Alright, I'm a bit worried.
But first off the good things, still a good with with nice scenery and great actors. Especially Geralt, Ciri, Dandelion (what a nice reunion) and Yen. But Yarpen Zigrin who came back for this episode was nice. All in all his dwarve gang coming back was a good point of this episode. The female dwarve with the beard was a funny small detail. But I don't know if it would have been better to use more actors like Yarpen with cinematic tricks, than Liliputians. Their fight did seem rather ridiculous than brutal and realistic. But I guess they wanted some more diversity or maybe get on the GoT hype. For Fen ist worked actually quite nice, but a strong fighter is something different.
But, what else is going on. The story went off the rails more and more after episode 1, that I can hardly see similarities between the show and the book. And it's starting to show. Lucky coincidences everywhere for people to meet. People flying all over the map, even without portals. Really weird plottwists and "solutions" for difficult situations are coming up. Neneke is suddenly able to create portals? What the hell, she is no magician, but a priestess and a healer. Overall her actress is way overacting and seemed rather unlikeable. Yen just went completely nuts and believed a well-known "evil" witch and tried to bring her Ciri, just to stop in the last minute and why? No real reason, just because.
Francesca once one of the mightiest magicians in the world and leader of the elves is nothing more than a loving mother with puppy eyes, who is not doing anything to further the plot. Speaking of, Fringilla is becoming more and more annoying. If they somehow make her ruler of Cintra and Cahir obedient, that would be the stupidiest thing ever. Cahir is probably the most loyal and stubborn character in the witcher and never would let himself get controlled that easily. He and Emhyr would have her executed in the blink of an eye. Speaking of which, Emhyr and the Nilfgardians would never give that much power to a magician in the first place. They are originally controlled quite strictly in Nilfgard. I really hope they kill her off, since her scenes are quite unnerving and her actress is not able to transport any emotion or real presence to the screen.
Another thing is evil witch storyline, which is getting to much time and importance for my taste. The story seems to stray more and more and it get's the feeling they just want to check certain boxes (monster fights, strong female leaders, incompetent and brutal male leaders *I mean seriously, every King is incompetent, bored and just doesn't care at all, they don't even try to do anything, if there advisors/mages doesn't push them to do it*, diverse cast, new "fresh" plotline), rather than actually telling the Witcher story or even their own coherent story they had in mind when planning this one out.
But I haven't lost hope yet. Because there are too many things that I enjoy about this show. Hopefully they finish some of their weird storylines (evil witch in the hut and Francesca and Fringilla in Cintra) in the final and return a bit more to the actuall story, which is a wonderful story by the way (read the books!), what would help bringing this show back on the red line and make it that much more enjoyable.
But first off the good things, still a good with with nice scenery and great actors. Especially Geralt, Ciri, Dandelion (what a nice reunion) and Yen. But Yarpen Zigrin who came back for this episode was nice. All in all his dwarve gang coming back was a good point of this episode. The female dwarve with the beard was a funny small detail. But I don't know if it would have been better to use more actors like Yarpen with cinematic tricks, than Liliputians. Their fight did seem rather ridiculous than brutal and realistic. But I guess they wanted some more diversity or maybe get on the GoT hype. For Fen ist worked actually quite nice, but a strong fighter is something different.
But, what else is going on. The story went off the rails more and more after episode 1, that I can hardly see similarities between the show and the book. And it's starting to show. Lucky coincidences everywhere for people to meet. People flying all over the map, even without portals. Really weird plottwists and "solutions" for difficult situations are coming up. Neneke is suddenly able to create portals? What the hell, she is no magician, but a priestess and a healer. Overall her actress is way overacting and seemed rather unlikeable. Yen just went completely nuts and believed a well-known "evil" witch and tried to bring her Ciri, just to stop in the last minute and why? No real reason, just because.
Francesca once one of the mightiest magicians in the world and leader of the elves is nothing more than a loving mother with puppy eyes, who is not doing anything to further the plot. Speaking of, Fringilla is becoming more and more annoying. If they somehow make her ruler of Cintra and Cahir obedient, that would be the stupidiest thing ever. Cahir is probably the most loyal and stubborn character in the witcher and never would let himself get controlled that easily. He and Emhyr would have her executed in the blink of an eye. Speaking of which, Emhyr and the Nilfgardians would never give that much power to a magician in the first place. They are originally controlled quite strictly in Nilfgard. I really hope they kill her off, since her scenes are quite unnerving and her actress is not able to transport any emotion or real presence to the screen.
Another thing is evil witch storyline, which is getting to much time and importance for my taste. The story seems to stray more and more and it get's the feeling they just want to check certain boxes (monster fights, strong female leaders, incompetent and brutal male leaders *I mean seriously, every King is incompetent, bored and just doesn't care at all, they don't even try to do anything, if there advisors/mages doesn't push them to do it*, diverse cast, new "fresh" plotline), rather than actually telling the Witcher story or even their own coherent story they had in mind when planning this one out.
But I haven't lost hope yet. Because there are too many things that I enjoy about this show. Hopefully they finish some of their weird storylines (evil witch in the hut and Francesca and Fringilla in Cintra) in the final and return a bit more to the actuall story, which is a wonderful story by the way (read the books!), what would help bringing this show back on the red line and make it that much more enjoyable.