The following contains major spoilers for The Witcher season 4 finale.

Given that The Witcher is a show about a magically enhanced mutant monster hunter, it makes sense that the series features more than its share of otherworldly creatures, supernatural beings, and dangerous beasts of virtually every size. And we’ve seen Geralt of Rivia (Liam Hemsworth) and his Child of Surprise, Ciri (Freya Allan), face off with what often feels like every conceivable manner of creature, from wyverns to strigas to a gruesome flesh monster comprised of the dead bodies of slain Aretuza sorceresses. This isn’t a show that pulls any punches when it comes to the literal horrors that stalk the Continent, which is why it’s so shocking that the most terrifying nightmare that stalks our heroes in The Witcher season 4 isn’t a monster at all, but a regular human man. 

Season 4 introduces the bounty hunter Leo Bonhart (Sharlto Copley), a legendary assassin who has risen to fame on the Continent thanks to his love of killing Witchers. (He collects—and wears!—their medallions as trophies. A seemingly unstoppable force, he revels in violence and delights in murder, and spends most of the season tracking down Ciri (Freya Allan) and the Rats ahead of a bloody, final confrontation that changes the Princess of Cintra’s life forever. 

“I’m pretty sure Sharlto Copley found us, and not the opposite,” showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich told a roundtable of journalists ahead of the season 4 premiere when asked about choosing the right actor for such a dark role. “He’s been very open about the fact that he doesn’t particularly like to play villains. Yet this character is sort of the most desperate and unforgiving.”

Other Big Bads within the world of The Witcher have easily identifiable—and justificable, in their view—motives. Figures like Nilfgaardian emperor Emhyr (Bart Edwards) and the dark sorcerer Vilgefortz (Mahesh Jadu) openly covet power, and they’re searching for Ciri to further their own personal ends. 

“It was so wonderful to see just how Sharlto turned himself over to this character and embraced him,” Hissrich said. “It was a full transformation to the point that when I’d see him without [his] costume, I wouldn’t recognize him. He just carried himself completely differently.” 

Bonhart seemingly commits monstrous acts for little more than the love of the game. (And one has to assume coin, but given his ragged appearance, money’s certainly not a priority in his world.) He takes pleasure in the act of being a predator and hunting down those he’s sent to find. And by the time he tracks down Ciri, he’s mildly obsessed—honestly, at this point, who isn’t—fascinated by her obvious skills as a fighter and her utter lack of fear for her own safety. 

“Working with Sharlto, for me, has been one of the biggest joys of the whole Witcher experience because he is a bloody brilliant actor, and you never know what’s going to happen with him,” Allan added. “He is genuinely a flawless Leo Bonhart.”

Bonhart ultimately lures Ciri to him by luring the Rats into a trap outside Jealousy’s Chimera Head Inn, knowing that she’ll rush to try and rescue them. Unfortunately, she doesn’t make it in time and arrives just as the bounty hunter has finished brutally slaughtering all her new friends. The Rats’ deaths are particularly gruesome, and each is executed with a uniquely sadistic flair—bombmaker Kayleigh is forced to search his own open stomach wound in a futile attempt to remove the explosive that ultimately kills him, being just one horrifying example—as Bonhart laughs and taunts their slowly dying bodies. 

And, somehow, all that’s not even the worst of it. Despite putting up a valiant effort, the bounty hunter eventually overpowers Ciri and takes her prisoner. But it’s apparently not enough for him that he killed this young woman’s friends; he subsequently forces her to watch as he saws off each of their heads, ultimately dropping their heads into a vat of brine to preserve them (So…odds we’ll be seeing those again at some point? Certainly not zero!) He even saves Ciri’s lover Mistle (Christelle Elwin) for last, because he is—again! — a complete monster. The season ends with the Princess of Cintra his prisoner, and viewers with little idea about what fresh horrors she’ll be forced to endure when the series returns for its final season. Personally, I’d rather take my chances with the rusalka. 

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