The Witcher season 3 saved the good stuff for the very end

polygon.com:

Having had even more time to think about it and (like a Christopher Nolan protagonist) do a considerable amount of science on the subject, it pains me to say that part 1 of The Witcher season 3 was in fact Pretty Lousy. This isn’t all that different from what I thought at the time. I’m just even more sure of it now, as the final three episodes arrive on Netflix — which are actually a lot of fun! They don’t magically make season 3 any better, and in fact, might even highlight its shortcomings even further. But it’s got a ton of wizards shooting lasers at each other and some cool sword fights, and that’s not nothing.

Part 2 will do little to change any minds about season 3, mainly because there isn’t much left for the show to do. The gunpowder has been (messily) cast about all over the show’s characters and subplots; the final three episodes merely ignite it.

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The fireworks that result are tremendous fun, resulting in the biggest and most ambitious fantasy battle The Witcher has attempted thus far, even if the character motivations make zero sense and the show has never really explained how magic really works in its fiction. And given the thinness in characterization in part 1, the devastation that’s wrought in part 2 doesn’t really land on anything more than a superficial level.

This is a little more troublesome, because after its explosive start, most of part 2’s run time is denouement. Characters are scattered to the wind, lick their wounds, go on walkabouts, and meet people that only book readers will have a good handle on. Ultimately, this results in a downbeat ending that seems like it’s meant to feel like The Empire Strikes Back, but instead serves something more like Fast X: leaving viewers with a