The Witcher Season 2 Includes Flashbacks But Timeline Will Be Less Confusing

The Witcher’s timeline in season 2 will be much less confusing than season 1; enabling its narrative to embrace techniques like flashbacks and flash-forwards. Despite drawing in 76 million viewers in its first month on Netflix, The Witcher received criticism for using three timelines to tell the stories of Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri. Fans unfamiliar with the books The Witcher is based on, written by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, had trouble following the plot.

Sapkowski’s stories follow Geralt of Rivia (the “Witcher”) as its primary protagonist, and as such, Yennefer of Vengerberg and Ciri of Cintra don’t appear in the books until Geralt meets them. Season 1 of The Witcher, however, uses a nonlinear timeline to follow all three characters; putting Yennefer and Ciri on a level playing field with Geralt. Their stories begin decades apart and this confused many viewers because it goes unnoticed until episode 4 when Geralt makes a pivotal decision regarding Ciri. A lot of audiences previously unaware of Ciri’s backstory missed this clue. The timelines gradually became more involved as The Witcher season 1 progressed, with Geralt and Ciri finally meeting, but it was still hard for viewers to follow. Fortunately, season 2 will be less confusing.

Now that all three characters exist on the same timeline, season 2 of The Witcher should be a lot easier to follow. Speaking to The Wrap, showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich explained how The Witcher season 2 will utilize a more traditional narrative structure while still incorporating flashbacks and flash-fowards:

“What that allows us to do story-wise though is to play with time in slightly different ways. We get to do flashbacks, we get to do flash-forwards, we get to actually integrate time in a completely different way that we weren’t able to do in season 1. Because, if you can imagine, if we were in three different timelines (in season 1) and then flashed forward or flashed back, we would have been in four or five or six timelines — even I know that’s too much. But there are still going to be some fun challenges with time.”

In episode 8 of The Witcher season 1, Geralt is wounded and left unconscious. In a delirious state, Geralt dreams about his mother, Visenna, who gave him up as a child to be made into a Witcher (which is shown briefly). It now seems likely that more of that time in Geralt’s life will be explored via flashbacks in season 2. Some of the biggest season 2 casting announcements were that of Kim Bodnia as Vesemir, Yasen Atour as Coen, Paul Bullion as Lambert, and Thue Ersted Rasmussen as Eskel – all Witchers, suggesting that season 2 introduces the people Geralt has known since he was seven years old. In the books and video games, Vesemir specifically is a very experienced Witcher who acts as a father figure to Geralt. In which case, Vesemir can (and probably will) be shown in the present timeline as well as the past, where he’ll be seen training Geralt to become a Witcher.

Geralt, Ciri, and Yennefer are all connected by destiny. In addition to Ciri being Geralt’s child of surprise, Geralt and Yennefer’s fates are intertwined thanks to a mysterious wish. Hissrich and company have made it clear that The Witcher season 2 will continue focusing on Sapkowski’s work for inspiration rather than the video games, and in Sapkowski’s story, the trio very much becomes a family. Seeing more of Geralt’s backstory would better flesh out his father/daughter relationship with Ciri as well as set up her introduction to monster hunting. And now that The Witcher is adopting a more traditional narrative structure for season 2, it can hopefully tell that story in way that won’t leave so much of its audience confused.

Source: The Wrap

About The Author

Josh Plainse
(951 Articles Published)

See also  Harry Potter: All Movies Ranked According To Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score

Josh Plainse is a writer, movie, and television fanatic based out of Wisconsin. Josh works for Screen Rant covering the latest in entertainment while simultaneously pursuing the never-ending dream of becoming an established novelist, screenwriter, and/or decent human being. Josh would accredit characters such as Goku, Han Solo, Simba, and Maximus Decimus Meridius for instilling within him an affinity for storytelling. It is this incessant obsession which has propelled him to seek opportunities that inform, entertain, and inspire others.

Contact Josh directly: plainse(at)gmail(dot)com.

More From Josh Plainse