Even though the Witcher streaming franchise was still quite popular with most of the second season (although there were increasing dissenting voices, and many viewers are easy to impress, to be honest), it is revealing itself as a complete dumpster fire and train wreck in the last two episodes of this season. This is probably the result of ambition with terrible instinct for story quality - which probably even led to some deliberate and spiteful butchering and sabotage.
The main storyline is third- or fourth-rate fanfiction nonsense where monoliths shattering and deshattering back together again is always supposed to be some really momentous occasion. And there is a possession going on, with all the usual tugs and pulls.
They are trying to up the stakes and create drama by random and completely crude brutality, as well as oomping and wooshing sounds and completely pointless slow motions.
All the lines suck but often feel really self-important. Like, "it is not a matter of price... but of cost". Uh-huh.
They also continue their routine of displaying the witchers in general as total weaklings and cannonfodder (almost like the redshirts in old Star Trek) and cheerfully butcher pretty much all of them. What a... great idea.
It is completely impossible to feel invested in Ciri as a character here or to care for what will happen to her. Gone is also the casual interest in the unknown or the general tolerance, as the writer (and show creator here) goes out of her way to make one completely fed up with her by this point.
Since all the other characters just revolve around Ciri as plot devices, they also illicit no serious investment, even if Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia is still by far the most pleasant screen presence - and rare at that.
They also create a moral non-dilemma in that truly only one solution ends up being right, but instead they opt to display the other option as the only right one, while never allowing that in fact one might come to another conclusion or try to present it as a true "dilemma" (so any moral complexity is wiped out and the writer tries to take one hostage to feel a certain way). And all of this is completely unnecessary, arbitrary and pulled out of the writer's own behind, with no parallel to the source material.
Everything in this episode is completely made-up with no parallel to anything else.
If I had to guess based on the fraying last episodes of this season, I would say this show is created by someone who truly despises the Witcher, and after all there must have been a reason why Henry Cavill decided to turn away from a heart project after those two seasons.
The main storyline is third- or fourth-rate fanfiction nonsense where monoliths shattering and deshattering back together again is always supposed to be some really momentous occasion. And there is a possession going on, with all the usual tugs and pulls.
They are trying to up the stakes and create drama by random and completely crude brutality, as well as oomping and wooshing sounds and completely pointless slow motions.
All the lines suck but often feel really self-important. Like, "it is not a matter of price... but of cost". Uh-huh.
They also continue their routine of displaying the witchers in general as total weaklings and cannonfodder (almost like the redshirts in old Star Trek) and cheerfully butcher pretty much all of them. What a... great idea.
It is completely impossible to feel invested in Ciri as a character here or to care for what will happen to her. Gone is also the casual interest in the unknown or the general tolerance, as the writer (and show creator here) goes out of her way to make one completely fed up with her by this point.
Since all the other characters just revolve around Ciri as plot devices, they also illicit no serious investment, even if Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia is still by far the most pleasant screen presence - and rare at that.
They also create a moral non-dilemma in that truly only one solution ends up being right, but instead they opt to display the other option as the only right one, while never allowing that in fact one might come to another conclusion or try to present it as a true "dilemma" (so any moral complexity is wiped out and the writer tries to take one hostage to feel a certain way). And all of this is completely unnecessary, arbitrary and pulled out of the writer's own behind, with no parallel to the source material.
Everything in this episode is completely made-up with no parallel to anything else.
If I had to guess based on the fraying last episodes of this season, I would say this show is created by someone who truly despises the Witcher, and after all there must have been a reason why Henry Cavill decided to turn away from a heart project after those two seasons.