If you’ve been a fan of The Witcher on Netflix, then you know that the final episodes of Season 3 will launch in one week. For unknown reasons, Netflix broke up the third season, but it’s presumed that it was to give some extra time to the VFX and post-production teams to finish up their shots to ensure everything looked good. Many things are riding on the ending of Season 3, as fans are already dealing with various conflicting emotions about the series, and the imminent loss of its star is compounding it.
If you haven’t heard by now, Henry Cavill is departing the role of Geral of Rivia. His final episode will be the ending of Season 3, and that put the writers in quite a bind. Or at least, that’s what fans believed because right when Cavill said he was done playing Geralt, the Netflix team announced that Liam Hemsworth would replace him in the confirmed Season 4. A season that isn’t filming right now due to the writers/actors’ guild strike.
Regardless, the big question is how they will “acknowledge the change” between the Geralts. Previously, one of the team members behind the show indicated a “meta” way of “fixing it,” and now, we have another explanation.
Executive Producer Tomek Bagiński talked with Radio Times and basically said that the multiverse is coming into play:
“[Showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich] and her team, and there are a few really good writers returning to the writers’ room for Season 4, I think they cobbled together a really nice opening which is really true to the book. This is a very little thing that I will tease. People who know the books really deeply also know that this is not a typical fantasy book. It’s not just one world. It’s not just one story happening in those books, in those stories. It’s a huge, huge world which is very, very complex.”
So if we take the two explanations at face value, it would imply that The Witcher will simply “exchange” the Cavill version of Geralt for the Hemsworth version.
Fans aren’t likely to enjoy this for various reasons. First, that would imply that the Hemsworth version has no connection to Ciri or Yennifer, which would cause lots of ripples. Second, those who have read the books know that while there is a “Multiverse,” it’s not the kind we know.
In the original books, the “other worlds” are typically very different from the one Geralt and crew are on. Thus, there isn’t “another Geralt” that can magically be swapped in.
We’ll have to see how this plays out.
