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‘The Witcher’ season 2: here’s everything we know

BS

by Briana Symons

BS

by Briana Symons

All Witcher fans gather ’round as we regale you with all we know about the highly anticipated The Witcher season 2.

As the year is coming to an end and we think of all the good game adaptions we enjoyed, one of the early ones still stands out. Can The Witcher season 2 come any sooner?

Released in December of last year, The Witcher is a Netflix adaption of the much-loved book and game series of the same name. We travelled with Geralt, Yennefer, Ciri, and the fan-favourite, Jaskier, across The Continent over multiple timelines and locations before it all came together in the season finale. Now, we’re just waiting to do it all again.

The Witcher season 2 skulls

First of all, there is no confirmed release date yet for season two beyond just 2021. People are thinking that it may be due around August, but with all the COVID-19 restrictions and mishaps, we just won’t know until the date is officially released. In the same vein, we don’t expect a trailer for the new season to be released until at least next year. Until then, we can tide ourselves over with the little hints and snippets we’ve received.

We know that production on the season was halted in March due to COVID-19, and there have been several other complications, including one cast member, Thue Rasmussen – meant to play Eskel – dropping out of the series due to a COVID-19-related schedule conflict. There were also reports of positive cases of COVID-19 on the set in November, which furthered the delays.

The eight-episode season is still on track, however, with Rasmussen being replaced by Basil Eidenbenz. Eidenbenz isn’t the only new face on the cast though, with the previous cast being joined by multiple newcomers this season. Additional Witchers have been cast, with Paul Bullion to play Lambert, Yasen Atour to play Coen, and the legendary Witcher trainer Vesemir will be played by Kim Bodnia.

Kristofer Hivju will play the cursed Nivellen, and Mecia Simson will be Francesca, Aisha Fabienne Ross will play Lydia, and Agnes Bjorn will play Vereena. Some sources report that Carmel Laniado will be playing a character named Violet for at least three episodes in the season.

 

 

At this point in time, at least the first two episodes have appeared to be finished filming with Stephen Surjik now leaving his directing position. When determining what else is new in the upcoming season, the program creator, Lauren Hissrich ensures fans that “Without spoilers, I will say that there’s a crop of new monsters, a new cost to magic, and new and unexpected pairings of our favourite characters.”

The complex – and sometimes downright confusing – timeline of season one ended with the finale, and as we’re now all caught up with the events, the new season will pick up where the last left off. That’s not to say all the characters will be sharing storylines, or that we won’t see or fair amount of flashbacks. Especially with the location of the new season.

Something that we know from the inclusion of the Witchers on the cast list and the season’s two official synopsis, we know that Geralt will be taking Ciri back to his home. We also know that the Witchers will be participating in a large-scale battle at some point in the season, alongside the typical monster-hunting and Geralt’s how-to-be-a-dad classes.

This synopsis gives us a huge insight into what will be happening in season two:

“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. 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.”

We expect The Witcher season 2 to be inspired by the first full length Witcher novel by Andrzej Sapkowski, Blood of Elves. In the novel, all four Wolf Witchers of Kaer Morhen help Geralt to train and raise Ciri the only way they know how: as an honorary Witcher. This is supported by the promotional pictures, in which Ciri is clearly holding some type of weapon.

The setup for the series following the Blood of Elves has already begun with the fall of Cintra in season one, and Ciri’s escape. We should be seeing more of the Nilfgaardian rule in the second season, thankfully without the horrid Nilfgaardian armour. We’re confirmed to be seeing more of Fringilla in Nilfgaard as well, so we can figure out how she’s ended up opposed to Yennefer and also maybe what the hell is up with those weird mind controlling worms.

Other promotional photos from October show Henry Cavill in Geralt’s new armour, and Anya Chalotra as Yennefer in chains. While Geralt thinks Yennefer has died, all we know through cryptic tweets is that she’s drained of her power and won’t be back at her usual power level for a while. But she’s destined to meet up with Geralt and Ciri again at some point, especially with Ciri questioning who she is at the end of season one.

We also expect to see The Witcher season 2 finally delving into Geralt’s past and the painful childhood of a Witcher. Hissrich has teased fans with the knowledge that this will be an interesting season for Geralt’s emotional growth and his “internal conflict”, which will provide some intriguing character development. Some of us are really holding out for his apology to the trusty bard Jaskier, whenever that may be. We can just listen to Joey Batey’s official Toss A Coin on Spotify until the time comes.

Netflix has also announced two spin-offs for the popular series — one an animated telling of Vesemir’s story in The Witcher: Night of the Wolf, with the other being a live-action prequel following the origins of the first ever Witcher in The Witcher: Blood Origin. Definitely look out for these two while we’re all waiting for the return of our favourite cast of monsters and monster hunters.

We’re also probably going to be guaranteed to be seeing The Witcher for a long time yet, with Hissrich claiming to be aiming for around seven seasons. But that won’t be any time soon. Even without all the pandemic-related complications, Hissrich stated that they “don’t want to rush the product. That doesn’t benefit anyone.” The fans are happy to wait for the new season as long as the cast and crew keep up their fantastic quality.

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