the novels and not the games, so those looking for a straight retelling of the games’ story may be disappointed. However, those looking for a cohesive story may be turned off with this first episode as it suffers quite a bit from a muddled timeline, on the nose dialogue, and poor pacing.

Straight edge Superman turned monster slayer Henry Cavill, was great at portraying Geralt. You can just look at his eyes if you want to see how Geralt is feeling as Witchers are known not to be able to feel emotions. Freya Allan did a good job portraying Ciri as well. Even if I wasn’t a fan of her story in this episode she did the best with what she was given and I am looking forward to seeing more as the series progresses.

The first episode is based off of the short story “A Lesser Evil” and in the first 10 minutes, writer Lauren Schmidt does a great job at showing what Geralt does for a living and how witchers are treated by the general public. They are seen as mutants and murderers, and are generally not accepted by society.

The “A” plot of this episode is simple and to the point if solely focused on Geralt. By itself it would have been a great first introduction to newcomers of the dark and dangerous world of The Witcher. Instead the “B” plot muddles up the narrative by telling the story of Ciri, which is strange and at times confusing.

The main story features Geralt fighting a poorly CGI’ed Kikimora and taking it to the town of Blaviken for a reward of some sort. Instead of taking it to the Aldermen he is told to take the creature to the local wizard named Stregobor, who asks the Witcher to kill a girl who was born during an eclipse. Stregobor believes she, and any other born this way, is dangerous and is a blood thirsty murderer.

He meets a woman named Renfri in the woods, and she describes the horrors Stregobor has put her through. Because of this she wants her revenge and will murder him at whatever cost. This is where “The Lesser Evil” comes into play and is just thrusted down audience throats. The lesson of the episode is making choices that you would never know could be right or wrong; this is stated by Stregobor at the end of Geralt’s fight with Renfri just in case the audience didn’t put two and two together.

Geralt’s story is concluded after this beautiful action sequence. It is filmed in just one shot and gives us an insight on just how powerful a Witcher is with their enchanted speed and strength against normal men. Deflecting arrows in mid air, and using magic to push enemies back was just glorious to watch. You also get to see that Geralt was hesitant to kill as he didn’t want to become the monster the people made him out to be.

Ciri is introduced as a Princess Jasmine-like character, hiding among the peasants in disguise as a homeless child. I found this scene to be a little superfluous as her rebel like attitude is shown in almost in every scene she is in.

After her Grandmother goes to fight the attacking Nilfgaardian invaders, which lasts a total of three minutes, viewers the death of Ciri’s grandfather and see her grandmother get mortally wounded. Ciri is then locked in the castle with her bodyguards and they prepare for the invaders to arrive.

The story gets messy here, as we don’t find out the reasoning behind these invaders or what the relationship is between Ciri’s people and the Nilfgaardians. I am hoping throughout the series to get some more details on the Nifgarrdian’s motives. The battle fell flat as no stakes were introduced. It felt like the writers were wondering how to keep the attention of its audience as the story so far has been slowly paced.

However when the invasion begins we do get an extremely emotional sequence of Ciri’s mysterious abilities and her being told to “Find Geralt of Rivia.” Ciri also gets some life advice that ties the two plot lines together, paired with the the castles residents committing suicide to save themselves from being tortured. All of this happens in time with a hunting melody that just keeps the feeling of dread, depression and desperation constant throughout the scene.

The first episode of Netflix’s The Witcher was a bit of a mixed bag but it is definitely a promising start. I enjoyed everything with Geralt and his story; the action was well choreographed and shot beautifully. Henry Cavill was stellar in the role and it introduced the world in a great way. However Ciri’s story really slowed down the story and muddled the timeline in a way that rubbed me the wrong way, even if it had a very emotional scene in the climax of her story.

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Netflix’s The Witcher

7

Score

7.0/10

Pros

• Solid Acting
• Superb action

Cons

• Muddled Story Telling
• Poor CGI
• Forgettable side Characters