When the news broke that Henry Cavill would leave The Witcher after Season 3, it was immediately announced that The Hunger Games star Liam Hemsworth would replace him.
The news received a predictably mixed response from fans who felt that Cavill had received the short end of the stick as Geralt of Rivia. 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, it should be enough to satisfy anyone who would be bothered if the change were simply ignored.
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").
"There was quite a bit of noise and I had to put that aside. It started to become a distraction," Hemsworth previously said of being cast in the Netflix series. "I dealt with that sort of thing in the past a lot and, you know, at the end of the day, I love making movies and I love telling stories and acting."
"I just don't want any of that to affect my way of telling the story that I'm trying to tell. I jumped off social media and the internet most of last year." A confessed fan of the games, the actor confirmed he would respect what came before by adding, "I'm a massive fan of Henry's, and I'm a fan of what he did in the show."
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.