Henry Cavill's Last 'Witcher' Episodes Are Out & Here's How They Hand Off To Liam Hemsworth
Did he deserve better?
Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia in Netflix's "The Witcher" Season 3.
Henry Cavill has officially slain his last monster as Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher, and fans of the Netflix show have a lot of feelings about how they pass the torch to Liam Hemsworth.
Cavill famously announced last year that he would be leaving the Witcher franchise so that he could reprise his role as Superman, after much lobbying from The Rock. He ended up losing both roles by the end of the year, as Netflix replaced him with Liam Hemsworth and Warner Bros. decided they'd rather have a new Superman altogether.
That put The Witcher Season 3 in the awkward position of saying goodbye to its lead actor, and the final three episodes that dropped on Thursday certainly don't give him the sendoff he deserves.
We won't get into everything that happens with Geralt's pseudo-family of Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) and Ciri (Freya Allan), but if you're worried about Geralt-related spoilers, turn back now.
The first five episodes of the season set Geralt and crew on the trail of a rogue mage who is trying to capture Ciri, and the new episodes finally give Geralt a chance to fight it out with this shadowy baddie.
And unfortunately, he gets his white-haired *ss kicked. We see Cavill's Geralt get thoroughly beat up in Episode 6, and he spends the final two episodes trying to sleep it off in the company of elves while Ciri and Yennefer do more interesting things.
The TV series is based on the Witcher book series, and this is more or less how things went in that story as well. Still, it's unfortunate that Cavill's last episode with the franchise sees him sitting on his butt for a while before eventually getting into a low-stakes fight.
The series could've killed Geralt off to make way for Hemsworth to play a different Witcher, but instead they'll simply be recasting him as the same character. That means Hemsworth will have to don Cavill's white wig and carry on Geralt's many relationships in the show.
Fans have already made their feelings about the finale known in the comments on various Witcher social posts, with many complaining about the last episodes and the shift to Hemsworth.
"You just couldn't wait to wrap it up and kick Henry?" reads one Instagram user's review of the finale. "Everybody is tense. Almost no action. No development. No nothing. Anticlimax and disappointing. HTF did you mess up THIS much?!"
"Just finished watching," added another. "Disappointed this is the last of the witcher I watch."
"It's just too devastating. For me the show has ended. And I was disappointed with the last (three) episodes," wrote another.
To be fair, we haven't seen Hemsworth yet so dragging him is definitely premature, although it obviously stings to see Cavill go. Many fans have also jumped in to say they're excited to see Hemsworth take over, so it's not all negativity.
It's unclear how many seasons they have planned to finish the Geralt/Ciri/Yennefer storyline, although there's easily three or four more seasons of story left in the books and video games. That means we could be with Hemsworth for a while, if the series continues to perform with Netflix viewers.
The Witcher Season 3, Part 1 debuted at No. 1 on Netflix's TV charts in early July, according to the streamer's weekly rankings. It held that spot in Week 2 before dropping down to second and then third slot the following weeks. Numbers for this week haven't been listed yet.
The Witcher showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich told Narcity last year that while Cavill's departure hurts, there are still plenty of stories left to tell without him in that universe.
"I feel like I could keep going for years," she said.
It's unclear when we can expect The Witcher Season 4 to come out on Netflix, though it'll certainly have to happen with a new lead on board. Hopefully we'll get a first look at Hemsworth in costume when production begins on Season 4.
Cavill has already given Hemsworth his stamp of approval to take over the role.
"The fantastic Mr Liam Hemsworth will be taking up the mantle of the White Wolf," Cavill wrote on Instagram last October, when he thought he was leaving to be Superman. "As with the greatest of literary characters, I pass the torch with reverence for the time spent embodying Geralt and enthusiasm to see Liam's take on this most fascinating and nuanced of men.
"Liam, good sir, this character has such wonderful depth to him," he added. "Enjoy diving in and see what you can find."
While Cavill may be moving on from both Superman and Geralt, that doesn't mean he'll be hurting for work any time soon.
The British actor is an unabashed geek who has shared his love for various fantasy and sci-fi properties on Instagram over the years. One of those geeky pursuits is Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, the twin tabletop war games set in dark fantasy and science-fiction worlds, respectively. Cavill has often showcased his painted miniatures for the games over the years, and his next project will bring some of them to life.
Cavill signed a deal with Amazon in late 2022 to executive produce and star in a new TV series set in the universe of Warhammer 40,000. The series (like all 40K stories) will be set in the grim darkness of the future, when there is only war between humans and various aliens.
Details of his show are scarce, but the Warhammer franchise is not focused around a specific character the same way that The Witcher is. That means Cavill will be starting with a clean slate that will allow him to introduce plenty of new characters into the fold. And if he decides he wants to leave that franchise some day, it'll be much easier to kill him off.
As for when all of that will get started, it's unclear at this point.
Amazon might decide to keep a closer eye on this series than it did on last summer's The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power, a massively expensive TV series that didn't become the Game Of Thrones-style hit that they hoped for. Only 37% of viewers even finished the series after starting it, according to The Hollywood Reporter, which is not a great number.
Regardless, Cavill can't do much on the Warhammer front for a while right now, as Hollywood remains shut down due to the ongoing writers' and actors' strikes.
You can catch the first three seasons of The Witcher on Netflix right now.