When we first learned that Henry Cavill would leave The Witcher after Season 3, Netflix immediately announced that The Hunger Games star Liam Hemsworth would take over as Geralt of Rivia.
The news received the expected mixed response from fans who felt that Cavill had received the short end of the stick as the titular Witcher. The recasting also raised questions about how—or even if—the show would address the fact that The Witcher's lead had returned with a new face.
While the Season 4 premiere doesn't feature a definitive explanation for Geralt's new look, what we do get should be enough to satisfy anyone who was concerned that the change might be ignored.
As we first explained on SFFGazette.com earlier today, the premiere opens with a voiceover from storyteller Stribog (Clive Russell) as he tells a group of children about "The Butcher of Blaviken." A scene plays out that's strikingly similar to the first-ever episode, when Cavill's Geralt battled a kikimora.
This time, it's Hemsworth's Geralt who is wielding the sword before he plunges it through the monster's head. Similar scenes follow, and when Stribog is finished recounting the hero's exploits, a young girl pipes up to say, "You're telling it wrong."
Stribog replies, "Oh Nimue, not again, it was a hundred years ago, there's no such thing as right and wrong..." The Witcher is going with an unreliable narrator being responsible for the White Wolf's change in appearance, an idea rooted in Andrzej Sapkowski's novels.
Those are a collection of stories told from different perspectives, meaning details and descriptions differ based on who is doing the telling. In the show, it's now someone else who is recounting Geralt's adventures, explaining his new face (there are also a couple of cute nods here and there to "how much he's changed").
"We wanted to play with the idea, which is a huge theme in 'The Witcher,' of how stories change depending on who is telling them," showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich told TV Line. "So obviously that opening sequence is played and there's a device, and you sense that, oh, maybe everything that we've seen over the last three seasons has been through someone's POV."
"Maybe that's not actually how it happened. We constantly love to be playing with the idea of narrative with our audience. We wanted to not dance around the fact that this is a new human being," she added. "Yes, there's still the yellow eyes and the silver wig, but at the same time, it's played by Liam now."
"For us, it was about revisiting these really important moments in Geralt's life, now seeing them embraced by a new human. Moving on, it's our hope that what you really start to see in Episode 1 is Geralt, not the actor that plays Geralt. That was Liam's commitment to the role, and it worked out beautifully. He really sunk into the character, so then we didn't feel the need to continue to address it."
In The Witcher Season 4, Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri find themselves separated by a raging war and countless enemies. As their paths diverge and their goals sharpen, they stumble on unexpected allies eager to join their journeys. And if they can accept these found families, they just might have a chance at reuniting for good.
The cast includes Liam Hemsworth as Geralt of Rivia, Anya Chalotra as Yennefer of Vengerberg, Freya Allan as Princess Cirilla of Cintra, Joey Batey as Jaskier, Laurence Fishburne as Regis, Meng’er Zhang as Milva, Sharlto Copley as Leo Bonhart, and James Purefoy as Skellen.
The Witcher Season 4 is now streaming on Netflix.