The Witcher creator and showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich says the fifth episode of season 4, titled 'The Joy of Cooking' is "probably" her favorite of the series.
"We love experimental swings," Hissrich begins while breaking down (in our humble opinion) the season's standout episode in an interview with GamesRadar+. In the episode, Geralt and his accompanying 'Hansa' group sit around a fire and recount their past adventures. While Geralt's is more of a tried-and-tested flashback, Jaskier dabbles in musicals for his retelling.
"I think part of the fun of television is to mess around with it and to sort of invite the audience along on this rollercoaster ride," Hissrich explains.
Episode writer Matthew D'Ambrosio came up with the idea, and while Hissrich was all ears for The Witcher going into Wicked and Les Mis territory ("I was actually an easy pitch," the showrunner recalls), Netflix took some convincing.
"Netflix was a much harder pitch, hearing that we were going to be introducing a musical number," Hissrich says. "But to me, it was the perfect chance to really understand how all of these characters are different… that they're each bringing their own tone, their own flavor, their own backstory truly into this series."
While Jaskier's joie de vivre may shine through on screen, actor Joey Batey more or less limped through production of his scenes.
"It was grueling, if I'm completely honest. It was really tough," Batey says. "I was injured about three days before shooting. I couldn't really walk very well, so we had to change a bunch of the choreography. The whole sequence took about four days to shoot, and it was me singing live on set, sprinting from one side of the set to another, dancing, engaging with all these different other actors and dancers who just kept me afloat the whole day. Every single one of them was just so supportive… My enduring memory of that was that was maybe one of the hardest weeks I've had to do on this season, but we got through, and hopefully the joy of it bleeds through."
But the musical wasn't the opening number for the episode, which loosely adapts a fan favorite sitdown from Andrzej Sapkowski's novel Baptism of Fire. Alongside Jaskier's song-filled sequence was a dark, brooding animated affair that delved into Regis' tragic past.
On how the vampiric voyage down memory lane came together, Hissrich says, "Regis was the first one that we decided, because we knew we wanted to tell his backstory, but we, frankly, didn't have the time and the resources to go spend two weeks on the Regis story. Animation came up very quickly. I just thought it was such a cool thing to sort of do in the middle of a show."
The Witcher season 4 is now streaming on Netflix. Don't forget to stream the Rats prequel movie, too.
For more on our Witcher coverage, we have a guide to The Witcher season 4 ending, plus a look ahead to The Witcher season 5.
