Spoilers will remain stoic and badass.

The short and sweet of this season is that it’s good and even great, but the big question is whether you will remain interest. To its credit, I started this season with a mild enthusiasm and slowly got hooked into it again the further I went along. We do have new character storylines we follow, but fortunately we do get back to our favourites eventually. That being said, your mileage – and patience – might vary.

The Witcher is based on the original series of books by Andrzej Sapkowski and produced by Lauren Schmidt Hissrich. The show still follows our three main characters: the Witcher Geralt of Rivia (Henry Cavill); the Princess of Cintra, Cirilla (Freya Allan) and the Sorceress Yennefer of Vengerberg (Anya Chalotra). Ciri and Geralt are paired together as they travel to Kaer Morhen, home of the Witchers. Ciri takes a lot more of a central role in this season as she embarks on her own hero’s journey as she starts training to become a Witcher. We also will get to meet Geralt’s brothers in arms, including Vesemir (Kim Bodnia)

Yennefer meanwhile gets right into the political machinations of the war between the kingdoms of Nilfgaard, the Elves and the Brotherhood. Yennefer, rogue sorceress Fringilla (Mimi Ndiweni) who we already met in season one as working with Nilfgaard, and Elven sorceress Francesca (Mecia Simson) will become involved in a plot started by the demonic Voleth Meir (Ania Marson). Fringilla and Francesca end up forming a fragile alliance between Nilfgaard and the Elves. Yennefer will also be forced to break every rule in the book as she goes rogue herself.

Coming back is also Jaskier (Joey Batey) which felt a lot more fleshed out this season. This time, he’s not simply comic relief, but a more fleshed out character. Also returning are Tissaia de Vries (MyAnna Buring), Triss Merigold (Anna Shaffer), Istredd (Royce Pierreson), Strogobol (Lars Mikkelsen)… Yes, they’re all sorcerers. Actually sometimes there’s scenes with so many magic users it really becomes a blur of names. Smaller interactions work better here rather than big rooms with characters that have long names and even longer titles. That’s probably the part that I found less interesting and detracting from the show. It works better when there’s less people to remember and they get to stand out more. That might be more of my personal taste.

Highly recommended with reservations. First of all, the best thing it does is when it leads its stronger characters along their personal journeys. It might be a personal thing, but when there’s a dozen sorcerers in the room discussing political machinations it just loses me. Some characters I tend to appreciate better than others. Ciri takes the front row as both standout performance for Freya Allan and main character this season, while Yennefer and Geralt still follow close behind. A lot of side characters get their chance to have their time in the spotlight where some shine and some felt a little flat. Worth a watch overall.

That will do for now.