From the score I can see that a lot of people seemed to like this episode, but for me this felt like the first slip in an otherwise solid season. The plots of previous episodes have had events unfold in a way that felt very organic given the rules of the world and the personalities of the characters. So things may have been fantastical, but it was easy to suspend disbelief and imagine that it could have happened the way they portrayed it.
But in this episode felt like the writers needed everyone to get from A to B so they just kind of had people do stuff to make it happen, even if it wasn't consistent with previous behavior. Geralt, who was in previous episodes an extremely practical person, has a rather straight forward problem. But instead of trying to solve it in a straight forward way, he suddenly decides to try an absurdly over-the-top solution. It makes so little sense that they even felt the need to have one of the other characters comment on it, pointing out that Geralt's actions didn't seem in line with someone trying to solve his problem.
The other issue I had was with Yennefer, who started out as a sympathetic character earlier in the season but really becomes borderline unlikable here with her constant self-pity and cynicism and an overall "me first" attitude. Her character doesn't feel in the right place for establishing the beginning of the epic story her and Geralt are creating in the lore of the world. But despite that other characters like the bard just do a complete 180 and immediately get on board with lofty proclamations by the end that seem disjointed and unearned.
Needless to say, this is just all my opinion, and I'm still loving the first season, but for me I wasn't crazy about the flow of this episode.
