Netflix The Witcher season 2 recap guide: All 8 episodes explained

The Witcher season 2, episode 5 recap: Turn Your Back

The Witcher season 2, episode 5 opens with an introduction to two new characters, a sorceress named Lydia (Aisha Fabienne Ross) and an imprisoned mage named Rience (Chris Fulton). Calanthe imprisoned Rience over a decade ago for crossing him, and Lydia has been assigned to find Ciri. She frees Rience from his cell so he can hunt Ciri down. We flashback to the night when Jaskier was performing in an Oxenfurt tavern, only this time we see his performance from a new perspective suggesting that Rience is the one who took Jaskier at the end of The Witcher season 2, episode 4.

Yennefer chooses to miss the boat to Cintra to try and find Jaskier. Rience has taken Jaskier captive and tied him to a chair. It’s immediately clear just how dangerous Rience is because he uses illegal fire magic.

Given that she’s still on the run, Yennefer can’t go to the garrison herself, so she hires a prostitute to go instead and find out if Jaskier is in one of the cells. While waiting for the prostitute to return, Yennefer watches as the Northern Kingdom separates an elven daughter from her mother. She tries to use her magic to help, but it’s a fruitless effort. The prostitute returns. She didn’t find anything, but she recommends Yennefer check the taverns.

Poor Jaskier is being tortured by Rience for information on Geralt and Ciri. Jaskier is adamant that he doesn’t know anything, which is probably true since he hasn’t seen Geralt in months. Unfortunately for Jaskier, his songs about Geralt are what made him a target in the first place since Rience assumes he knows plenty that he’s spun into music.

Thankfully, Yennefer arrives before Rience can start using fire on him directly. She pretends to be Jaskier’s drunken wife, spitting alcohol in the mage’s face when he lights his fingers up, causing his entire face to go up in flames. She and Jaskier escape in the ruckus.

Outside, Jaskier tells Yennefer that Rience is after Geralt. He says she owes it to Geralt to warn him, but without magic, Yennefer can’t do much at the moment. They get approached by several men, one of whom harasses Yennefer. She kicks him in the crotch and takes off running. The prostitute from earlier offers Yennefer an escape, or so it seems. In reality, she’s sold Yennefer out to the guards in exchange for money.

The truth about the monoliths

Triss portals Geralt to Istredd while the mage is in the middle of finding a new path on land for refugees to take to Cintra. Explaining the whole monolith and the new subspecies of monster thing to Istredd doesn’t really work. It sounds insane to him, and he thinks the whole thing is some elaborate prank—until Geralt drops the monster’s head on the ground in front of him.

Geralt and Istredd embark on their journey to Cintra to find the fallen monolith. On the way, Istredd questions what could have caused a monolith to fall. They’re supposedly indestructible. A couple of guards give them trouble, and the duo is forced to fight them off.

When they arrive at the monolith site, both Geralt and Istredd are shocked by what they find, which is a massive crevice in the ground. Istredd is stunned by the damage, it’s a scientific revelation that changes everything. It should have taken decades and then some for damage of this magnitude to occur. They realize they must go to the bottom of the pit to learn more.

There aren’t any monster nests or anything in the basin. Istredd theorizes that the monoliths could be the actual conduits between the different spheres, started by the Conjunction.

Istredd tells Geralt he remembers experiencing strange vibrations during a dig at Nazair and the date matches the night Cintra fell. The pit they’re standing in is where the energy source originated. They realize that the monoliths are acting as gateways between the spheres, meaning the monsters emerging aren’t “new,” per se, they’re just new to them because they’re coming from other planes of existence.

Given Geralt’s knowledge of the monolith, Istredd grows suspicious of where he’s gotten this intel. Geralt doesn’t want to tell him about Ciri since he still doesn’t know Istredd that well, but Istredd happily admits he came to Cintra in search of Yennefer, hoping she’d seek refuge there. Geralt is surprised to learn that Yennefer is still alive.

Valley of the Soul

At Kaer Morhen, Ciri continues her physical training. Triss and Vesemir discuss the Elder Blood discovery. Triss is adamant that they won’t do anything unless Ciri agrees to it, she’s a girl, not a tool.

Ciri is somewhat somber about Geralt not bringing her with him to Cintra. Vesemir takes their time alone to begin his pitch about her blood. He starts by telling her about the Conjunction of the Spheres, how it was more than just humans, dwarves, and elves, but monsters were involved, too. Mages weaponized monsters, and then they weaponized men to create the first witchers, who would save humanity from extinction by destroying the beasts.

But when Kaer Morhen was originally destroyed, so was the witcher mutagen. Now they have a chance to make more. Ciri agrees to help and give him a vial of her blood, but only if Vesemir agrees to give it to her first. Vesemir is reluctant since many die during the witcher trials, but she ultimately convinces him to agree to her terms.

With her permission, Vesemir and Triss take some of Ciri’s blood. Vesemir tells Triss that Ciri plans to be the first. Triss is not happy about that and tells Ciri her thoughts on it in no uncertain terms. Ciri hopes that by becoming a witcher, she can help find a new truth and learn more about her origins. Triss offers a different way, a ritual known as Dol Durza, or the Valley of the Soul, which allows Triss to pierce the deepest layer of Ciri’s consciousness, and not just her, but her mother and grandmother’s, too.

In the Dol Durza, Triss notices that something is off. Ciri’s mother, Pavetta (Gaia Mondadori), appears to be able to see Ciri and speak to her, which isn’t how it’s supposed to work. Ciri and Triss walk into a room where Ciri’s parents, Duny (Bart Edwards) and Pavetta, argue about her well-being. Duny is concerned Ciri will be killed when people learn of the “prophecy.” They plan to leave on a boat that night. Ciri realizes this was the night they died. Pavetta suddenly sees Ciri again. Triss yanks her out of the room. Ciri follows the ominous whispering of a woman down the hall.

Ciri and Tress find a woman in a meadow holding a child. She’s dying, and Triss tries to heal her, but the woman suddenly starts choking Triss and calling out to Ciri, reciting a creepy prophecy, saying, “Child of Elder Blood, child of wrath, the time of contempt is nigh, the world will die amidst frost and reborn of the new sun, reborn of Elder Blood, of the seed that has been sewn, a seed that will not spread, but will burst into flame.”

I’m assuming that’s the prophecy Duny mentioned. Then the Wild Hunt rides in from the skies and Ciri cries out for Geralt. Her scream can be heard throughout the keep, cracking the tree of witcher medallions and even all the way in Cintra. Geralt hears her just as all the stellacite surrounding them starts shooting shards everywhere.

Triss is absolutely terrified of Ciri when they emerge from the Dol Durza. She believes Ciri will be the end of them all. Unfortunately for Geralt and Istredd, Ciri’s latest scream summoned yet another monster, some kind of giant dragon-like thing called a chernobog, and into the world. Geralt demands that Istredd open a portal ASAP.

Whatever Triss’ intentions were with the Dol Durza, it has the opposite effect. Ciri immediately goes to Vesemir and tells him to inject her with the mutagen. Geralt arrives back just in time to put a stop to the whole thing. Geralt tells her she doesn’t need to do this, she’s already more than enough. She’s extraordinary. Awe, Geralt, such a sweet moment.

But Ciri wants to be like him, indifferent to the past and the things she’s done. “That is not how it works. Neither you nor I can just forget who we are. We can’t kill our feelings. Our best chance is to kill the hatred that we may hold onto and move on.”

Back in his study, Istredd starts digging through Calanthe’s genealogy, wondering if she and the Cintran family were protecting the monolith and its secrets this whole time.

A seed that bursts into flame

Even though Yennefer is currently in captivity in Oxenfurt, Cahir does make it to Cintra, waking up from an eerie dream just in time to see the boat pull into the harbor. Fringilla and Francesca appear to be getting along very well. They consider each other partners now and Francesca is eager to introduce her people to their liberator.

There’s a bit of kerfuffle near the gateway when Cahir tries to get inside, but Fringilla steps forward and vouches for him, welcoming him home.

In restraints, Yennefer hears the Deathless Mother speaking to her once more. She taunts Yennefer, telling her how Francesca and Fringilla are thriving. If Yennefer wants her magic back, she needs to say the words, so Yennefer does, and a portal opens, whisking her away to the Deathless Mother’s (Ania Marson) hut. Jaskier watches all of this happen from outside a window and is caught by the guards.

She tells Yennefer that if she wants to get her magic back, then she’ll have to capture Ciri and deliver her to a shattered black door just outside Cintra.