The Witcher Showrunner Reveals Change Season 2 Makes to the Books

Netflix's The Witcher is officially set to restart production in August after shutting down [...]

By Rollin Bishop

Netflix's The Witcher is officially set to restart production in August after shutting down earlier this year due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and while we don't know exactly what the new season will include, showrunner Lauren S. Hissrich has confirmed in a recent interview that it will feature a fairly major departure from how the books handled the meeting of Geralt of Rivia (played by Henry Cavill) and Ciri (played by Freya Allan). More specifically, rather than skip those early days, the show will instead actually explore them.

"Well, what's really fun about Season 2 is that in the books, [after] Geralt and Ciri meet in that moment in Sodden … when we come back in the next book, we've actually skipped a lot of time," Hissrich recently told TV Guide when asked about how Geralt's perspective shifts after the end of the first season. "Well, we found in writing the show that we didn't actually want to skip over those first months of them getting to know each other. That's part of the fun, is to take these characters, as you say, who understand that they're each other's destiny -- not really embracing it, but accepting that this is what they need to do to continue walking through The Continent. And then see like, what would that really be like? What would it be like for two strangers to come together and feel like that's what they've been driving for for the entire season? They finally got together and then they're like, 'Oh, I don't know you at all. You are a stranger.'"

"And you know, Geralt, of course, has no experience with parenting, with children, with having a sort of continuous relationship in his life," the showrunner added. "He's a vagabond of sorts. He's a traveler. He purposely doesn't establish long relationships and now he has one that's going to be with him for a very long time."

The first eight-episode season of Netflix's The Witcher is available to stream on the platform now. As noted above, a second season is in the works, but it had paused filming due to coronavirus concerns. It has now been announced that Season 2 production will restart on August 17th. Lauren S. Hissrich serves as showrunner. It stars Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia, Anya Chalotra as Yennefer, and Freya Allan as Ciri. New cast members for Season 2 include Kim Bodnia (Killing Eve) as Vesemir, Yasen Atour (Young Wallender) as Coen, Agnes Bjorn as Vereena, Paul Bullion (Peaky Blinders) as Lambert, Thue Ersted Rasmussen (Fast and Furious 9) as Eskel, Aisha Fabienne Ross (The Danish Girl) as Lydia, Kristofer Hivju (Game of Thrones) as Nivellen, and Mecia Simson as Francesca. You can check out all of our previous coverage of Netflix's The Witcher right here.

Have you had a chance to watch Netflix's The Witcher? Are you excited for Season 2? Let us know in the comments, or hit me up directly on Twitter @rollinbishop to talk all things gaming!

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