It sounds schmaltzy, but it’s true: the first season of was about introducing three characters and causing you to empathise with and understand them. The second season will be about making them a family.
That’s according to Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, the showrunner on Netflix’s The Witcher, who talked to The Wrap recently about the shape of the upcoming second season. We already knew the season was going to take us to Kaer Morhen, the secluded fort that serves as the headquarters and training grounds for Geralt’s line of witchers. And of course that would include the training of Ciri as a witcher, or something like it. But now we know a lot more about the thematic intent behind those choices.
When I talk about The Witcher, I always talk about how these three characters coming together — Geralt, Ciri and Yennefer — they come together as a family. It’s the most important part of the series for me,” Hissrich told The Wrap. “And when you start to imagine someone’s family, you also need to understand their family of origin. Sometimes that’s a mother and father, sometimes that’s blood relatives. For Geralt, it’s his brothers, it’s the brotherhood of the witchers. So I’m really excited to get back in and meet Vesemir, his father figure, for the first time and all of these men that he was raised with since he was seven years old.”
That familial focus will allow us to better understand Geralt and, then, to better understand the new family he’s in the process of forming with Ciri. And, understandably, for the union of a rebellious child and a rough warrior, it’s not an easy family to build.
“What I think is really fun about Geralt and Ciri is they are the most unexpected family you can imagine. You have a witcher whose sole job is to kill things for money and you have a little girl who is trying to escape her past and it’s like, how do they come together? And to me, one of the most fun things we get to explore in Season 2 now is how they get to change and shift each other,” Hissrich said. “Coming out of Season 1, you have a pretty good sense of who Ciri is, you have a pretty good sense of who Geralt is. And now we get to throw that all in a blender and see what happens when two people who are completely different have to be forced together in circumstances. And I think it’s really fun. It’s not always pretty. They will argue. They will fight. It will be two strangers coming together for the first time and being told, ‘Nope, you’re gonna be together forever.’ I think that their growth together into being a father and daughter is one of my favourite parts of the series.”
[referenced url=”https://gizmodo.com.au/2020/06/the-united-kingdom-authorizes-media-companies-like-warner-bros-and-netflix-to-resume-film-and-tv-production/” thumb=”https://gizmodo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/01/dqnaitjlpgn20gkomy37-300×169.png” title=”The United Kingdom Authorises Media Companies Like Warner Bros. and Netflix to Resume Film and TV Production” excerpt=”Big productions like The Batman might resume filming in the United Kingdom sooner rather than later.”]
When we’ll see that development happen is still unclear — while the UK is allowing filming to resume soon, Hissrich said the show is still trying to work out what it’s going to do and when, in collaboration with Netflix and the actors.
“So we’re making all sorts of plans and accommodations and waiting for various governments to weigh in with their recommendations. And film commissions and Netflix,” she said.
So we will get season two of The Witcher. But Hissrich can’t tell you when because, well, no one knows.