The Witcher Season 2 has the best episode of the series ever

“The real monsters are people” is an idea that has long roots in science fiction and fantasy. Heroes are routinely forced to face the idea that humans are capable of as much evil bloodshed as their alien / animal counterparts. Supernatural made more than one episode out of it, as well X files and Doctor Who, often with better mileage. The Trope has been the main tenant of some of the most classic Twilight zone, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Star Trek Episodes. It’s so common that it’s hard to say much new about it; Brutality knows no bounds, and people are no exception. And yet The witcher does the incredible by not only pulling something new out of the cliché, but turning it into one of the best episodes the creators have made.

[Ed. note: This episode goes into full details on “A Grain of Truth,” the season 2 premiere of The Witcher.]

While The witcher Season 2 leaves the self-contained, contemporary wimeyness of the first season, the monster-of-the-week format can ride again in “A Grain of Truth”, the season opener. The episode offers brief glimpses of other parts of the continent – Yennefer’s fate after the Battle of Sodden or the magicians torturing a prisoner of war – but largely focuses on Geralt (Henry Cavill), Ciri (Freya Allan), and his friend Nivellen’s home (Kristofer Hivju), who was cursed to live half-human, half-boar.

While the two tones of The Witcher Universe, the silly parts and the deeply serious parts, are often balanced out solely by the gruff voice of Cavill’s Geralt, “A Grain of Truth” forces them into the open. They exist here in symbiosis: in the gentle and silly way that Hivju shines through Nivellen’s wild boar face or Ciri and Geralt sense a parental relationship through sharp eye contact. In contrast to the usual thriving of any other magician, Nivellen’s magical work feels like a stage magician with objects – throwing knives, a feast, a bathtub with soap bubbles – falling from above. Something is wrong, but it’s hard to separate the harmlessly eccentric from the opaque nefarious.

Of course, this is The Witcher’s sweet spot, whether you’re speaking episodes of the show or Andrzej Sapkowski’s best short stories (which the episode is based on). When The witcher makes situations complicated, with no answer that makes everyone happy, it’s the best that fantasy has to offer.

“A Grain of Truth” lets such points hang in the air, whereby the eponymous ethos asserts itself in every scene and yet does not exactly play its cards. “Sometimes I think I’m still a man,” Nivellen says to Ciri in one of the many scenes in which he talks about his predicament, “but mostly I know what I am.” When she pushes back, he takes root tenderly but firmly in what he is: “Monsters are born of a deed. Unforgivable. ”

In fact, he’s kind of a monster. As he finally reveals to Ciri and Geralt, he not only got high and destroyed a temple, but also raped the priestess of the temple, the latter biting a truth that he withheld in his first report. In the aching loneliness that followed his transformation, he came across a bruxa named Vereena. After breastfeeding her to help her, he let her feed on him to satisfy her cravings – and later looked away as she devoured the villagers around him for him to keep her company, every company in his desperate loneliness.

At its core, the story is an exercise in perspective and how the framework of a story could affect our thoughts about monsters and the truth. The audience has likely encountered some version of this plot, and so has Geralt (with his prickly world weariness). Every angle fills a new shade of story, be it the camera movement so that Geralt takes the place of a portrait, or Vereena who only reveals her fearsome Bruxua side when she turns away from Ciri.

Geralt and Ciri’s sympathy for the two unfortunate creatures they met on the estate is each tempered in their own way, and neither is particularly comfortable where they left it. They too are not immune to the change of perspective; After all, what are a wizard and a girl with terrible powers that are difficult to control unless they are potentially monstrous? “A Grain of Truth” lets the narrative rest in its discomfort, and in ours, where “moral” choices are not an easy matter.

In the larger context of the season sheet, this episode sets the comfortable boundaries that the witcher and his child surprise will draw together. But “A Grain of Truth” doesn’t let their connection come up with simple answers. Nivellen’s story tells Ciri that her instincts about what is right and wrong in the world may not be as measured as she thought. And it reminds Geralt (and the audience) that while no one is forgiven, such “monsters” without a path forward could harm the communities around them. As our own world learns to better hold those who harm others accountable, “A Grain of Truth” is a powerful reminder that we are removing restorative justice from the equation at our own risk.