The Witcher’s interpretation of its original text offers up something new—and that’s refreshing, both within this story and for fantasy TV at large.

The Witcher’s second season is vastly more confident about leaning into the high fantasy and higher stakes of Sapkowski’s lore, opting to let characters such as the wizened witcher Vesemir (Kim Bodnia) speak of forgotten histories instead of taking safer, more randy detours. Encouraging still is its stronger focus on maintaining a sense of narrative momentum (gone is the needlessly confusing time-hopping format of season one), at last bestowing upon The Witcher a sense of direction and purpose.

This is where the second season of The Witcher truly excels: the chemistry between Cavill and Allan – who are both excellent – is undeniable, and Geralt’s evolution from gruff and detached to stern but caring father figure is one of the season’s true delights.

The Witcher still suffers from the tendency of many fantasy tales to casually mention myriad names of cities, characters, and phenomena to the point of bewilderment, but the proceedings feel far clearer this time around thanks to the season’s tighter focus and the steady drip of context afforded by Yen’s journey.

The Witcher is most engaging when exploring the alliances and allegiances between Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri and when using those three to consider Nivellen’s insistence that “Monsters are born of deeds alone. Unforgivable ones.” But in its attempt to build a bigger world, the series falls prey to more fantasy tropes than it masters.

Two years after its debut The Witcher returns to Netflix, looking every bit as brawny as its maiden flight and less messy structurally. Although the series developed a solid following (unlike some of the streamer's other recent fantasy efforts that met the executioner's ax), the show remains uneven and somewhat impenetrable to anyone not truly invested in it, which isn't helped by the long layoff.

Drained of its bawdier and more comical ingredients (even Joey Batey’s bard Jaskier is relegated to a brief, and underwhelming, appearance), The Witcher plods along on its wayward course, piling on complications that, by and large, fail to consistently create the type of urgent stakes—or sense of import—that a large-scale endeavor such as this demands.

Season 2 shows how you can make a new great version of a story that is also respectful to the original

Season 2 is the good result after the first, despite the afro characters movie got more interesting and detailed. Overal, now it is interesting, great music, great scenario, great cast and other and other. After the first season didn't want to watch it again, but after the first series of the second season Now love it.

While season 1 took some serious dedication to push through, due to its non-linear story telling, unclear stakes and lackluster drama, season 2 has a much clearer focus. While the story-telling certainly improved over season one, it's still not great, suffering from the lack of subtle world-builing, characters motivations and clear stakes that define good fantasy stories. None of that is present here and none of the overall solid acting and set-design can gloss over that. The show really needs to do a better job at establishing the different kingdoms, their relationship to one another, their different leaders and their respective agendas, a clear explanation on the rules and limitations of magic and what is at stake. Without this ground work, it won't ever live up (or even improve) on the source material.

This show isn't good. No one could possibly argue that it was anything other than poor. Cavill carries it to some degree, but the amateurish story telling and action is just too much. Having said that, giving it 0 or 1 is just ridiculous; these are rage scores. I'm giving it 3 because Cavill is good and because bad as it was, I still sat through it all. This is a below average tv show and it could have been much much better with the right writing.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]