Here's how Henry Cavill exits 'The Witcher' (2024)

Warning: This article contains spoilers from The Witcher season 3 finale, "The Cost of Chaos."

For months now, the talk of the entire Continent has been about Henry Cavill's exit from Netflix's The Witcher series and his incoming replacement, Liam Hemsworth. Some of the cast and crew have been saying that Hemsworth, known for the Hunger Games movies and Independence Day: Resurgence, has been "in training" to play Geralt of Rivia and "devouring the books" of Witcher author Andrzej Sapkowski in preparation, while Cavill has refrained from participating in any interviews with press for season 3. With the arrival of the Vol. 2 episodes from the drama's current run, fans finally have answers to just how the Man of Steel and Man From U.N.C.L.E. star makes his way out, even if the final moments offer more questions.

Following the revelation that Vilgefortz (Mahesh Jadu) has been making sinister plans in the shadows, Cavill's Geralt faces the mage in combat. It does not go well for the Witcher. Vilgefortz, who's one of (if not the) most powerful mage of the age, leaves Geralt close to death on the beaches of Aretuza. He wakes to find himself in the company of the dryads, who are doing their best to heal him — a much slower process than the grunting, grumbling Witcher would like.

The core trio are now separated. Freya Allan's Ciri has been blasted through a portal to the Korath Desert where she has visions of a woman named Falka (a figure from the books). Meanwhile, Anya Chalotra's Yennefer arrives at Geralt's side to heal him further, but she must part ways with him again, fearing Vilgefortz is taking Ciri to Nilfgaard. Yen rejoins her fellow mages, who are determined to vanquish Vilgefortz and make the world safe again for Ciri's return.

Having regained his health, Geralt heads off with Jaskier and the dryad Milva to find Ciri, following a little skirmish with some power-mad guards. And that's the last look we get of Cavill's Geralt — back turned to camera, walking toward the unknown yet again.

"It's Geralt who has to find a sense of life again, which is a beautiful part of the story," one of the show's executive producers, Tomek Baginski, says as part of a 30-minute making-of feature on The Witcher season 3, now available to stream on Netflix. "It's an old quote from Rocky: It doesn't matter how many times you are hit, it matters how many times you can get up after a hit," he adds. "So, that's the journey for Geralt for the future."

"We have spent this entire season building up that Geralt, Yen, and Ciri are finally a family," showrunner Lauren Hissrich also says in the making-of special. "They realize they not only need each other, but they want to be together, they choose to be a family. And when that explodes, it's the fact that Geralt has lost these two people that he so clearly loves so deeply. That's what causes him to give up on his neutrality, because he will do anything to get them back."

In some ways, it sets up Hemsworth nicely to transition into the role, from a thematic perspective. Geralt has given up his long-maintained neutrality and now must become a different kind of person if he's going to keep his found family together. However, no clues were offered as to how the show's story will address the fact that Geralt will just start resembling Hemsworth in season 4, nor are there any post-credits scenes.

Baginski previously teased to Yahoo U.K., "We have a very, very good plan to introduce our new Geralt and our new vision for Geralt with Liam. Not going deeply into those ideas because this will be a huge spoiler, [but] it's also very, very close to the meta ideas which are deeply embedded in the books, especially in book five." He added, "It's very lore accurate."

It may be some time before we see Hemsworth fronting The Witcher season 4, as production is delayed due to the on-going Hollywood strikes. But Baginski also told Express Online that the actor looks "awesome" in the costume, so perhaps a first look could be coming sooner than later.

Elsewhere, there have been reports of a live-action Witcher spin-off called The Rats, which is the name of the group that Ciri, taking Falka as a nickname after her experience in the desert, finds herself amongst at the end of season 3. Netflix has not officially acknowledged a Rats spin-off series, but it certainly seems like that's what the mothership show is setting up first before a fourth season.

There may have been some complications that impacted Cavill's tenure as Geralt on The Witcher. The actor announced his leave from the show amid talk that he would be returning to the role of Superman in the DC movie universe. The latter ended up being a preemptive move and didn't actually come to fruition. But don't worry about Cavill. The geek at heart seems happy as a clam with his upcoming Warhammer 40k series at Amazon.

Despite the hype and dedication of Witcher fans to Cavill's performance, the show is clearly setting up Ciri as the true lead of the series. Speaking in that making-of feature, Baginski says that verbatim: "One of the more important things about Ciri is that we will slowly discover that she is the main character of the Witcher saga. Not Geralt, not Yennefer. It's Ciri's story."

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