Back before the internet, in the days of my misspent youth, there were very few ways to see the naked human form. Sure, there were magazines and videos available, but a human carding you is a much better form of security against the corruption of the youth than a link asking you to promise you are eighteen years old. If you were lucky enough to have cable and certain premium channels, though, you were treated to a visual feast of breasts and butts in the form of Shannon Tweed movies and that David Duchovny classic The Red Shoe Diaries. These shows and films had a very specific aesthetic: lots of candlelight, sub par production values, and a goodly amount of soft focus.

You may wonder why I am bringing this up at all when reviewing a show like The Witcher. A show that has great production values and an amazing story to boot. And, to be fair, it’s a good question as the comparison doesn’t seem to hold water.

Until you watch episode five of The Witcher, that is. This episode is all about sex and it is filmed in such a way that it brings back my less than wholesome middle school memories. And...well…

We start out with Geralt fishing in a river. He looks tired and upset as Jaskier, the Bard, shows up. Apparently some time has passed, at least a few years as mentioned by Jaskier, and he’s just curious to see how Geralt is getting on. Geralt informs him that he is having trouble sleeping and is fishing for a djinn that is trapped in a bottle in the river. This leads to some fun back and forth between the two, where Jaskier offers to sing him to sleep and Geralt insults his voice. It is at this moment that the djinn is found. Jaskier grabs the bottle and after a bit of a tussle, it is uncorked, causing the djinn to attack Jaskier. This leads to Geralt having to find a doctor for him. So, there we have the crux of their story.

We are then whisked away to another story, that of The Doppler (Ben Wiggins, Pennyworth). We find him as he places a large piece of human skin in a jar, which he then adds to a collection of similarly filled jars. Turns out this doppler, a race of shapeshifters, is an assassin that likes to keep trophies. He is very beautiful and very naked when The Nilfgaardian Leader, who we learn is named Cahir, comes to hire him for a very special assignment: to retrieve Ciri from Brokilon Forest by taking the guise of Mousesack.

We jump back to Geralt and Jaskier who are in a doctor named Chireadan’s tent (Lucas Englander, Catherine the Great). The doctor informs him that since this is a magical ailment he cannot cure Jaskier, who is now coughing up blood and can’t speak. He directs them to a nearby town that has a female mage that may be able to help. Of course, you can guess that this mage is the one and only Yennefer.

I forgot to mention, Yennefer has set up shop in this town as a healer of ailments. Very. Specific. Ailments. Of the Cialis variety. When she is found by the town magistrate to be operating below the radar (the puns write themselves, folks) she is arrested and taken to his house.

So, Geralt and Jaskier head into the town after nightfall and go to the magistrate’s house, where they find the magistrate naked in the kitchen, searching for apple juice. Confused, they take the apple juice and enter the main house, where there are far more naked people. Skin everywhere I mean. And grinding and soothing music, and a masked Yennefer watching the whole thing. It’s just… exactly like softcore films that were shown on Skinemax in the mid 1990s.

Ah, memories.

Anyway, Yennefer and Geralt meet, which means we’ve officially gone from three timelines to two, making the show at least a third less confusing. They talk, she agrees to heal Jaskier for a price, she mutters the “safe word” and the orgy-goers awaken from the spell she had them under and try to hide their shame. She then demands Geralt take a bath, because the running joke of his poor hygiene is still running, and we cut to more naked people.

In case you haven’t noticed, there is a theme to this episode. (It’s nudity, the theme is nudity.)

Yennefer discovers there’s a djinn involved and decides she wants to trap the djinn inside of her so that she can have children. She is still angry that the witches took her ovaries as payment for her transformation and wants terribly to reverse the outcome. They get dressed, Geralt in a tight fitting leather outfit that Yennefer picked out as a means of paying her for her help (and that would be completely at home in any Lorenzo Lamas film from the 90s), and visit Jaskier who is in a magical healing sleep. Yennefer asks if Jaskier made his last wish, to which Geralt informs her he has not. Yennefer then seduces Geralt and knocks him unconscious with a special perfume.

Cut to black.

Geralt wakes up in a prison cell with Chireadan. He is informed that he went on a rampage the previous night and was summarily arrested. Chireadan is in jail, too, because he tried to stop Geralt and was thought to be involved with the vandalism and abuse wrought upon the town. A jailer shows up, starts beating Geralt for the crime of being a witcher, and suddenly his head explodes when Geralt wishes it. This is when Geralt realizes he is the djinn’s master and that Jaskier isn’t. He also realizes this means Yennefer is in terrible danger, because she means to trap the djinn.

Woof. Let’s just rush through the last bit. Chireadan and Geralt use the jailer’s keys to escape, Jaskier escapes Yennefer who is being attacked by the djinn, Geralt shows up and tries to get Yennefer (who is now naked) to stop what she is doing, he makes his last wish which frees the djinn, Geralt and Yennefer have sex while Jaskier and Chireadan watch (kinky), and the episode ends with Doppler Mousesack entering Brokilon Forest and retrieving Ciri for Cahir. Oh, and Geralt finally falls asleep, which was how all this got started in the first place.

I’ll be honest, this was not the best episode of The Witcher. In fact, it wasn’t even a good episode. I think I get what they were going for here: a light-hearted cute meeting between two main characters, but it was just too light for what should have been an important event in the series. There was probably a way to make this episode, even with the same plot line, and not have it feel as though it was a filler episode. And Ciri’s story barely budged an inch in this episode. I feel like they could have at least had some character development moments in here, but they just weren’t there. I truly hope that episode six comes back to the quality of the first four episodes and that this is not a sign of things to come.

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