The 7 Best Witcher Episodes

Witcher Season 1 Episode 1 – The End’s Beginning

Although this episode doesn’t fully hint at what is to come in this show’s greatness, it does do a fantastic job setting up the world in which its characters live, and help paint the picture of blurred morality that eventually comes full circle in the final episode of The Witcher Season 3.

We also get introed to one of The Witcher’s most interesting characters – a Snow White gone wrong named Renfri who foreshadows The Witcher’s fate as a man destined to raise a similarly cursed girl, only in hopes of a better outcome.

Witcher Season 3 Episode 1 – Shaerrawedd

Despite all the drama surrounding Caville’s inevitable exit of the show, episode one of season three went off with a bang. We’re finally reunited (at long last) with our favorite band of misfits, only this time they are actually together! We get to see Yennefer try and make up for Garalt by leaving him notes, while at the same time mocking him ceaselessly by addressing him as “dear friend.”

In many ways, this is the final episode of the third season to echo the highs of the earlier seasons, as things, for the most part, go down hill alarmingly quickly after this episode.

Witcher Season 1 Episode 5 – Bottled Appetites

Fans of the video games and books alike know that whenever the Geralt and Yennefer are together things are electric. It’s the same in the Netflix Show. Anya and Caville have remarkable chemistry together, and from the first time they meet you sort of feel like they’ve known each other a lot longer.

What to skip: weird orgy scene that doesn’t really fit in with Yennefer’s character then or later.

Witcher Season 2 Episode 1 – A Grain of Truth

In many ways, Witcher works best as a game and as a show when it’s got the “monster of the week” vibe going on. This is partly what makes season one so strong – it’s episodic in nature. Meanwhile, those disjointed episodes serve to unite to a stronger narrative.

That’s also what works so well in the video games. While you might be chasing a greater narrative and main story that is very compelling, you are free to get involved with a lot of side quests along the way that do eventually have impact on the story.

What we have in “A Grain of Truth” is the show’s regrettably final episode that follows this formula. Afterwards, we get introduced into a world that feels more like Game of Thrones than the witcher, with a plethora of characters and causes between nations that we don’t really care about.

Witcher Season 3 Episode Five – The Art of Illusion

In both season one and season three, we have banquet scenes serve as major plot devices. We also get an out of chronological retelling of the events that happened at the banquet in this episode, with each thread showing different perspectives of what happened during a night that will have resounding impact throughout the rest of the story, and the world of the Witcher as we know it.

It’s too bad that the show couldn’t have experimented a bit more with this sort of storytelling that made the first season so unique. However, it is also harder to follow so maybe simplifying things helped the show appeal to a broader audience.

Also, in this episode Garalt and Yennefer are finally fully reunited, which is something to celebrate, as well.

Witcher Season 1 Episode 6 – Rare Species

If this were an episode of “Friends” instead of The Witcher, you might call this “The One with the Dragon.” Just like in other fantasy worlds, Dragons in The Witcher are actually pretty rare, and among them the rarest is the nearly mythical golden dragon.

However, dragons aren’t really what make this episode so fascinating. Instead, it’s the interplay between Yennefer and Geralt, as we wonder what’s come betwixt these two to make them so standoffish. We find out later, but it’s nice to see them deal with their issues while also hunting a dragon.

Witcher Season 1 Episode 5 – Of Banquets, Bastards & Burials

Up until episode 5, it wasn’t really clear how the lines intersected between Ciri and Geralt. Now, in this episode, we get to see what it’s all about. We also get a look at what the greater conflict in the story is going to be, and experience the root of Ciri’s incredible powers.

More than this, we get to understand Geralt a bit more – his motivations, and his outlook on life. While these differ greatly from the character in the book, it does help illuminate the man who doesn’t want to live for anyone, well before he only lives for others.