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The Witcher’s Secret Prequel Introduces a Witcher Far More Brutal Than Geralt (Played by a 1980s Action Star)
The Witcher season 4 gave a number of new additions their time in the spotlight while also furthering the main story of Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri, and a lot of ground was covered between all three individual journeys. While season 4 was the main attraction, Netflix also secretly released a prequel special that not only provided key context for the season, but also introduced fans to a new Witcher far more brutal than Geralt, and he was brought to life by a 1980s action star.
That secret prequel was a one-shot special titled The Rats, earning its name from the group of misfits and thieves that Ciri encounters at the end of season 3 and travels with throughout much of season 4. While we do know the true fate of The Rats in season 4, there’s also the addition of another Witcher named Brehen, and bringing that (drunken) powerhouse to life is none other than Rocky IV, Expendables, and Aquaman star Dolph Lundgren.
The Rats takes place before the events of The Witcher season 4, showing when the group encountered Leo Bonhart and what directly led to their run-in with Ciri. To get to their ultimate goal, The Rats have to make it past a monster, and for that, they need a Witcher. Turns out they end up screwing over a Witcher named Brehen on their journey, though in fairness to them, Brehen is completely drunk and is fighting a fake monster in order to get money from the crowd, so he’s seen better days.
While their first meeting doesn’t go well, they end up getting Brehen to help them with the promise of Orens and the fact that he won’t have to see them again, and this is where we start to see and learn who Brehen really was before he became a shell of himself. As he trains, we see him start to come back into his old form of a Witcher, and while Geralt is a mix of precision and versatility, Brehen is all about pure power and owning his space.
Geralt is no slouch in the power department, but when Brehen throws a haymaker, you feel the wind move around it. Brehen is all about getting into close range and hitting with vicious kicks, headbutts, and close punches, and that’s on top of his use of Signs and blades.
At one point, we see Brehan battle the mysterious creature, which turns out to be a Jalowik, and he uses a potion to even the balance of power between them. This thing has spider-like limbs in addition to its normal limbs, so it was always going to be a challenge for any Witcher to handle. Brehan shows he’s up to the challenge, bending the limbs so he can get in close and give it another potion to weaken the curse that powers it. Again, Brehen focuses on pure strength, and even his Aard sign feels like it packs a bigger punch than Geralt’s, just about slamming someone through a wall.
The biggest showcase of Brehen’s powerhouse abilities is when The Witcher goes toe to toe with Leo Bonhart, who completely eviscerated The Rats in season 4 and has killed a number of Witchers through his travels. At this point in time he doesn’t have all of the various Witcher medallions he has when we see him in season 4, and he immediately notices Brehen is a member of the School of the Cat, remarking he doesn’t have one of those yet.
Despite his recent turnaround and not being as spry as he once was, Brehen gives Bonhart an immense fight, holding his own with a sword and utilizing his strength to knock Bonhart for a loop at several points. While he does get stabbed, Brehen is able to knock Bonhart almost unconscious by sending him into a wall with an Aard sign. If this were Brehen at his height, he might have been able to slay Bonhart, but Brehen does fall by the end, though it was one amazing turnaround.
For as powerful and brutish Brehen is in the show, he’s even more so in the books. That traces back to when he earned his own nickname from a massacre that occurred in the town of Iello. Brehen’s battle there ended up with quite a death toll, and it earned Brehen the nickname of Cat of Iello. He was pretty much blacklisted from Witcher schools after that event, and though Geralt didn’t take him down when they eventually met down the road, he did say that if another event like that happened, he would hunt him down.
The other big connection is the Striga and King Foltest. In the previous seasons of the show, we saw Geralt face the Striga and eventually save her, but it turns out that Brehen was one of the other two Witchers that was tasked with bringing the Striga in. Brehen reveals that he even convinced his friend to take the job with him, and it got him killed, and Brehen lives with the regret that not only did he get him killed, but he did it all just for the coin. It’s a shame we won’t see Brehen make a return in season 5, but it was great to see the character done justice, and Lundgren successfully brought the character into the spotlight.
The Witcher season 4 and The Rats are streaming on Netflix now.
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