'The Witcher' Season 3, Part 1 Finale Goes Full 'Ocean's Eleven'
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Netflix's The Witcher is the kind of show that rewards active audience participation, which is a diplomatic way of saying if you look away from your television for one second while watching this show, when you look back you'll be totally lost. It's been this way for three seasons, and the closing episode of Season Three, Part One (more episodes are coming in about a month) takes this notion to extremes. Episode Five, "The Art of Illusion," is the closest The Witcher will likely get to an Ocean's Eleven storyline: a fancy party, a heist, some sexual tension, and lots of narrative backtracking to reveal, bit by bit, what has actually been going on this whole time.
Because we're economical here at Esquire, we won't put you through all that entangled storytelling a second time and will instead present events chronologically. Geralt and Yennefer enter the big welcome party, which was held to celebrate the upcoming conclave that Yennefer engineered to get the disparate magical forces of the Continent—specifically the sorceresses of Aretuza and the Brotherhood of Sorcerers—united against their foes in the inevitable war. Multiple players approach Geralt, the lone neutral party, asking him to ally with them so that they can harbor (read: use) his powerful ward, Cirilla, and keep her from harm. He refuses all of them, because he's not an idiot.
Meanwhile, Yennefer is learning a lot of plot all at once. King Vizimir's advisor, Philippa Eilhart, warns her to stay out of the conflict altogether—alluding to a similar war she fled, while many of her sorceress sisters perished. Then, Yennefer's erstwhile lover, Istredd, takes her aside. He explains that within the keep lies the Book of Artefacts, said to contain spells for traveling through time and space—and that Geralt's old enemy Stregobor, also present at the party, has it in his office. Istredd and Triss send Yennefer to look for it, while Geralt and Istredd pretend to fight over Yennefer's honor, causing a diversion.
While pawing through Stregobor's stuff, Yennefer discovers that he's been keeping a list of all the half-or-quarter-elf girl novices at the sorcery school, kidnapping them in order to experiment on them, attempting to convince each one that she is the real Ciri (he succeeded with one, the "False Ciri" Geralt finds in the cave whose real name is Teryn). Stregobor confronts Yennefer, but Geralt, Triss, Istredd, Tissaia, Dijkstra, Artorius, and Vilgefortz find them, and Yennefer explains everything. Reluctantly, they imprison Stregobor for his apparent crimes.
Though, as the band of party musicians kept repeating: all is not what it seems. While Geralt and Yennefer recap the party while lying in bed together (good for them!), they realize that they missed something. Earlier, Tissaia had been wearing a bracelet, which she said had been a gift from Vilgefortz. She dropped it during the big confrontation, and Yennefer scooped it up, intending to return it. But, as it turns out, the scarlet ammonites in the bracelet are only found in the mines of West Redania, the same place where Geralt found the False Ciris. He then remembers Teryn mentioning a "woman with a funny voice," which he now thinks must be Lydia van Bredevoort, a sorceress with no lower jaw who can only speak via telepathy—and who, he noticed at the party, also wore a pair of scarlet ammonite earrings, likely also given to her by Vligafortz. Yennefer recalls that the botched portal that almost killed her a few episodes ago, for which she has been blaming Stregobor, had taken her to the same cliffside location as is depicted in Vilgefortz's favorite painting. Stregobor was a red herring! It was Vilgefortz all along!
Yennefer immediately attempts to use the bracelet to find out where Tissaia is and if she's safe. Meanwhile, Geralt sneaks out into the hallway, where he hears someone screaming. But, before he can step any further, Dijkstra appears out of the shadows and holds a knife to his throat, telling Geralt that he should have chosen a side. I dunno, Dijkstra. Are there any good sides left?? Geralt's options are growing fewer by the day.
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