Converging Timelines
Nilfgaard’s power rises. Episode 7 of The Witcher sees Ciri arrives at the local town and asking around how to get to Skellige. With war looming ever closer, Geralt arrives in Cintra and speaks to Mousesack in the shadows about Ciri, after finding out Duny and Pavetta’s ship has been lost at sea. Despite being surrounded by guards, Mousesack teleports him and Geralt to the Queen and they discuss Ciri and the Law Of Surprise. Ciri meanwhile, finds herself scouring for wares before a villager lets her guard down and allows Ciri to seize the opportunity and take her horse. Geralt, sensing something amiss, walks through the corridors of the castle before finding Ciri outside. This happens to be the same occasion we see her in the first episode and finally brings into focus that Geralt has been operating on a different timeline to Ciri through the entire season. Yennefer meanwhile comes face to face with Istredd in the midst of the Nilfgaardian army before sitting together in the tavern. Unfortunately he’s unable to accept Yennefer’s changes and leaves. However, a mysterious man approaches, informing her that Tissaia requests her presence. At the mage academy, Yennefer talks to the other students and tells them to think for themselves before practicing magic with them. She leads them into the depths of the school and shows the truth – that the school takes life and goes on to reveal the eels in the pool below. Tissaia arrives soon after though and tells her not to ruin the kids’ lives. With Cintra under attack, the mages reconvene in the main chambers, along with Triss Merigold who arrives too. Fringilla enters the room and the group continue to bicker and argue around the future direction of the Kingdom. As they start to come to an agreement, we jump back to Cintra during the moments of the castle’s forcefield being breached. Here we see Geralt waiting in the basement while Mousesack heads down in a bid to find him. However, our witcher is gone, fighting his way outside through soldiers as Mousesack feeds back this news to the Queen. This is where we see the Queen falling from the tower and see Geralt outside witnessing this from below, determined to find Ciri. This catches us back up to Ciri’s present timeline, as she makes a fire in the middle of the woods but finds herself surrounded by Cintrans who unfortunately plan to give her up for crowns. However, she manages to conjure up a powerful magical spell and screams to the heavens where we leave things hanging in the balance. The Witcher finally brings everything together in the most satisfying way possible. Seeing that Ciri and Geralt are operating on different timelines has been clearly written here and although fans of the franchise will have recognised this early on, it’s still satisfying to see everything come together. If I’m honest, some of the editing is a little confusing and especially early on, seeing Geralt suddenly teleport from the cliff edge across to Cintra in the very next scene felt a little jarring. Still, despite that the series has done well to build up a solid foundation for the first season. Those expecting the next Game Of Thrones will of course be disappointed here but The Witcher has more than proven itself to be a decent high fantasy offering.
