Warning! SPOILERS AHEAD for The Witcher Season 2 ending. Look away until you’ve caught up!
Well, well, well. The Witcher certainly didn’t disappoint by the time it finally returned for Season 2 on Netflix, did it? Not only did the episodes fulfill the promise of everything we needed to remember about the first season by showing what happened to Yennefer, Geralt, and Ciri after the explosive Battle of Sodden Hill, but we also (eventually) met up with a far more famous than before bard and a determined community of elves, and were treated to even more court intrigue.
Oh, and, of course there was that major reveal to seal the deal in the final moments of this season’s finale. There were a lot of threads to connect, so let’s take a look at the biggest moments in The Witcher Season 2 ending, now!
Everyone Is After Ciri. Literally, EVERYONE!
Boy howdy, y’all! Things got way trickier for young Ciri in Season 2. I mean, sure, she and Geralt finally found each other, and he took her to his childhood Witcher training ground of Kaer Morhen to keep her safe / train her / bond over childhood trauma, but that’s pretty much the best thing that happened to her this time around.
As Ciri was learning to toughen up and fight (which she excelled at), she also found out that her powers are because of the Elder Blood that courses through her veins. But, while she, Geralt, Vesemir, and Triss were coming to this realization, so was pretty much everyone else, after a variety of spying efforts revealed that she was still alive after Cintra’s sacking.
Now, literally everyone is after the exiled princess, both for her power and because of her claim to the Cintran throne. This includes the elves (who believe she is their prophesied savior), Lydia and “fire fucker” Rience (who knows what her blood can do first-hand), the Redanian kingdom (so they can marry her off and try to take Cintra), The Brotherhood of Sorcerers (Tissaia had the rulers of the Northern kingdoms put a bounty out on Ciri and all who protect her), Nilfgaard (still), and a big, scary gang we’ll get to later. Uh oh!
The Mysterious Nilfgaardian Leader Is Ciri’s Dad!
Speaking of good ol’ Nilfgaard, anyone who hasn’t read The Witcher books was likely unbelievably surprised, at the very end of the finale, when Nilfgaard’s White Flame, Emperor Emhyr var Emreis, was revealed to be Duny, Ciri’s previously believed to be dead father. As we saw in Season 1, he’d accidentally given up Ciri to Geralt after the Witcher reversed his curse, and now he wants his super powerful kid back. What we don’t know is what happened when he and Ciri’s mom, Pavetta, were supposedly killed, and how he ended up taking his rightful place on the Nilfgaardian throne. And this is a tale we’ll probably hear at least some of during Season 3.
Geralt And Yen Are On The Outs!
Geraltennefer (Yenneralt?) fans who were hoping to watch those two crazy kids get back together and go to magical-human makeout town again, came away from Season 2 sorely disappointed. Not only did Geralt think Yen was dead for much of the season, but once they meet up again in the present day (once Istredd reveals that she’s alive and well), it’s under some very not cool circumstances.
After ancient being the Deathless Mother manipulates Yen, Fringilla, and elven leader Francesca to coming to the cabin she’s been trapped in for ages, Yen believes that she has to bring Ciri to her in order to get back the powers she lost after raining fire on Nilfgaard’s forces to end the Battle of Sodden. After fire fucker Rience tries to capture Ciri from Nenneke’s sanctuary at the Temple of Melitele, Yen helps Ciri open a portal and escapes with her through it, leaving Geralt behind so that she can take her back to the broken monolith outside of Cintra, as instructed by the Deathless Mother.
Yen nearly accomplishes her goal, but once they’re at the monolith (and Ciri accidentally shows off more of her growing powers by entering Yen’s thoughts) she changes her mind. They’re soon set upon by those guarding the city, with Geralt, Jaskier, and our dwarf friends from Season 1 riding in to help fight the guards off. Unfortunately, this still leads to Ciri being possessed by DM, leading to a lot of death and destruction at Kaer Morhen. By the end, Yen makes a temporary sacrifice to save Ciri, gets her powers back, and Geralt makes it known that he hasn’t forgiven her, but will tolerate her so that she can continue to teach Ciri to use her powers.
Jaskier Is In Trouble!
It looked for a time that we wouldn’t get to see everyone’s favorite bard, Julian Alfred Pankratz, a.k.a. Jaskier, at all, but once we did, it was very clear that time had been good to him. He had his own tavern where he could entertain the masses nightly, along with some very nice duds (I want that coat and hat). Most viewers probably assumed that Jaskier’s success was simply due to the popularity of the songs he crafted because of his time with Geralt, but in the finale we find out that he actually has a very important benefactor: Redanian spymaster Dijkstra, who tells his owl spy to retrieve the bard so that he can finally pay back his debt. This? Doesn’t sound good for Jaskier at all.
Cahir And Fringilla Are In Even Bigger Trouble!
So, you know how Fringilla and Cahir's boss, Emhyr, is actually Ciri’s dad? Well, he was none too pleased when they managed to fail at their only major assignment, which was to bring Ciri to him. After revealing that he was the one who ordered the murder of Francesca’s newly born daughter (leading Frannie to take her elves to Redania and magically murder all of the newborns there, thinking the killing was Dijkstra’s doing) he has the formerly pretty powerful duo taken into custody, and that’s no bueno for them, folks!
The Wild Hunt Wants Ciri…BAD!
After being briefly teased in the Season 1 premiere of The Witcher, we got a lot more mentions of The Wild Hunt this time around, and the fear they inspire in people made total sense once we got a look at them in the finale.
Yen offered herself up to the Deathless Mother as a vessel to save Ciri after the destruction at Kaer Morhen, and Ciri opens another portal, hoping that DM’s spirit will be drawn in. Instead, Yen, Geralt, and Ciri all get sucked inside to a hellish sphere / dimension, and while the spirit does leave Yen, the trio is then greeted by The Wild Hunt, slowly forming as they gallop toward them. The leader calls for Ciri to join them, saying, “your place is among us. You are ours,” before she manages to teleport them all back to the keep. Scary? You betcha! And you can also bet that they’ll be trying to get their hands on Ciri in seasons to come.
The Witcher Season 2 ending definitely set up some marvelous, twisty, danger-filled plot threads for Season 3, which has already been announced by Netflix, so hopefully we’ll have answers to the biggest questions posed by the most recent season in the near-ish future! In the meantime, you can relive all of The Witcher so far over on Netflix.
