There will, however, be tie-ins between the spinoff miniseries and season 4 of the mothership.

With the mothership Witcher series coming to an end after two more seasons, the endgame is coming into focus. And there’s one character that’s not a part of those plans.

Speaking with Entertainment Weekly for a Witcher season 4 cover story, showrunner Lauren Hissrich exclusively confirms that Minnie Driver will not return as the shape-shifting, time-traveling, parallel world-traipsing Seanchaí.

Driver arrived as the character in The Witcher: Blood Origin, a spinoff series that told of the pivotal event the Conjunction of the Spheres. The story was framed around Seanchaí telling the events to the bard Jaskier (Joey Batey), a mainstay of the Witcher TV franchise.

Seanchaí was set up to be a larger figure within the world, but Hissrich confirms, “Minnie Driver will not return, sadly. I would love Minnie Driver to return, but, no, she does not factor into the story in the future.”

In an interview published in December 2022, Driver told EW there had been “speculatory conversations” about her return as the character.

“I think the writers at Netflix are very smart. Like, why not create a character who is functional within the broader universe that you could drop down to further story in a really interesting and exciting way?” she said at the time. “I would love to do that, actually. I would need the braids to hide my ears so I don’t have to sit and get my [elf] ears on for two-and-a-half hours every day.”

There will, however, be some payoff from the events of Blood Origin. For instance, a post-credits scene reveals the mage Avallac’h (played by Alien: Earth star Samuel Blenkin) unlocked the key to time travel and secretly appeared to Ciri (Freya Allan) during the events of The Witcher season 1.

When Netflix premieres The Witcher season 4, Ciri will now be living off the grid as Falka with the Rats, a group of young criminals. Meanwhile, Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) will be recruiting mages to help take down Vilgefortz (Mahesh Jadu), and Geralt (now played by Liam Hemsworth after the departure of Henry Cavill) will be assembling a “hansa” to go and find his “Child of Surprise.”

“I love this idea that Avallac’h saw everything, that he has been tracking these stories across time,” Hissrich tells EW. “So for us, it was really fun to take Blood Origin and go, ‘How do we just pepper in for the audience this idea that Avallac’h has something to do with main series, if they haven’t read the books?'”

The showrunner often feels the expectation to explain everything on the show. “I would rather just plop Avallac’h in Blood Origin at the end and have someone go, ‘What do you think that meant?'” she continues. “For long-running series, that’s part of the payoff. If you watch, you start to put those pieces together. So Avallac’h, he’s a super important character to Ciri with his elven past, and he becomes an important character to Geralt. And, yeah, it gets a lot more hectic.”

The Witcher season 4 will premiere eight episodes on Netflix this Oct. 30.