The Legend of Vox Machina 10-12 (Spoiler-Free) Review
All right, we’re here at the end of The Legend of Vox Machina’s first season and holy crap was that a strong finish to the season. They really did save the best for last! Impressed doesn’t even begin to cover it, so I’ll really just be spending much of this review praising what I loved about each of these three episodes. This review, like all of my other batch reviews, is completely spoiler-free, so you don’t have to worry about any of that if you haven’t watched the last three episodes, yet. I’m pretty excited to start talking about these episodes, so let’s go ahead and dive into it.
Vast Improvement
I know a number of people don’t like how critical I’ve been regarding this show in the past. Some folks just expect you to love everything they love with exactly as much love as they give it. I guess I get that, but all of my critical complaints have been sincere—there are things I didn’t think were working for the show and things that I genuinely thought were either poorly done or overdone. It was getting a bit old at around the halfway point, and The Legend of Vox Machina just hadn’t really met my expectations, let alone exceeded them.
Then I watched this fourth and final batch of episodes, episodes 10, 11, and 12. These episodes gave me everything I wanted and more. I’ll get into the details about what means here shortly, but I wanted to start off this review by saying that the complaints I’ve mentioned in my previous three reviews have all been addressed in these last three episodes, each of which is better than the last. I personally think that Scanbo is still the most fun episode, but these three I think are the most well-written episodes out of the entire season.
From appearance to writing, this last batch nails it. Let’s talk about appearance, first.
Appearance
The look of these three episodes is incredible, especially the last episode. There’s a lot to highlight and it’s hard to highlight some things without diving into spoilers. However, without getting into spoilers, my absolute favorite parts of these three episodes were the magical effects and the dreamlike sequence we get in the final episode was absolutely mesmerizing, but that I can’t show here due to the significant spoilers that would present. Just, trust me—episode twelve is gorgeous.
Additionally, at least on my first two viewings on these three episodes, I didn’t notice any animation goofs or oddities that stood out to me as I have in past episodes. If I have to be extremely nitpicky, there is one bit where someone runs around the corner that looks a little silly, but that’s less me being genuinely critical and more me trying to find something wrong with the episodes. They really nailed the animation in these last three episodes and gave it their all.
Oh, and the sets. We get a vast variety of sets for these last three episodes and they are all simply gorgeous. I loved them all, but the setting for the big battle in the eleventh episode was just brilliant. I could not stop looking at it, and I hope we get a solid behind-the-scenes look at that. Or… did I miss out on that opportunity by not being part of the Kickstarter (sorry, I wasn’t that deep in the fandom when it launched, and yeah that makes me sad)? Whatever they can show us regarding that set-piece, I would love to see it.
Writing
The writing in these episodes was phenomenal. They were really well-paced, believable, and contained some genuinely tense moments. Even having an idea of what was most likely going to happen based on the original campaign, I was still on the edge of my seat. This isn’t just about the spoken parts of the show, either—the fight scenes were incredibly well-written, or storyboarded, as I guess the case would be. I dunno, I haven’t seen how they did their scripts behind the scenes. Whatever the case may be, everything about the writing in these final three episodes was remarkable.
In the tenth episode, they take a few minutes to give us some crucial character establishment moments, specifically in regards to each character’s relationship with the others. They’ve done this a couple of other times, but these moments stood out to me the most in this episode. They didn’t feel forced, instead offering us a casual but important look into each character and the friendships that they share. I especially liked the very brief interaction we got with Pike and Grog—that’s something I’ve been missing during this season, but it’s understandable why we haven’t gotten much of that.
If there’s one thing the show does best, it’s payoff. This may be the result of playing D&D for so long because I think that good dungeon masters really learn how to give their players payoffs after months or even years of waiting, so they wanted to give this to the viewers. We get a lot of payoff for previous moments in these episodes. Like, a lot. There are some excellent callbacks to past moments in the show, we get thorough character arcs, and ultimately I’m walking away from these episodes completely satisfied with the season.
Humor
You can’t talk about the writing without also talking about the humor. The jokes in these last three episodes… hit. They were excellently done. Honestly, I laughed more than I cried in these episodes, which is saying something. They really wrote some funny jokes that just nailed the humor on the head and made me laugh in a way that I’m used to laughing with the live-play campaigns. It felt less slapstick, more clever, which is what I’ve been saying we need in the show throughout all of my reviews. I don’t think there was a single joke in the episodes that didn’t amuse me. This is the kind of humor that I really wanted. I loved it, especially Grog.
Vengeance
I have said time and time again, and will never stop saying it: I love revenge stories. I love revenge tropes, so long as they’re done well. Percy’s story is one of revenge, so I was of course predisposed to enjoying this season of The Legend of Vox Machina. This wasn’t just a revenge story, though: it was a great revenge story. They executed it perfectly. I enjoyed it in the first campaign, but I enjoyed it even more in its more focused, attentive retelling through this first season. This tale of Percy seeking vengeance and of the evil that vengeance breeds within us is simply fantastic. The Briarwood arc is a fan-favorite for good reason; even thinking back through campaigns one and two, it’s still my favorite arc of all.
As a… connoisseur of revenge stories (not really, I just enjoy them), I give this one top marks.
Overall Rating
Okay! Here we are, my rating for the last three episodes. This is, by far, the best batch of episodes that we have gotten. It is a strong way to end the season and it leaves me excited for what’s to come. There are some hints that we are going to get some moments next season that I greatly enjoyed in the first campaign, and I really hope we do get to see them. And, if the next season maintains the standard established by these last three episodes, it’s sure to be simply incredible.
Episode 10
Episode 11
Episode 12
I think it’ll come as no surprise when I say that episodes ten, eleven, and twelve all get five stars from me. They’re incredible and serve as a strong ending to the season, particularly the final episode, which is at least tied with Scanbo as my favorite episode of the entire season. I can’t wait to see the next season!
Conclusion
Thanks so much for taking the time to check out this review of the final three episodes of The Legend of Vox Machina. I hope that you enjoyed it! I really loved these last three episodes and will be mulling over them for some time. Next week, I’m going to be releasing two reviews where I talk about the season as a whole and give it a final, complete rating. The first review, next Monday, will be spoiler-free. Then, I’ll do a spoiler-filled talk about the episodes next Wednesday. If you want to see those, make sure you follow me on social media or subscribe to my YouTube channel (or both).
ALSO, there’s a new way you can support me right now, and that’s reading my short story and leaving an honest review for it on Amazon! It’s an award-winning cyberpunk short story about a member of the lowest class in a society trying to escape from enslavement with his lover, so please consider checking it out. Kindle Unlimited members read it for free, or you can pay $3.99 for it.
Until next time… bye!
