Although the creative team was under no obligation to do so, there were many fans who were hoping The Witcher would acknowledge Henry Cavill’s exit as Geralt of Rivia by sending him out in a fashion befitting his status as the person who single-handedly caused a huge section of the audience to abandon the series entirely.
Instead, he slices and dices his way through a few nameless goons, drops some expository foreshadowing for a season 4 he won’t even appear in, and then it cuts to black. It wasn’t the most glorious of exits to put it lightly, but in an interview with Polygon, director Bola Ogun nonetheless stated the case for it actually being a worthy sendoff.
“The way that it was written and the way they designed it — because so much is changing already, so much is going down in the season, it almost felt like it was a nice chapter closing on its own. I think the style of the last block, you can tell, is a little different. It’s a little more emotional, and that’s on purpose. When it came to that episode, it was very much trying to lean into the political espionage [and] the magical themes of Brokilon Forest, and seeing more of it than we’ve seen in the past, in a different way.
So I very much lean into the feeling of magic, the feeling of something changing like that. Basically it was just trying to create a continuation but make it feel different, make it feel like it was a long, soft goodbye. We’re definitely going to miss him because he’s a great Geralt. And I know that Liam is going to step into those shoes just fine and going to bring the same gravitas that he did. I just wanted to send him off in an epic way. And he does! It’s a great fight. It’s a great last hurrah.”
To be brutally honest, it wouldn’t have mattered had Cavill’s final scene in The Witcher seen Geralt throw on the actor’s Superman costume and blast off into the sky; the damage to the show’s reputation has already been done. With its worst reviews and lowest ratings being further proof, the future of the Continent looks to be on a decidedly shaky peg.