Bottled Appetites

I liked the Geralt part, it's pretty similiar to the book, Jaskier it's perfect and Cavill is always very good as Geralt. It's a decent episode that start to bring things together. What i didn't like it's the Ciri part: it contain a very big discrepancy from the source material, and create a random new bad guy, just to avoid using certain characters as the moral grey area obstacle in the future for Geralt (on the contrary, here are used as a source of wisdom). This show continue to be goodish, but bittersweet, because with a little more effort it could have been better.

This whole season so far does have the fault of just having side quest after side quest which isn't necessarily a fault of the writers of the show. The first season is based on the book The Last Wish which is a collection of short stories. That is why this show doesn't feel connected right now. Because it's based on short stories that aren't really connected. I assume they will not get to the actual books (Blood of Elves) until season 2 or 3. My hope is that one they get to adapting the actual books this series will get better and better and not have the fault of not feeling connected.

I am still somewhat confused and there are so many plot holes. I was thinking I would read the book, so it could fill in the gaps, but that does not even interest me now. I am going to rough it out because of all the hype, but I am having a hard time finding any interest in the story or the characters. I suspect all the RAVE reviews are from book readers. They will love the show no matter what. As for going in cold turkey, enter at your own peril . Haha! ;-P

After being slightly let down by the last 2 or 3 episodes, this one deserves praise.

The dynamic between Geralt and Yennefer on screen is portrayed very well. The dialogue during the bath scene is probably the best we've seen so far. The story about the Djin is well done too and, at least for me, doesn't leave an awful lot to be desired. Ciri's story has been slightly stuck for the past two episodes or so without really progressing her or the characters around her. Good to see her story pick up again. Nice use of the doppler too, great to see.

My biggest critique is the same as I've had for the entirety of the series so far: pace. There has been little to no effort to establish the world, the stories or even the characters and make it into it's own, 'whole' thing. Especially the use of Geralt's short stories is all over the place and become extra confusing due to the fact that both Ciris' and Yenns' stories, on the contrary, are linear. I can only imagine the confusion if you haven't read the books.

I'll confess I'm softer on this show than I would be if I wasn't in love with the source-material, but the pacing really needs to be worked on for the second season.

From the score I can see that a lot of people seemed to like this episode, but for me this felt like the first slip in an otherwise solid season. The plots of previous episodes have had events unfold in a way that felt very organic given the rules of the world and the personalities of the characters. So things may have been fantastical, but it was easy to suspend disbelief and imagine that it could have happened the way they portrayed it.

But in this episode felt like the writers needed everyone to get from A to B so they just kind of had people do stuff to make it happen, even if it wasn't consistent with previous behavior. Geralt, who was in previous episodes an extremely practical person, has a rather straight forward problem. But instead of trying to solve it in a straight forward way, he suddenly decides to try an absurdly over-the-top solution. It makes so little sense that they even felt the need to have one of the other characters comment on it, pointing out that Geralt's actions didn't seem in line with someone trying to solve his problem.

The other issue I had was with Yennefer, who started out as a sympathetic character earlier in the season but really becomes borderline unlikable here with her constant self-pity and cynicism and an overall "me first" attitude. Her character doesn't feel in the right place for establishing the beginning of the epic story her and Geralt are creating in the lore of the world. But despite that other characters like the bard just do a complete 180 and immediately get on board with lofty proclamations by the end that seem disjointed and unearned.

Needless to say, this is just all my opinion, and I'm still loving the first season, but for me I wasn't crazy about the flow of this episode.