A review of the fourth episode of Season 1 of The Witcher: Blood Origin

In Witcher: Blood Origin, there was no promise of suspense. The Conjunction of the Spheres spawned monsters and humans if there is any difference between them, as Geralt might wonder and the collapse of an elven golden age. This being the case, what's most surprising about Blood Origin's series finale is how little time it devotes to what is the greatest event in Witcher history for all intents and purposes. 

You're almost at the end of the episode, and your favorite exposition machine, Minnie Driver, is narrating it ponderously. It's just a couple of minutes. While curiously incurious about a cataclysmic event Witcher fans have been wondering about for years, this Blood Origin finale is nevertheless a satisfying finale to this uneven series, providing wistful send offs for the characters we have come to love and known for so long.

In his first act of betrayal, Balor

In Xin'Trea, Merwyn has already begun her plan to conquer other worlds and colonize them, emphasizing stealing food supplies so that her kingdom's grain stores will not be empty. As a result of Balor's betrayal at the first opportunity, this plan is doomed because he absorbs all the chaos magic himself, becoming the most powerful being... I am trying to remember the history of the continent.

It might seem that that is the most important event, but Blood Origin spreads itself generously around our other heroes. Fjall fights the monster. Scion gets arrested but fights out of it after rallying the common folk into rioting. Éile rallies the common folk into riots with her song about the lowborn rising.

An interesting, tragic arc here

Even so, Merwyn is still the most interesting character of the episode, despite all of that being well-staged and fun to watch. There's a tragic arc worth parsing, though this promising character gets scant screen time and is generally underwritten, just like much of Blood Origin. 

Although Merwyn's complaints are entirely justified, her ostensibly noble brother considered her a "fertile thing to be traded," and she was robbed of her lover in the process of the sex. A brief epilogue in Blood Origin reveals that Éile is pregnant with Fjall's child, perhaps Blood Origin's least surprising twist. 

Upon touching Éile's belly, Ithlinne prophesied that a child would sing the last of her blood. There are several ways to interpret this, but Blood Origin keeps them a secret, leaving Jakier and us in the dark. Despite Blood Origin not being a page-turner, I'm curious about what the next chapter in the Witcher universe will bring.

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