The Witcher Showrunner Reveals More Flashbacks Were Planned for Season 2

As you might already know, there is a particularly controversial decision that was made in Netflix’s The Witcher Season 2 to kill off a specific character. While showrunner Lauren S. Hissrich has before explained the decision, she recently took to social media to offer an even more in-depth response that revealed that the season actually originally had even more flashbacks planned that would have supported it.

Warning: beyond here there be spoilers for The Witcher Season 2.

Fairly early in the new season of The Witcher, Eskel is killed. If you’re at all familiar with the franchise, Eskel is one of the major witchers in other versions and features prominently in the video games. As such, his death is fairly significant, and not everyone’s been happy about it. But according to Hissrich, it’s precisely because Eskel’s death is so meaningful to the other witchers and especially Geralt that it was decided he would be the one to go.

We had several more flashbacks with Eskel laid out, to demonstrate further to the audience how close Geralt and Eskel were in the past: to reinforce just how far Geralt had had to go in his heart in order to make that sacrifice. I hope to return to them in the future.

— Lauren S. Hissrich (@LHissrich) December 29, 2021

That said, and as you can see above, Hissrich admits that there were “several more flashbacks with Eskel laid out, to demonstrate further to the audience how close Geralt and Eskel were in the past.” In other words, the additional flashbacks would have helped make clear just how much of a sacrifice Eskel’s death and Geralt being the one to do it would be. At least, that’s the stated hope. That said, Hissrich does also indicate that she hopes that there will be the opportunity “to return to them in the future.”

In general, the first eight-episode season of Netflix‘s The Witcher is now available on Netflix as well as the second eight-episode season as of December 17th. Netflix also previously announced The Witcher Season 3 as well as some kind of show for kids and families. Making The Witcher, a documentary special, is also available to stream on Netflix. The first season of The Witcher: A Look Inside the Episodes is additionally available to stream on the platform now. And last, but not least, the anime film The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf is also now available.

Lauren S. Hissrich serves as showrunner on The Witcher. It stars Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia, Anya Chalotra as Yennefer, Freya Allan as Ciri, and Joey Batey as Jaskier. 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, Basil Eidenbenz as Eskel, Aisha Fabienne Ross (The Danish Girl) as Lydia, Kristofer Hivju (Game of Thrones) as Nivellen, and Mecia Simson as Francesca — among others. 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 Season 2? What do you make of the showrunner’s comments about Eskel? Let us know in the comments, or feel free to reach out and hit me up directly over on Twitter at @rollinbishop to talk about all things gaming!