The second season of The Witcher was approved by Netflix weeks before the first was even published. This year’s most-watched series list shows that the media company’s hunch paid out, with “The Walking Dead” taking second place.
‘I’m a big admirer of fantasy,’ Henry Cavill (Geralt of Rivia) said when Variety questioned him about what drew him to the part. “I’m a big fan of the genre.” Before I could read, my father read it to me. Compared to the typical fantasy genre, this is a little bit more unique. According to what I’ve learned about Polish culture, this style is more somber. A lot of Polish culture can be seen in this area. Just a slightly rougher edge, which I found quite interesting.
“The Witcher is like Game of Thrones in that you never know who’s going to die, because it’s a bleak world,” said one player.
It’s time to move on. For The Witcher season two, what does Geralt of Rivia face?
It’s finally here: a release date for new episodes of The Witcher have been set.
Netflix’s first-ever WitcherCon – an event for fans of the games, comics, TV series, and anime film Nightmare of the Wolf – announced that the release date is December 17, 2021, along with a poster and a teaser trailer that featured Geralt of Rivia and Princess Cirilla of Cintra (yes, we were truly spoiled).
A lot of post-production work remains to be done, showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich stated at the Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour in August (via IGN).
In order for there to be a third season, “we need a terrific season two,” so “I’m back and forth between Los Angeles and London finishing that, and that is really where all of our emphasis is right now.”
Netflix released a behind-the-scenes video with Henry Cavill and Lauren Schmidt Hissrich promising what’s to come in the second installment of The Witcher.
“We’ve never had a TV season quite like this one, I’m sure. Since we last saw Geralt and Ciri, Yennefer and Jaskir, and all of your other favorite characters, we can’t wait to show you what they’ve been up to.”
Below, you may watch it.
https://www.instagram.com/witchernetflix/tv/CNKnqTMJV5W/?utm_medium=copy_link.
The Witcher season 2 cast: Who’s in it?
In a statement to Deadline, Hissrich confirmed that Cavill, Anya Chalotra (Yennefer) and Freya Allan (Ciri) will all return for season two, which was to be expected given that they star in a number of books the show is based on.
But who will be joining them?
Triss (Anna Shaffer), Jaskier (Joey Batey), Cahir (Eamon Farren), Tissaia (MyAnna Buring), Stregobor (Lars Mikkelsen), Artorius (Terence Maynard), Filavandrel (Tom Canton), Murta (Lilly Cooper), Sabrina (Therica Wilson Read), Yarpen Zigrin (Jeremy Crawford), and Istredd (Royce Pierreson) will all feature.
And you can expect more from Mimi Ndiweni.
“Fringilla is one of those characters that we’re going to delve into even more,” Hissrich said (via Vulture). “We’re digging deeper into her past and how she ended up at Nilfgaard, who she is as a person, and how she and Yennefer ended up on such different paths. She gets to do a lot more.”
Aside from the usual CGI monsters and nameless orgy participants, Netflix has now announced a number of new casting additions:
Outlander star Graham McTavish will portray Dijkstra, Silent Witness star Liz Carr will portray Fenn, Game of Thrones star Kristofer Hivju will portray Nivellen, Downton Abbey star Kevin Doyle will portray Ba’lian, and Young Wallander star Yasen Atour will portray Coen. Chris Fulton will portray Rience. Aisha Fabienne Ross (The Danish), who appeared in The Danish, will portray Eskel.
Vesemir, the witcher trainer, will be played by Kim Bodnia, who previously appeared in Killing Eve’s season two as a guest star.
“In a season that is about Geralt becoming a father to Ciri, it was so important to me to find out who his father figure was,” Hissrich told attendees at WitcherCon (via EW).
And Cavill enjoyed working closely with Bodnia.
“Kim and I were discussing the emotionality of these characters, and Kim brings some powerful emotion to [the role] and a real sense of soul and heart and connection to the wild and connection to nature,” Cavill told EW.
“It’s beautiful to watch and beautiful to be a part of. Some of my favourite scenes I got to perform with Kim. He does bring something really special to the character, and I think people are really going to enjoy it.”
There’s a chance Vesemir will bring out a different side to Geralt, with Cavill keen on a more layered portrayal this time around.
“I really wanted to avoid him being too one tunnel,” he said. “Even though he may be dark and mysterious at times, I wanted him to come across as this incredible character that [Sapkowski] wrote. Those are things that I really pushed for and tried very hard to get into the show.”
And it’s not just the characters that will be complex. Cavill has promised that season two will feature “multiple cliffhangers throughout a [single] episode”.
That all sounds incredibly exciting to us!
Of course, if you want to know more about Vesemir, you should watch Netflix’s animated prequel, Nightmare of the Wolf, which delves deep into the character’s backstory.
Combine the Cavill interview hype with the fact Netflix went to the trouble of creating a cartoon to show us his youthful past, and it’s clear Vesemir’s going to be a key season two character.
But that’s not all!
Carmel Laniado (Dolittle) will play “Violet, a young girl whose playful and whimsical demeanour is a front for a smarter and more sadistic character”, according to Deadline.
And according to showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, we can expect to see some queer representation next season as well. After denying there were any homoerotic undertones in season one, The Witcher boss promised during a Reddit AMA that this would be rectified ready for season two.
“One of my favourite things about the books is that they are full of subversion. Yes, we’re gonna represent.”
The petition for Geralt and Jaskier to realise their true feelings for each other in season two starts here.
The Witcher season 2 plot: What will the second season be about?
Lauren Schmidt Hissrich recently revealed some major spoilers for the season two premiere episode – and fans were loving the information.
It was announced in a Twitter video that the first episode would be an adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski’s A Grain of Truth – one of the stories, on which the show is based, that was cut from the first season.
“It’s a story of a father and daughter coming together in a place that doesn’t quite feel safe for them – and of course, we really get into Nivellen who’s played by the incomparable Kristofer Hivju, and we get to explore his character and his backstory with Geralt as well,” Hissrich explained.
We also had some details about season two’s plot, direct from Netflix, last year.
“Convinced Yennefer’s life was lost at the Battle of Sodden, Geralt of Rivia brings Princess Cirilla to the safest place he knows, his childhood home of Kaer Morhen,” its synopsis reads.
“While the Continent’s kings, elves, humans and demons strive for supremacy outside its walls, he must protect the girl from something far more dangerous: the mysterious power she possesses inside.”
Which all sounds very exciting, doesn’t it?
In an exclusive interview with Digital Spy, Hissrich promised a “more intense” second season. “What I would say is that season one is very much about building blocks. It’s about constructing the world, and setting up these characters, and putting them on paths, and knocking those dominoes over.
“When you get to season two, all of those things start to come to play, which is that characters start meeting each other – sometimes getting along, sometimes not. All those things that we set up – Geralt and Yennefer, Geralt and Ciri, Yennefer and Ciri – all of the different kingdoms that you just barely hear about in season one, start rising to the surface in season two.
“So the storytelling is a little more intense in a way, and maybe a little more focused and driven in the journeys that we’re telling in season two.”
And here’s hoping that the overall timeline will be less confusing in the future.
Speaking on Reddit, The Witcher boss explained: “The narrative structure was put in place so that we could tell Geralt’s short stories (the foundation of the whole Witcher world, in my opinion), while Ciri and Yennefer could also be a part of the action.
“Their stories don’t happen simultaneously, so we knew we needed to play with time a bit. This will definitely change in season two, as their stories have begun to converge.”
Chatting to Vulture, Hissrich expanded on that, adding: “The stories will be told in a much more linear fashion. They won’t all be one story. It’s not like all three are together and happy all the time. But I do want to employ some different ways to look at time series-wide.
“I think that there is a lot that we couldn’t fit into season one. There are different short stories that I would love to highlight and focus on. We may end up doing those in the future, via flashback, for instance. But no, we won’t have things happening across 100 years at the same time anymore.
“One of the biggest changes we’ve made is to make sure that the scripts aren’t too long. It’s a terrible thing when you shoot a story that you’re proud of, and then it’s 95 minutes long and you’re trying to fit it into 60 minutes of television.”
The Witcher season 2 trailer: When can I watch it?
The previously-mentioned teaser trailer was released in July, and you can watch it here:
We have also previously seen some new footage, which focused entirely on Ciri and, while it’s only fleeting, it certainly gave us a taste of what to expect.
She could be heard shouting: “No! Geralt!” before she’s warned of “danger” right at the end.
It was shared on Twitter with the caption: “Destiny awaits the Lion Cub of Cintra in Season 2.”
Chatting about what Ciri’s story will entail in season two, Hissrich told TV Guide: “One of the things that of course happens when you are adapting material is that you have these eight episodes, they’re an hour long each, [and] we had much more of Ciri’s story in season one that we ended up having to trim down. And it’s one of the things that when I look at the season, I see she’s not as present, Ciri’s not as present as I would have liked her to be.
“So in season two, we’re really digging in with her character and we’re going to understand her a lot more… where she starts training, where she actually becomes the character that we know from the books and later from the video games, we will see her become that person. But she doesn’t change on a dime. What we don’t want to do is forget where she came from.”
Netflix has also shared the first page of the season two script.