The fourth season of The Witcher is out now on Netflix, and it marks a solid return for the streamer's epic fantasy show. This is the inaugural season for Liam Hemsworth as the mutated monster hunter Geralt of Rivia following the departure of previous star Henry Cavill, and The Witcher pulled out all the stops to make the season as good as possible. Part of that leans on the fact that this season more than any other feels like an ensemble show, with Geralt's foster daughter Ciri (Freya Allan) and sorceress lover Yennefer of Vengerberg (Anya Chalotra) each off on their own adventures.
The results were mixed, as they tend to be with The Witcher. But there was far more good than bad, and on the whole it was an enjoyable season of fantasy television. Let's look back on the season, and rank all eight episodes from worst to best.
8. Episode 405, "The Joy of Cooking"
"The Joy of Cooking" focuses almost entirely on Geralt and the hansa hanging out around a campfire for the night, swapping stories of their pasts as they finally became friends instead of simply traveling companions. The premise of the episode works really well; we needed this time with the hansa to get fully invested in them as a team.
However, two of those backstories in particular didn't work for me, and didn't work so badly that it made me feel like I was watching a different, much worse show: Jaskier's, which was a five-minute Disney-style musical number, and Regis', which was a brief animated recounting of his hedonistic vampire youth. While I'm sure this episode will evenly split fans, I'm definitely in the camp who felt these wild swings were a bridge too far, totally tanking the previously consistent tone and quality of the season up until that point. "The Joy of Cooking" is squarely at the bottom of my list, and it is not even close.
7. Episode 404: "A Sermon of Survival"
The fourth episode of the season, "A Sermon of Survival," is a bit of a mixed bag, but the just okay outweighs the good. Geralt and Jaskier spend this episode as prisoners in a Redanian war camp, where Jaskier is forced to face his former lover King Radovid and Geralt is tortured by the spymaster Djikstra as a way of driving a wedge between his liege lord and the bard. I didn't dislike these plotlines, but they didn't sing the way many of the others did this season, and the scheming was just generally not as tightly plotted. Djikstra torturing Geralt as a way of manipulating Radovid, with barely a hint of his frustration over being crippled by Geralt at Thanedd, didn't feel very true to the character. Yes, Djikstra is pragmatic in the books and games, but if you cross him he sure as hell lets you know it.
Yennefer had a similarly weird plotline, which saw her and the other sorceresses of Montecalvo do sword training under the guidance of the witchers Vesemir, Lambert, and Coen. The fact that the witchers are there at all feels like the show just wanted an excuse to force them into a plotline where they didn't belong, and the idea that Yennefer just suddenly has incredible sword skills we haven't seen at all in the previous seasons is a little absurd.
The saving grace for this episode is Ciri, who has a solid monster hunt when she and her lover Mistle try to go off into a cave an encounter a greylock suffering from a parasite. That was pretty cool!
6. Episode 406: "Twilight of the Wolf"
Like "The Joy of Cooking," I'm sure "Twilight of the Wolf" has plenty of ardent fans. But for me, the basis of this episode was such a misstep that it made it hard to enjoy all the spectacle as much as I might have otherwise. The sixth episode of the season is all about the big magical showdown at Montecalvo castle between Yennefer's sorceresses and Vilgefortz's rogue mages. It's easily the most ambitious battle scene the show has ever done, and in terms of the raw visuals and magical action, it was spectacular to watch.
The big problems with "Twilight of the Wolf" are conceptual. Yennefer as a leader of sorceresses feels extremely at odds with her book character, who takes pains to flee from the Lodge of Sorceresses as soon as she has a chance because she doesn't want anything to do with them. Losing this skirmish also diminishes Vilgefortz, who needs to loom as an unbeatable villain in order to infuse the show's endgame with the proper tension. And the overall set up for the battle is an obvious copy of the far superior siege of Kaer Morhen in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt video game, where the witchers and their allies lure a danger enemy into attacking them on their own turf. The TV show even kills off the same major character as the game, Vesemir, except in a way that feels totally tacked on and idiotic rather than heroic.
Throw in some utterly harebrained moments like Yennefer not killing Vilgefortz when she has the chance, and "Twilight of the Wolf" definitely deserves a spot lower on the list, in spite of its magnificent action scenes.
5. Episode 401: "What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger"
From this point on, we're splitting hairs. The season premiere of The Witcher season 4 had a lot of heavy lifting to do, from introducing the future storyline with Nimue and Stribog to acclimating viewers to Hemsworth as the new Geralt, catching us up with Ciri and Yennefer, and even some brief scenes in Nilfgaard and the Northern Kingdoms to remind us of the state of the war. And for the most part, it did that heavy lifting well.
Ultimately, the premiere ranks near the middle of the list because most of what we get is exactly that sort of set up, at least after the fun opening which reimagines several season 1-3 scenes with Hemsworth instead of Cavill. "What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger" is a really solid episode; it's just there's better stuff still to come.
4. Episode 403: "Trial by Ordeal"
The third episode of the season, "Trial by Ordeal," is a fun one that turns sobering by the end. Geralt and the hansa spend most of the episode in a refugee camp, where they have to defend two young girls from an overzealous priest who wants to burn them as witches. The mob scenes are surprisingly funny, recalling Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It gives various members of the hansa a moment to shine, including Regis, who reveals to the group that there's something not quite human about him when he picks up a scalding horseshoe without hurting himself.
But then Beata, a girl who was under threat that the hansa had been traveling with, is ruthlessly cut down in the final moments of the episode. The Witcher is often at its best when it moves between humorous moments and devastating ones, and "Trial by Ordeal" did that more effectively than almost any other this season.
It was also a killer episode for Ciri and the Rats. Ciri goes on her first real heist with them, which leads to some of her most fun scenes in ages as she mocks a noble who thinks she's above Ciri without knowing her true identity. Add in the introduction of Leo Bonhart in the episode's final moments, and "Trial by Ordeal" is a great hour of TV.
3. Episode 307: "What I love I do not carry"
The penultimate episode of the season, "What I love I do not carry," has the most in-depth monster hunt of the season, and it gets a lot of credit from me for that. During the book this season is based on, Baptism of Fire, Geralt and his hansa don't encounter any real monsters to fight. But the show has always added in more monsters, probably recognizing that fans who are only familiar with the game would be disappointed if Geralt never crossed swords with any beasties.
In this case, the hansa sets out into a spooky swamp and soon finds themselves at the mercy of a Rusalka — a creepy spirit and her spirit daughter who haunt the waterway, after meeting their untimely demise there. Not only is this monster encounter scary and atmospheric, Geralt has to solve it with his wits rather than his sword, which feels refreshingly true to the source material.
This episode is also strong thematically, with multiple characters examining what it means to be a parent from different angles. I am a sucker for a good theme-heavy episode, and "What I love I do not carry" is probably the strongest of the season in that regard.
The only thing keeping this episode from ranking higher is Yennefer, who pops into the hansa camp after they emerge from the swamp to spend the night with Geralt. I hated this scene for a few reasons. The first is that putting Geralt and Yen together again feels like it undermines a crucial element of the books, which is that they and Ciri are all separated after Thanedd right up until the end of the series. It's like The Witcher chickened out on that idea.
The other reason I hate it is because of Geralt's outrageously muted reaction to the news of Vesemir's death. That was his father figure! Come on! It sullies an otherwise solid episode.
2. Episode 402: "Dream of a Wish Fulfilled"
The second episode of the season is a slower burn than many others, but it makes very good use of its quiet moments. "Dream of a Wish Fulfilled" is the episode where Geralt and company meet Regis, the vampire played by Laurence Fishburne. Except they don't know he's a vampire yet, and so they spend the episode gradually getting to know him, all while the feeling that he's hiding some big secret lingers in the background.
There are plenty of good elements to this episode, including the wraith showdown and Yennefer's visits to other mages, but the standout is Fishburne's performance. Even after seeing the rest of the season, his scenes here with Hemsworth remain some of my favorites for Geralt and Regis.
This was also the episode where I realized Ciri and the Rats were going to become my favorite plotline of the season. She sits in on a heist, where we get a good feel for the personalities of the different Rats, from the chaotic Fisstech-addict Reef, to the lovers Iskra and Giselher, to rogue-ish Kayleigh, loyal Asse, and level-headed Mistle. By the end, they make Ciri an official Rat, and my excitement for the season spiked.
1. Episode 408: "Baptism of Fire"
But when looking back on The Witcher season 4, there's one clear episode that rises above the rest: the season finale, "Baptism of Fire." In the past, The Witcher has not typically had strong finales; this is the first season where the finale felt like the best episode, and in this case, far and away the best.
The reason for that lies primarily with Ciri and Geralt, who each have their own very intense storylines to go through. For Geralt, he and his hansa end up caught in the middle of a pitched battle between Nilfgaardians and northerners over a crucial river crossing. This skirmish, called the Battle of the Bridge, was probably the most coherent battle scene The Witcher has done to date, with the tide of battle shifting back and forth depending on whose forces had greater numbers storming the bridge. It's a fist pump moment for Geralt and Cahir in particular, who finally work together to great effect after spending most of the season as uneasy allies. And then it takes on a bitter tinge, when Geralt is knighted by the Queen of Lyria and Rivia and realizes he's just unwittingly been sworn into the monarch's service.
Then there's Ciri and the Rats. After spending all season building up the mercenary Leo Bonhart, it was insane to see him slaughter the Rats one by one, in what is probably the single most brutal scene The Witcher has ever done. The Witcher has killed off important characters before, but the Rats go out in a such a shockingly decisive manner that it recalls the Red Wedding from Game of Thrones. By the time Ciri arrives, it's too late; she ends up in Bonhart's captivity, watching as he saws the head off her former lover Mistle.
Both the Battle of the Bridge and the death of the Rats are crucial scenes from Andrzej Sapkowski's book series. It's a total credit to the show that it did both of these scenes justice, especially the Rats. The result is a highlight not just of the season, but of the show as a whole.
All eight episodes of The Witcher season 4 are streaming now on Netflix. How do your own rankings shake out? Let us know in the comments!