The journey of the White Wolf continues in The Witcher season 4. In the third episode of the season, "Trial by Ordeal," Geralt finds himself faced with a witch trial and an angry mob in a refugee camp., Yennefer of Vengerberg gathers allies for her war effort against Vilgefortz, and far to the south, Ciri revels in the freedom of being a Rat with her new found family.
But terrifying forces stir around them. Emperor Emhyr's plan for Ciri comes into clearer focus, and the Nilfgaardian spymaster Stefan Skellen enlists the aid of the show's most terrifying villain yet to help track down Ciri.
FULL SPOILERS ahead for The Witcher season 4 Episode 3, "Trial by Ordeal."
Yennefer solidifies her mage army
"Trial by Ordeal" begins with Yennefer of Vengerberg (Anya Chalotra) watching a play of her and Geralt having sex in front of a unicorn, which is a fun nod to both the books and games where Yen has a stuffed unicorn that she likes to use in the bedroom. The witcher in the play looks a lot like Henry Cavill, right down to his older style of wig more reminiscent of season 1. And of course, kudos to whoever on The Witcher writing team thought of "Yennefer of Bangerberg."
The hijinks continue as Yen goes into a private room to find the elven queen Francesca (Mecia Simson) magically manipulating an elven prostitute to have sex with her. As soon as Yen walks in, Francesca makes the guy faint so they can talk alone. We find out that Francesca is no longer aligned with Nilfgaard after the Thanedd coup, and her Scoia'tael warriors are scattered. It's nice to see Francesca in the show again; Simson has always done a great job with the character.
But despite Yen's entreaty for help, Francesca refuses. She lost her child, her brother, her lover, and countless friends over the course of the past two seasons. However, Yennefer isn't exactly in the mood to be told no. She turns Francesca into a tiny jade statue — a reversal of a plot point in the books where Francesca does this to Yen. Then Yen tucks the miniature Francesca into her dress, swallows the feather she got from Philippa last episode, and jumps out the window.
We find out later that the feather allowed her to access polymorphy and transform into a raven, so that she could fly back to Montecalvo castle. Triss, Sabrina, and Margarita are already there when Yen makes her rough landing as a raven and transforms back into a human. Then others arrive to answer her call, including Assire van Anahid (Su Douglas), an older witch who glides in on a broomstick; a warhammer-wielding female dwarf named Ximer (Luisa Guerreiro), who knows Yennefer from Sodden; and Ida Emean Aep Sivney (Joelle Rae), an elven mage.
Yen releases Francesca from the jade statue as the group gathers around a beautiful round meeting table. No one is particularly impressed by Yen's means of getting Francesca to attend. move on her part. Margarita doesn't want to work with Francesca at all because they were on opposite sides of the Thanedd coup, but Philippa plays the mediator to deescalate the situation. When season 3 ended with Yen seemingly gathering a group of sorceresses, I was worried the show was going to minimize Philippa's role in the Lodge storyline from the books. I'm glad that fear is being laid to rest by how much we're seeing of her this season.
Yennefer makes her pitch to the gathered sorceresses at a round table, which is essentially that if they don't find a way to take Vilgefortz by surprise and kill him, he will eventually wipe them all out. Philippa is in, offering up Montecalvo as a base and haven for any who join their cause. Assire brings up Ciri as a part of the reason Yen is going after Vilgefortz so hard, which of course, she is. But then Francesca finally steps in to drive home why Ciri is so important by telling the story of the Hen Ichaer — the Elder Blood — and Ciri's ancestor Lara Dorren. This is deep, foundational lore for The Witcher Saga, and it warrants a full transcription:
"This land, every tree, river, and ocean, belonged to the elves. And then, the Conjunction of the Spheres. Humans entered our world, displacing and killing us to claim the land. Even now, we're seen as blights on your world. Are we not? But a great elven sorcerer named Avallac'h offered us hope. A key in the form of Lara Dorren, whose blood promised a new future. They were to marry. The mixing of the blood would create a child with the power to ascend us to Tir ná Lia. The place we all dream of. Our celestial paradise. But instead, Lara fell in love with a human. And their child could have been seen as a sign of balance. Peace, between our people. Instead, humans murdered her. The child was taken. Through generations, we've waited for the power to reappear through her bloodline. Ciri is her descendant."
Avallac'h is an important name in the overall Witcher mythos, so this mention of him is going to come back around at some point down the line. He plays a large role in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt video game and appears in the book series. We've also met him in the Netflix franchise in The Witcher: Blood Origin spinoff, where he was played by Alien: Earth's Samuel Blenkin. The last time we saw Avallac'h was in the ending scene of Blood Origin, where he was watching a young Ciri play dice in the streets of Cintra during a scene from The Witcher season 1.
After telling the story, which is done with some very cool visual effects that turn the watery face of the table into shapes that accompany Francesca's words, the elven queen says she'll join Yennefer's cause. Everyone wants Ciri; for her Elder Blood, her political position as the heir to Cintra, or for other reasons. And now, this group of sorceresses is fully committed to defending her if they can by killing her most dangerous enemy.
The final scenes for Yennefer reveal that she has a magical earring which lets her speak with Fringilla Vigo, who remains undercover in Vilgefortz's castle. Fringilla can't tell the Montecalvo sorceresses how she got there, because there were so many shielded portals that it was impossible to track the journey. They're interrupted by Vilgefortz's lieutenant Jocephus of Muroc (Edmund Kingsley), and Fringilla abruptly ends the conversation. Yen announces that without a way into Vilgefortz's stronghold, the new plan is to lure Vilgefortz into a trap at Montecalvo.
Geralt and the witch trial
Back on the path with Geralt (Liam Hemsworth), the hansa passes a corpse pile to arrive at a massive refugee camp. All the villages in the surrounding countryside that Nilfgaard keeps destroying sends more refugees there. On the one hand, I like this location a lot, because it shows the effect of the war on the broader map. On the other hand, it does feel a little counterintuitive to the way the Nilfgaardians operate in the books and games, where part of what makes them so impossible to resist is that they allow villages mercy and the stability of empire in exchange for fealty. But that's a bit of a nitpick that doesn't matter too much for this episode.
The child Beata thinks her family might be somewhere in this refugee camp. But before she finds out, Geralt's hansa runs into an old friend: Yarpen Zigrin (Jeremy Crawford), a dwarf who has taken part in adventures with Geralt in every season of the series so far. So of course, Yarpen joins their group; he even has some history with Zoltan. Some of the refugees they were traveling with do find their families, which gives Geralt a pang of hope for his own quest. But it's short-lived, as Beata gets some bad news and races away into a mob where they're burning witches. And there she finds her sister, tied to a stake with a priest preparing to burn her.
Beata's intervention means that she's now accused of being a witch as well. The two idiotic villagers from Fen Carn are among the mob, and they're eager to also accuse Milva of being a witch, which gives her some fun lines because she's not about to put up with that nonsense. The mob leans on a razor's edge from violence, but Regis manages to convince Geralt to try another way. But now they're in too deep; the priest insists Geralt must agree they're witches, or he and his companions won't be allowed to leave the camp freely.
The witch trial itself is a pretty good set piece that doesn't take itself too seriously; it reminded me more of Monty Python and the Holy Grail than a weighty serious fantasy show. But that works for this surprisingly funny scene. Tired of hearing absurd claims of witchcraft, Geralt demands a trial by combat. But the priest knows he would lose in an instant; he counters with a trial of ordeal, where someone must pick up a scalding hot horseshoe from a fire without harming themselves. That would prove the girls' aren't witches, somehow. It's also impossible.
Or at least, it seems impossible until Regis casually picks up the horseshoe, and proclaims the girls innocent. Regis' eyes slide toward Geralt with hidden meaning as he says he too, is also innocent. This is an interesting exchange; obviously Regis has some large secrets, but the show holds off on revealing them for now and so shall we.
Someone knocks a torch into the pyre, but just as the mob is about to lose it, Nilfgaardian soldiers raid the camp. Geralt frees Beata and her sister, as combat breaks out all around them. There are some very graphic deaths; once again, this season of The Witcher is proving that it is not afraid to be grim as hell. The dwarves get some retribution on the preist amidst the chaos, holding him down while Zoltan shoves the scalding horseshoe into his crotch. I guess he wasn't innocent.
Geralt fights off soldiers to cover for Beata and her sister's escape, but he's not fast enough to save her from being cut down by a horseman. Geralt and her sister comfort her as she dies. A second later, Geralt is knocked out by a Nilfgaardian and we cut to black.
Ciri gets a taste of freedom
In the south, Ciri engages in her fist real heist with the Rats. They rob a noble's carriage on a highway; Ciri's part is securing the noble herself, one Lady Gilda, daughter of the Baron of Casadei. Freya Alan's acting in this scene is really excellent, it might be my favorite for her so far of the season. She just seems like she's having so much fun. After Ciri has suffered so much, it's a blast to see her totally cut loose like this, even if she's toeing the line of doing bad stuff. Allan has really come into her own as a lead of this show. For me, she's almost filling the void left by Henry Cavill's departure more than Hemsworth himself.
After the heist, the Rats get some downtime in another southern city. Ciri gives a gold coin to a little girl who has a Falka doll; it's cool to see how the Rats' renown is growing, thanks in small measure to "Falka" and her sword skills. Despite this, Kayleigh tries to convince Mistle that Ciri isn't who she says she is, but Mistle doesn't care. Mistle has a noble background herself, which is a good reminder that even though we haven't seen too much of the Rats' past, they each do have fleshed out backstories from the source material.
Mistle and Ciri kiss in line for a street game, a sign their relationship is growing. It's sweet, and because the show is handling it more delicately, it feels better than the book. Ciri pickpockets a passerby, and seems to be really enjoying herself as a Rat. But there's still tension, because she realizes they're being followed. She also notices Kayleigh and Giselher talking to a stranger in an orante red cloak, who Mistle suspiciously claims not to know.
A short while later, Mistle and Ciri go to get matching rose tattoos. (Which is the image on the title card for this episode.) As Ciri goes to get hers, the three men who were following them earlier barge in. She assumes they work for the Baron of Casadei, but when the lead mercenary says they've been tracking Ciri "since before Glyswen," aka the town where she met the Rats, she realizes they're after the bounty on Princess Cirilla of Cintra, not Falka. As one begins to call her princess, she cuts them down with such lightning speed that no one else gets a chance to speak. Then she happily sits back down to get her tattoo. This has been an utterly badass episode for Ciri, and again, I'm really enjoying Freya Allan sell it.
We leave Ciri for this episode as she's lying in bed with Mistle. There's romance as well as tension between them, because they both just have so many skeletons in their closet. But it's obvious they care about each other. As much as I was not looking forward to the Ciri/Mistle romance because of how bitter it feels in the books, it's actually turning into one of the better romances of the television show. I'm here for it.
New villains enter the fray
This episode also spends a solid amount of time with our villains, and even introduces a brand new one who is going to be a major presence this season.
To start, we get our first real look at how Vilgefortz is blocking portals. Frangilla and Jocephus watch as a sorcerer gives all his power to a broken monolith, which in turn has some adverse effect that Vilgeforz is able to direct at certain mages' portals. However, the man is weak in magical power, so it doesn't work as well as it could. This opens the door for a great scene for Fringilla, where she silenes Jocephus and makes her case to Vilgefortz that she could be useful picking candidates to sacrifice from among his followers, since she has experience on that front from the Battle of Sodden Hill. The one she chooses has much stronger Chaos than the others, and it has a noticeable effect on the portal-sapping pool of darkness.
Vilgefortz is seemingly impressed, and orders Jocephus to keep Fringilla around. As a nice added touch, he waves away the lip-sealing magic Fringilla put on Jocephus as he leaves, which means Vilgefortz was aware she did it and couldn't care less. This is the exact sort of insane aloofness that the Vilgefortz character demands, and I liked seeing it here.
From there, Vilgefortz heads to Nilfgaard to answer Emhyr's summons. Emhyr confronts Vilgefortz about the fake Ciri, and the mage doesn't balk. Vilgefortz claims he is part of what led to Emhyr becoming emperor in the first place, and that Ciri's power is too great for the man to handle — but not too great for Vilgefortz, of course. Emhyr displays a surprising protective streak for Ciri, going so far as to outright dismiss Vilgefortz when he suggests using the fake Ciri to expand his empire to Cintra and beyond.
Then Stefan Skellen comes in, surprised that Emhyr let Vilgefortz leave. Emhyr is exasperated with Vilgefortz, but noticed something important thanks to a verbal slip the sorcerer made: he doesn't have Ciri either.
That opens the door for my least favorite thing in the entire season so far. Emhyr rages that he won't marry the fake Ciri, because he's supposed to have a son with Ciri — his own daughter — who will have Elder Blood powers. This is hard to wrap your head around, but it does have a root in the book series. However, because of the way the Emhyr plot twists have been shuffled around (you don't find out he's Ciri's father until the very end of the books), we're now going to have to sit with this gross plan until late enough in the series that it resolves. I don't like it!
Skellen urges Emhyr to pay more attention to the war in front of him instead of prophecies, which is pretty good advice. Cintran soldiers still fight for the North, which is why Skellen pushes to announce a marriage arrangement to the fake Ciri in order to destroy the Cintrans' morale. Emhyr is swayed and agrees to at least let the announcement go through, but he also tasks Skellen with finding the real Ciri before the wedding on pain of death.
Now we learn a bit more about Skellen, as he meets with the Nilfgaardian nobility, none of whom are happy about Emhyr's plan to impregnate his own savage northern daughter rather than choosing a scion of any of their houses for a bride. One of the nobles says he's heard about the Rats' attack on the Baron of Cassedei's daughter. Skellen wants to use the information that Ciri is out there and the fake engagement as a way to undermine and overthrow Emyhr. Just like Djikstra in Redania, it's a lot of fun to watch the spymaster of Nilfgaard enact his own agenda.
There final scene of the episode introduces us to the man Skellen contracts to hunt down the Rats and Ciri: Leo Bonhart, played with deranged perfection by District 9 star Sharlto Copley. A witcher responds to a notice from Bonhart, but it's a trap; this mercenary is so skilled, he hunts witchers for fun. They fight, and it becomes clear the witcher is totally outclassed by Bonhart, who has a collection of witcher medallions hanging from his neck. The camerawork and fight choreography are excellent, recalling some of the best fights from earlier in the series like the Butcher of Blaviken showdown. This is a brutal fight scene as Bonhart gradually wounds and cuts down the witcher. Netflix's series has had its ups and downs, but Copley is clearly bringing his all to this role, and he is both a highlight of this episode as well as the season.
Skellen interrupts to Bonhart's rampage to offer him a job, and in the process the witcher expired after Bonhart beat his face in. The comedy is so dark, but so good in the Bonhart scenes. We learn that Bonhart has a history with the Rats from a run-in at Rocayne, from the seemingly canceled Rats spinoff.
Bonhart thinks Skellen wants him to bring Falka in alive, but Skellen orders him to kill them all. This is a pretty major way for Skellen to undermine Emhyr...but it also piques Leo Bonharts interest in Falka, the most "highly skilled" warrior of the Rats. And that puts her in even worse danger than she was from Emhyr.
Verdict
"Trial by Ordeal" is an all-around rock solid episode of The Witcher, that features good set pieces, great character development, fun moments as well as intense ones, spectacular fight choreography, and the introduction of the most reviled villain from Andrzej Sapkowski's book in Leo Bonhart. With how good Ciri's plotline has been this season, and the addition of huge personalities like Bonhart, The Witcher finally feels like a true ensemble show in a way it never did during Henry Cavill's tenure.