WiC Watches: The Witcher
By Dan Selcke
Image: The Witcher/Netflix
Episode 3: “Betrayer Moon”
“Betrayer Moon” is definitely the strongest episode of The Witcher yet. Right off the bat, it benefits from drilling down (mostly) on only two stories: Yennefer’s ongoing training as a sorceress and Geralt’s battle with a striga, a frightful monster that’s actually a king’s daughter, transformed by a horrible curse.
Between Renfri, the striga, and Yennefer, Sapkowski seems to have a habit of writing about women painfully transformed by magic. But rather than dwell on the potentially weird implications of that, “Betrayer Moon” draws out the parallels. Watching Geralt battle the striga means more to us because the episode reminds us how he felt fighting Renfri, another cursed princess, back in the premiere. And watching Yennefer go through her ordeal — she sheds her hunchback and facial deformity through a brutal transformative process at Aretuza — means more because it mirrors what’s happening with the striga. The episode cuts back and forth because Geralt’s fight with the monster and Yennefer’s ordeal, underlining their suffering.
This is easily the best part of the episode. Alex Garcia Lopez goes all in on the brutality of both scenes. We watch as Yennefer’s body contorts and twists, folds and splits. And the striga is a wonderfully designed monster, all dripping black claws and hungry mouth. Its wailing shriek, joined with Yennefer’s, provides the soundtrack. If David Cronenberg directed an action movie, it might look like this.
The episode has less success in the slower, talkier parts. A lot of the language is still awkward (Istredd to Yennefer: “No amount of power or beauty will ever make you feel worthy of either.”) and the script muddles up some details regarding the why and the how of the striga. (Also, King Foltest’s counselor Lord Ostrit (Jason Thorpe) sure did confess to cursing the king’s daughter awfully quickly, didn’t he?)
Geralt’s part of the episode is based on the short story “The Witcher” from The Last Wish. Naturally, writer Beau DeMayo has to add a bunch of material to make it fit the confines of a one-hour drama, but the new stuff doesn’t feel like filler. I liked Geralt meeting with some of the poor and downtrodden people of Vizima before talking to King Foltest (Shaun Dooley), since they’re the ones mostly suffering on account of the striga. I liked the council of sorcerers deciding who to send where in the world and giving us a better idea of how that whole operation works, and I liked Anna Shaffer as Triss Merigold, even though she wasn’t in Sapkowski’s short story and her hair wasn’t red. She was folded pretty naturally into the narrative, and we might as well get to know her a bit before she becomes more important later.
I still don’t like that the show is juggling multiple timelines rather than just telling its story chronologically, although that did allow it to draw those Yennefer-striga parallels, so maybe they’re going somewhere with it. Speaking of Yennefer, Anya Chalotra was terrific again; she was particularly radiant stepping out after her transformation and dazzling the king of Aedirn into accepting her into his service, forging her own destiny even though the council wanted to send her elsewhere. That’s pretty on-brand for Yennefer.
That said, the nudity during Yennefer’s transformation scene was a bit weird. In the first episode the show was too shy to even confirm that Geralt and Renfri slept together, and now we’re leering at Yennefer’s breasts as she has a waking hysterectomy.
Overall, though, this was an improvement. If this is a preview of what the show can be like with more focus, I’m in.