Bottled Appetites

The only reason this episode isnt perfect for me is because the climax/most intense scene drags on a little too long and starts to lose its drama.

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.

This episode sees one of the key storylines of the series be told and all in all does a great job of it. The humour and most of the drama comes across really well and it's a pretty faithful adaptation of the books.

Ciri's story takes a new and interesting turn and I'm looking forward to seeing how this all plays out. Little disappointed we didn't get to see the full mystique and enchantment of the Brokilon Forest or the Dryads but hopefully we return to it later in the series.

Solid episode throughout

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.