The Witcher S01 E02 – Witchcraft and Misery.

Previously: Meet Geralt, he’s a witcher who grunts.
Content Warnings: Ableism, attempted suicide, bullying, and violence.
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Four Marks

Marines: Village. A young girl and boy flirt and sneak behind a barn. The boy says has a surprise for the girl and makes her close her eyes. It’s a bunch of daisies. She’s upset because it’s not a rose, and daisies are cheap. She grabs the daisy and throws them on the ground. She’s still going to let him kiss her, though.

The girl looks back down and notices that the daisies are missing. She looks back into the barn and finds a girl, Yennefer, offering up the daisy. The girl and boy immediately start taunting and attacking Yen in the barn, making fun of her because she’s got a twisted spine that gives her a hunched back. They pin her down as they make fun of her. Yen closes her eyes against the assault until suddenly, she’s somewhere else.

Jessica: Ah, fantasy. Displaying the powers we all wish we had!

Mari: Anyone who has ever been bullied knows that deep, intense wish to be anywhere else.

A cave of some sort and nearby, a man sits and reads. He turns when he hears Yen gasp. She asks if she’s dead. The man says that she seems to have portalled in, from wherever she was, to the Tower of the Gull in Aretuza. The man gets closer and considers Yen, finally deciding that she’s a virgin. He means to creating portals, but Yen reacts and slaps him good. (J: Well said, Yen.) The man tells her that her backhand is even more impressive that her magic. The man hears some whispering (Closed Captioning says “we’re not supposed to be out here…”) and runs back to his stuff. He grabs a small flower and tells Yen that if she can conjure portals out of thin air, “she” will becoming for Yen. Yen asks she who, but the man doesn’t answer. He eats the flower and speaks a different language. It opens a portal he explains is different. It cannot be tracked. The portal Yen opened has put a target on her back, but she can trust him. Yen asks his name (Istredd) and then steps into the portal before she shares her own.

Farm. Yen is carrying a slop bucket into the pig pen when her father tells her to get of there. She insists she can do it, but then falls back and the slop spills on her. From inside the house, a woman watches as someone rides into town. Back outside, we see as that someone dismounts. She is dressed very finely, but her blue gloves give me severe Firely flashbacks.

The stranger, Tissaia de Vries, asks how much for a pig. The man gruffly tells her 10 marks. After a pregnant pause, Tissaia asks how much for Yen. The man says six marks, but Tissaia easily haggles him down to four. “Sold,” he says. “Four marks.” He’s obviously a horrible person, but he said the episode title and there are rules.

Yen’s mom comes out of the house and protests the sale of her CHILD (G: That was a pretty half-assed protest), but the man says that Yen is no child of his. Yen says she won’t go and the camera lingers on her face.

We cut to Tissais locking Yen into her new room. Yen cries as she looks at a small mirror in her new room and says, “four marks.” She punches the mirror, breaking into pieces, and grabs one of the shards while crying.

Title card.

Ginny: Six minutes in and Yennefer has been through it.

Mari: We aren’t sure yet when Yen’s story is happening relative to everything, but we go foward to the confirmed future. Ciri is still walking around the forest. She hears soldiers shouting for her and hides. Once they pass, she grabs mud and uses it to darken her blonde hair. They’ll never find you now, girl.

Jessica: To be fair, the soldiers are doing a pretty shit job of searching the woods. It might work.

Mari: Fair.

Ciri walks on and finds a berry plant. She reaches for a berry and a rock hits her on the hand. She grabs a stick and looks up to see a boy hiding behind a tree.

He mimes that if she eats the berry, she’s gonna die. Ciri cautiously approaches him and sees that he’s hunting rats. He offers some to Ciri, but she says she doesn’t eat rat. He shrugs and starts to leave, but Ciri tells him to wait.

Cut to them sitting by a fire. He is going in on his rat, while Ciri holds a one-sided conversation about how she’s been on the run for three days. She’s supposed to be going towards someone, but instead, she’s running from the soldier with the big bird on his head. Ciri says they should smother the fire because she can’t be caught. The boy just offers her more rat, and this time she takes it.

They walk through the woods together, both obviously cold. Ciri shares one of her gloves so at least they have one warm hand each. It’s sweet. Suddenly, Ciri spots a Cintran flag. She runs toward it, but the boy (Ciri calls him Rat Boy) thinks the heck not, and stays in the woods.

Ginny: Well that’s a rude nickname. She could have just called him boy.

Mari: Especially because she definitely ate some rate.

Jessica: Watching the scenes in the woods the second time around, I was reminded how pretty this show is. It’s not nearly the most fancy of settings we’ve seen, but something about the muted colors of the woods, that still show through the glimpse of (now muddied) royal blue of Ciri’s cloak, and just the richness of the surroundings. The cinematography and coloring are wonderful.

Mari: Another town. We get a look at it as a we hear someone singing about this here town, Posada. We head into the tavern and and watch as the bard loses the audience. It happens when he sings, “Need Old the Hag to stir up a potion so that your lady might have an abortion.” A tavern man throws something at him and yells, “abort yourself!”

The bard, Jaskier, sits sadly for one second, but then spots someone in the opposite corner who looks even sadder than he does! Our very own Witcher. Jaskier brings over his drink and tells Geralt that he loves the way he sits in the corner and broods. To be fair, he is very good at sitting and brooding.

Geralt says that he came here to drink alone, but Jaskier is not scared off. He sits and asks Geralt for a review of his performance, three words or less. I don’t think he’s going to answer, but Geralt offers “they don’t exist.” The creatures in Jaskier’s songs don’t exist. Jaskier asks how Geralt would know a thing like that, but when Geralt just glares at him, he puts the clues together on his own: white hair, big ole loner, two very scary looking swords. Geralt has had enough of this game, so he grabs his swords and leaves, though Jaskier yells after him, loud enough for the whole tavern to hear that he’s the Witcher, Geralt of Rivia. The tavern goes quiet and one man stands and goes after Geralt.

This man has a job for Geralt: a devil has been stealing all their grain (G: Geralt’s face listening to this grain devil request is great). They set a price. The man is confident Geralt will get the job done, because he takes no prisoners, or so the rumor goes. Geralt has feelings, but mostly they are all more brooding. He grabs the coin.

Outside, Jaskier follows Geralt and offers to help, silently. (J: Lol.) Geralt tells him to get lost, but Jaskier keeps following, admitting that he wants to go on real adventures so he can write better songs. He can even be Geralt’s barker, telling the tales of the Butcher of Blaviken. (So, these scenes here happened after Renfri.) Geralt clearly hates that name, and probably also being followed, so he punches Jaskier in the gut.

Aretuza. Yen is in her bed, her wrists bandaged up. Tissaia is by her bed and very unhelpfully says that no one would blink if Yen died. She introduces herself as the rectoress of Aretuza. Yen cries and says Tissaia should’ve let her die. At least Yen had control over that. Tissaia says that wasn’t Yen gaining control; it was her losing it. She tells her to be in the greenhouse in 20 minutes. Yen cries over her wounds.

Tissaia’s voice takes us to the greenhouse where she is lecturing the girls about how they should definitely be afraid. Yen takes her place at one of the standing desks, which has a stone and bunch of flowers. Tissaia keeps on that chaos is dangerous and all around us. Each one of the students showed an aptitude for channeling chaos, and it created a ripple that reached Tissaia all the way in Aretuza. Anica saved a drowning boy with her mind. Fringilla froze a cat. Sabrina turned her mother fat. But just because they are conduits of chaos, does not mean they are capable of magic.

Jessica: Anyone else here getting mild American Horror Story: Coven vibes here?

Mari: One of the girls says she wants to go home, but Tissaia says this is her home. And she should listen closely because their lives depend on it. Magic is organizing chaos. There are lots of things they don’t know about magic still, but they do know that it takes balance and control. Their first challenge, to see if they are worthy of ascending, is to lift the stone without touching it. She gives them an incantation to use. The girls all start practicing.

Fringilla is the first to get it– her rock starts floating, but unfortunately, her hand shrivels up almost instantly. Tissaia says this is the balance. You can’t conjure something from nothing. She grabs her own bunch of flowers and says the incantation. The flowers die and her rock floats.

Jessica: This is the worst Hogwarts ever.

Ginny: There wasn’t even a sorting hat ceremony.

Mari: They skipped straight to the maiming of children.

The girls are all try the correct way to do it. Everyone seems to get it, but Yen’s rock won’t move. Tissaia, who has taken to calling Yen “piglet,” says that she lost a lot of blood. Yen won’t quit, though. She eats the flower, as she saw Istredd do, but that doesn’t work either. Tissaia comes closer to Yen and tells her that sometimes a flower is just a flower and the best thing it can do is die.

I realize I recapped that all pretty closely, but it’s supposed to be the backbone for the magic in this series. How else will we be able to point out all the ways the show ignores these magic rules?

Jessica: She already said there’s a lot we don’t know. I think it’s called the Law of Loopholes?

Ginny: I’m going to eat a flower and see if I can get some better insight here.

Mari: Yen finds her way back to the Tower of the Gull. She introduces herself properly to Istredd.

Ciri walks through the Cintran camp, and we hear a baby wailing in the background, in case we weren’t sure this is Sad. Ciri skips a line to get some soup, and the lady at the front pushes her away. Princess Ciri is BAFFLED that someone touched her, especially since the food was provided by the queen. “May she rot in hell,” Angry Soup Lady says.

Before Ciri has time to process this, a boy recognizes the cloak Ciri is wearing as one his father made. Ciri stares at him some, and Cloak Boy explains that he’s wearing elf ears on a necklace because he killed all these elves. (G: Gross!) This is a weird place to get an info dump that basically amounts to humans and elves don’t get along, and Filavandrel is the new elf-king. Cloak Boy’s brother was killed by an elf during the Cleansing, so now Cloak Boy is killing elves back.

Cloak Boy takes Ciri to meet his family– his mom and younger brother. As soon as Ciri (though she lies that her name is Fiona) gets there, they start popping off. Papa Cloak died fighting for Cintra and for what Mama Cloak calls Calanthe’s selfishness. It was one conflict after another, robbing the Cintrans of their homes, men and lives. Cloak Boy says when he’s a knight he’ll have enough coin to rebuild their house. Ciri looks very overwhelmed. Mama Cloak notices that Ciri’s shoes are real worn down, and offers to get her a new pair. Ciri is grateful. Mama Cloak calls over their servant, Abbott, who is a dwarf. He’s forced to take off his own shoes and hand them over. When Ciri hesitates, Mama Cloab assures Ciri that he is “one of the clean ones.” I’ve already called them the Cloak family, but Rich and Horrible would’ve worked too.

Geralt is riding along on Roach, and Jaskier is still following on foot. He’s offering to help Geralt get rid of his bad names and maybe people might call him.. the White Wolf or something. (Nice. They do call him that, eventually, but also Geralt is the Daenerys of this world; he’s got names a plenty.) (J: He and Daenerys also seem to share a similar haircut!) Geralt stops and ties up Roach. Jaskier looks off into the distance as he declares that the elves used to call this Dol Blathanna before bequeathing it to the humans and retreating into the mountains. “There I go again just,” he finishes, “delivering exposition.” Cute.

Geralt is trying to sneak around and look for the devil, but Jaskier is following going HELLO? and WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR? He’s bad at this. Suddenly, Geralt gets hit in the face with a small, silver ball. His forehead is bleeding. In the bushes, we see something with horns, even though Geralt just assured us that devils don’t exist. Jaskier is just standing there looking at it so he gets hit in the face, too.

The devil comes rushing out of the bushes and rams into Geralt pretty good, but he’s back on his feet quickly. Geralt is surprised that the thing talks. Geralt manages to grab the thing by the horns and get on top of him. Geralt asks what kind of beast he is. Did his mother fuck a goat? The beast introduces himself as Torque, the Sylvan, yanks out a handful of Geralt’s white hair, and asks if his mother fucked a snowman. (J: Zing!) Geralt is less than amused, but given that Torque is an intelligent beastie, he’s going to spare his life. And for his trouble, someone else sneaks up behind Geralt and knocks him out.

Aretuza School of Witchcraft and Misery. The girls are sitting in two lines as Tissaia instructs them to look into each others’s eyes and use magic to determine their partner’s greatest fear. Yen is partnered with Anica and tries really hard but can’t do it. After a long time, Yen lies that Anica’s worst fear is snakes. (J: Is it fair to say this is a tiny piece of foreshadowing?) (M: Fair) Tissaia lists off Yen’s magical failures and says she topped it off with lying. She adds that Yen’s worst fear makes sense: even if she were a beauty, no one would love her. (G: Dang!)

We cut to Yen visiting with Istredd, saying that Tissaia is right. Istredd tries to encourage her, but she’s snappy with him. Even so, he lets her practice her mind reading on him. It works and she sees the moon jellyfish, hears the ciacadas in summer, and tastes the warm bread he thinks about. He lined up these memories because he thought Yen would enjoy them. They smile at each other. (J: Awwww.)

Cintran camp. Mama Cloak turns in her camp bed to find that Ciri is also awake. Mama Cloak assures Ciri that she’s safe now. Ciri shares that she looking for Geralt of Rivia, but Mama Cloak doesn’t know who that is. Ciri cries as she adds that her parents died when she was a baby and her grandmother died in the Nilfgaard attack. Mama Cloak says she’s sorry and Ciri returns in kind. Mama Cloak says they’ll get through this together. “We take care of our own.” Ciri sighs and looks away.

Aretuza. Yen is sleeping as we hear the crack of lightening. Tissaia bursts into her room and tells her to get up. We cut to Tissaia welcoming all the girls by name, handing them a glass bottle as she does. She calls Yen piglet and welcomes her back, as this is the Tower of the Gull, off-limits except to the Brotherhood of Sorcerers. Their trial today is to catch lightening in a bottle. She doesn’t give them any instructions on how to do it, so the first girl just has to go up there and hold her bottle up and pray. She’s gets fried, but doesn’t die.

Ginny: Step right up. Who wants to be maimed?

Jessica: Seriously, this school is terrible.

Mari: Anica is next. She catches the lightening, but then the bottle explodes, sending glass straight in Anica’s face. Next is Yen. She gets electrocuted. Sabrina next, and she captures the lightening successfully. Tissaia calls her the strong amongst the weak. Yen loses her shit and sends a jolt of her own lightening at Tissaia, who is able to redirect it easily.

At the end of the trial, Tissaia tells Yen that what she did was pathetic and dangerous. Yen counters that it felt pretty powerful. Tissaia explains that there are some mages, like Sabrina, who ignore their emotions. And then there are mages like “us,” who are consumed by them. I’d be the feelsy witch, for sure. Tissaia’s point is that Yen has to control the chaos, not give into it, especially if she expects to go out and advise kings and stuff. Yen says she understand, but to really drive the point home, Tissaia shows Yen the cuts on her wrist and asks if she has what it takes.

Geralt comes to, and he’s tied to Jaskier. They are in a large cave with two elves. One starts beating up on Geralt’s face and the other destroys Jaskier’s lute. The Punchy Elf gets real close to Geralt’s face, so he head butts her. It brings on a coughing fit. Jaskier asks what’s wrong with her and another elf and Torque enter at that moment to explain that she’s sick. The new elf is Filavandrel, king of the elves. Torque says he was stealing for the elves because he felt bad for them, since they were forced out of their homes. Jaskier is confused because the human stories say they chose to leave! To go live in golden palaces! Filavandrel points out that that is ridiculous.

Jessica: It is interesting to watch Jaskier’s misconceptions drain away from him during this scene. The actor does a pretty good job.

Mari: Filavandrel reminds Punchy Elf that no one was supposed to get hurt, but she doesn’t care if two humans die when countless elves have died. Geralt corrects that there’s only one human, and they can let him go. Filavandrel won’t because then the humans will find out the elves have been stealing their food, they will attack, and many will die. Geralt tiredly says, “the lesser evil.” I feel him. It’s episode 2, and I’m also already tired of that.

Filavandrel says he has to kill them, and Geralt says that’s fine as long as he knows he’ll die soon too. Filavandrel blames it on the humans, stealing their land and polluting chaos, synthetically enhancing it for their own magic use. Geralt says that chaos is the same as its always been. Humans have just adapted better. The elves are are choosing to starve, cutting off their ear to spite their face. Filavandrel says this isn’t about pride. The humans slaughtered them during the Cleansing and are now growing crops where the elves buried their own in masses. Jaskier is still having a bunch of feelings in the background. Filavandrel knows that if he brings his people down from the mountains, the humans will just make them slaves. Geralt tells him to leave, then. Find somewhere new. Rebuild. Get strong again. Henry Cavill is using a very specific and pronounced cadence here, and I’m not sure why. It’s kind of annoying.

Ginny: Oh my God yes! Why is he doing that? Is he trying to seem less human? To be intimidating?

Mari: I truly would love to know.

Anyway, Geralt finishes by saying that he has learned how to live with the humans so that he may also live. Punchy Elf stands now and shares that there is a new generation of elves who wish to fight. Filavandrel draws his knife so Torque steps in and speaks up for Geralt, who could’ve killed him but didn’t. He’s different! Geralt says that he’s ready to die, but Torque is right: don’t call him human. The music gets real damn loud as Filavandrel stares, and Geralt looks up to meet his fate.

Yen visits Istredd and tells him that Tissaia is onto them, and Yen is being sent home. They’ll never see each other again. Istredd says they will find a way. Yen asks how. With one of those extra special portals? Istredd wishes he could show Yen more about them, but he can’t risk the Brotherhood finding out. It’s old, secret magic. Yen cries that her worst fear is true and she’s still not enough, even for him. Istredd takes her hand and takes her closer to the fire pit made of skulls– the bones of dead elves. Istredd explains that these elves built Aretuza, way before humans. Elves were the original sorcerers of the continent. Elven mages taught humans how to turn chaos into magic, and then humans slaughtered the elves to protect the power.

Istredd reaches into his satchel and pulls out a little flower. He says this flower only grows where Elder blood is spilled. He shows Yen how to use it to open his old, secret magic portal. She repeats the incantation and a portal opens, shocking Istredd. How was she able to open it on the first go. Yen’s like “g2g” and tries to run out, but Istredd stops her. Yen tearily confesses that her real father was half-elf. He was killed during the Great Cleansing. Her elven blood is what “cursed” her with a twisted spine and why she’s only worth four marks. Why no one could ever love her. Istredd is like BET and kisses her.

Later, Yen gives the flower to Tissaia. It was all a test to see if Yen could control her emotions and get it from Istredd. Shady. Tissia finally uses Yen’s real name. She asks if this means she’s able to ascend. She’s ready. Tissaia tells her to listen for the knock.

Elsewhere, Istredd is also tattle telling to his superior about Yen being part elf. Shady.

Jessica: Well, at least it’s even?

Mari: Cintran Camp. They are once again under attack. Mama Cloak starts yelling at Abbott and throws a sack of valuables at him to take. When he drops them, she calls him a stupid little shit and smacks him across the face. Abbott has had enough. He grabs a knife and brutally stabs Mama Cloak in the back repeatedly. (J: YIKES.) Ciri freaks the heck out and is frozen in fear. Thankfully, Rat Boy cuts through the tent to grab her and run. Ciri stops when she sees Cloak Boy dead. The Nilfgaardian soldier with the bird hat is there, so Ciri snaps out of it and runs.

Yen is up, listening for the knock. She hears as Tissaia makes her way down the hall, knocking on doors and calling names, but then her footsteps pass by. Yen stands and grabs one of the secret magic flowers she stowed away.

We cut to Yen sneaking up on a ceremony. Tissaia is chanting, and then we watch as the three girls who were called kind of disappear? It isn’t clear what’s happened yet. Tissaia knows Yen is there, so she tells her to come out. Now we can see that where the girls were standing are three green eels. Tissaia tells Yen to push her friend Anica, now an eel, into the pool. Yen says no at first, but Tissaia insists. Yen figures out that these three girls have been made conduits for Aretuza. Tissaia repeats that sometimes, the best thing a flower can do for us is die.

Jessica: Damn that is COLD.

Ginny: Can’t wait for Yen’s valedictorian speech.

Mari: Geralt and Jaskier have been released. Jaskier says credit where credit is due, because Geralt’s reverse psychology worked really well. He imitates Geralt’s raspy “kill me, I’m ready” pretty well. Geralt just glares at him. And so, the elves let them go, Geralt gave all the coin he earned for this job to the elves, and Filavandrel gave Jaskier his own lute. Geralt says this is where they part ways. (J: “Forever.” Lol again.) Jaskier promised to change the public’s tune about Geralt and he is going to try. He grabs his lute and starts penning a song right there.

The song plays as we watch Ciri and Rat Boy taking a break. His cloak falls back so Ciri realizes that he’s an elf. She thanks him for saving her and he finally talks, introducing himself as Dara. They walk on together.

Jaskier is still singing, but Geralt stops him because he’s not telling the story as it actually happened. What happened to Jaskier’s newfound respect? Jaskier says that respect doesn’t make history and then keeps singing the song it took me FOREVER to get out of my head and is now right back in it, replacing 60 second bits of TikTok songs: Toss a coin to your witcher, oh valley of plenty… 

Gralt listens for a bit, looks around, and gives a soft “hmm,” I think our only one of the episode? Have a big drink.

Jessica: From his face, I can tell he also is definitely getting that song stuck in his head. Like me. Like all of us.

Ginny: I’m just going to call it now and say it’s the best song of 2020.

Marines: Back at Aretuza, Yen pushes the eels into the water. (G: Friends forever y’all!) (M: Never change, KIT!) We get an outside view of Aretuza, all lit up with magic. And back inside, Yen looks into the water and sees many, many eels swimming by, powering the school. Yen looks back at Tissaia who gives her an approving nod.

What did we learn? Life’s rough out here for a witch.

 

Next time on The Witcher: Geralt takes on another Witcher’s job in S01 E03 – Betrayer Moon.