Kaka

The final episode doesn’t look at all like the last. There are many things left unexplained, or at most only in hints. The final battle is imaginative in terms of direction, but not technically proficient, lacking the budget that would have ensured a proper epic.

Everything around Cintra and the fateful night is impressive and gripping. All the gravy around the main characters is uninteresting, though, but the exact parallel with today's world and Yennefer personifying the modern emancipated woman is perfectly spot on.

The romance of the main characters, complete with a dragon escort right from GoT, but with worse visuals because apparently there was no coin left. I was expecting the action to go further and higher after the fight in Blaviken, but it is exactly the opposite, and this episode is an example of that.

Another self-contained episode. There really isn't much to go on this time around, except perhaps Yennefer, who generally has a lot of potential, but the important thing will definitely be how they work with that potential and develop her character further. Either way, there's a little mythology and new names and new characters in each episode, which brings a bit of chaos, but in a reprehensible way.

A wild time-jump. An episode obviously crucial in terms of the future entanglement of the characters, their motivations and decisions, but a high bar for the layman's attention span and readiness to absorb a complex and intricate story viewed from the different sides and perspectives of the main characters. Considering the interaction and the number of characters, it’s looking like there’ll be five seasons.

The pieces of the story are very slowly put together, and it will eventually become clear whether this is scriptwriting clumsiness or mastery. In any case, impressive atmosphere and an even more impressive chilling scene with the Werewolf.

The second episode is much weaker and unnecessarily overcomplicated, which may be ideal for the fans of the source material, but for the ignorant is quite a mess. The action is bare minimum, there is enough atmosphere, but maybe too much of a vast and deep world without any crutches and helping hand for those who are not familiar with the story. The viewers thus finds themselves in an unenviable situation, where sometimes they don't know what is going on and are a bit desperately hoping for a resolution in the coming episodes.

Dark, visually captivating, and the action scenes are choreographed to perfection. It feels a bit like a dark chivalric fantasy, mixed with medieval realities and socio-political issues of the contemporary world. At the same time, it feels like a somewhat barebones introduction to all those fictional kingdoms and a large cast of characters. And it is so catchy that the second episode is hard to resist.

The unusual topic and captivating visual concept are somewhat marred by a rather theatrical mood and an insufficient emotional detailing of the main characters. In other words, I didn't feel anything, but I managed this technically intoxicating piece without any problems.

Hands down, the weakest season of the lot so far. This season makes it clear that this Viking saga is getting a bit too long and complicated. Instead of twenty episodes they should cut it down back to ten. There’s way too much screenwriting ballast and half of the twists are basically pointless. Tension is too much to ask for and so what is left are the decently executed battles, which, however, are not on such a level that the viewer would get drunk only on the refined visuals and be willing to forgive a simpler plot concept, as it was in Kingdom of Heaven or Gladiator.