The upcoming end of the 2024 TV schedule means that it’s now time to look back at some of the top new releases from the past year, and The Legend of Vox Machina Season 3 for viewers with a Prime Video subscription qualifies as one of my favorites. Produced by Critical Role – a.k.a. the team behind the Dungeons & Dragons game that inspired the series – this show actually flew under my radar until I discovered it by happenstance. Now, just over a month after the Season 3 finale, I looked back and came to a realization: my take on how Critical Role kills off TV characters has changed after the last several weeks.
With The Legend of Vox Machina renewed for at least one more season, it’s worth looking at how the show has already handled character deaths for an idea of what could pack the most punch as the adventures continue. First, though, I need to share some context on why I’m invested in how TV shows handle deaths, and it’s not just because I’ve been an entertainment journalist for most of my adult life.
My Usual Stance On TV Resurrections
For as much as my network TV bread and butter nowadays tends to involve crime and medical dramas, I’ve loved sci-fi and fantasy going back to when I was a kid and probably too young to be watching some of what I did. Guidelines about life and death can be pretty loose in those genres, but some shows are absolutely great about having consequences stick. Doctor Who’s farewell to Amy and Rory, Breaking Bad’s ending for Walt, His Dark Materials refusing to lighten the heartbreaking ending from Philip Pullman’s source material… if it makes me cry for better or worse, I’m on board.
And then there are shows that aren’t so great about letting consequences stick. When I recently looked back at what a Supernatural executive producer told me on the 300th episode red carpet, I remembered that I can’t even count how many times the main three characters died and were brought back over fifteen seasons. I lost a lot of my investment in the Arrowverse once Arrow introduced the Lazarus Pit – or, as I called it back in 2015, “the magical pool of do-over juice” – and The Flash could just use time travel to undo deaths.
On the flip side of Doctor Who, I still wish the iconic time travel series hadn’t brought back Gallifrey in the 50th anniversary episode or Rose for anything other than David Tennant’s finale, and I think that the funniest (and also most infuriating) thing George R.R. Martin could do with the unfinished A Song of Ice and Fire book saga would be to just leave Jon Snow dead to completely diverge from what Game of Thrones did with his source material. And I still like to use selective canon on my beloved X-Files to ignore some of those resurrections!
Basically, I can be typing through tears while writing about a TV episode, devastated by a fictional death or loss, and still want consequences to stick rather than be undone through magic, divinity, or futuristic tech. And as long-winded as this explanation may be, it 100% informs how I previously felt about The Legend of Vox Machina and why looking back at the end of Season 3 shifted my perspective.
My Original Thoughts On The Major Vox Machina Deaths
Fortunately for me, The Legend of Vox Machina doesn’t treat death and coming back lightly, and – importantly – has rules so that resurrections can’t just happen every time somebody drops dead. Vex was dead for mere moments back in Season 2, and Vax had to pay an enormous cost for her to come back. Season 3 wasn’t entirely clear on the timeline, but Percy was seemingly dead for weeks and could only be brought back due to the fluke of his soul being trapped by Orthax. Plus, he looked... well, very recently dead when he did spark back to life.
And again, Vax is evidently going to have a price to pay for going against the Matron to restore Percy’s soul to his body, and it’s worth remembering that Percy couldn’t just jump right up and get back to business with Vex. The Season 3 finale fortunately spared us from seeing what Percy looked like before Pike what she could to fix his decaying body, and he had a recovery process ahead of him after being brought back. Kash’s death even added depth to how moving on to the next plane works in Exandria… and conveniently removed him as somebody who could make it easier to bring Percy back.
Plus, it really felt like Percy might not come back. Episode 7 of Season 3 is one of my favorites of the series despite killing off one of my favorite characters, and if I hadn’t been spoiled about Percy probably coming back, I might have truly believed it was the end for him. From a narrative standpoint, Percy dying after realizing he’s a changed man but being killed by the nemesis who wouldn’t change was a great – albeit tragic – conclusion to his arc. Unlike when Vex died in Season 2, Percy's story could have ended neatly with his death. He didn’t have to come back.
All in all, A+ to The Legend of Vox Machina for making it so difficult and so costly to bring anybody back from the dead, not least because the tragedies and the consequences resulted in some of the most memorable animation of the entire series. At the same time, though, there were some elements of Season 3 that originally felt a bit like cheats.
Keyleth of course wasn’t going to die when mastering the earth elemental form, and her mostly 1:1 fight against Raishan didn’t feel like it had the highest stakes. Scanlan was definitely not going to stay comatose forever, and it didn’t take much for him to wake up once Kaylie arrived. Ripley’s continued refusal to die was frustrating, although the payoff with the twins taking her down at sea was definitely worth the wait.
My biggest takeaway immediately after binge-watching Season 3 via my early press screeners was that I’m A-OK with The Legend of Vox Machina resurrecting characters as long as there are consequences, stakes, a price to pay. Now, I have a different take.
Why Revisiting The Finale Changed My Mind For What Comes Next
Look, no matter the genre, medium, or target demographic of a show, there’s one storytelling device that I think always works: the rule of three. The first big death was Vex, which was quickly undone. The second big death was Percy, with a resurrection that took a while and was very much not guaranteed to work. A third big death should stick, no matter who it is.
Do I have a least favorite member of Vox Machina who I’m just looking for an excuse to want killed off? Certainly not, and I have no idea who I’d choose if I had to pick one. But if we’re going to continue worrying about these characters dying, the next person to be killed off – if there is a next death, anyway – should stay dead. If anything, the resurrections of Vex and Percy would make the next death sticking hit all the harder, and I love a good hard-hitting tragic twist.
Alas, it’ll be some time before fans see just how tragic (or not tragic) Critical Role will go, as the show wasn’t renewed until Season 3 was already releasing. For now, you can always watch and rewatch the three seasons so far streaming on Prime Video and find some upcoming viewing options on our 2025 TV schedule.
