We are here—the season finale of Critical Role and Amazon Prime Video’s The Legend of Vox Machina. What a wild four weeks this has been and honestly, I’m not ready for this to end. And I probably wouldn’t watch the final episode if it weren’t for that cliffhanger at the end of eleven and the fact that I need to in order to write this recap. But alas, here we are. In the final episode, “The Darkness Within,” our heroes rush to find a way to save Keyleth (Marisha Ray) while Percy (Taliesin Jaffe) fights his own inner demon. Take a moment to prepare yourselves because this one just hits different.
DISCLAIMER: This is a recap and, by nature, contains more spoilers than dice rogues roll for sneak attacks. If you haven’t gotten the chance to watch it yet, we suggest heading over to Amazon Prime and checking it out!
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“The Darkness Within” opens right where episode 11 left off; Keyleth is lying unconscious in Vex’s (Laura Bailey) arms as Vax (Liam O’Brien) loses it over her fate. Vex passes over a healing elixir for her to drink, but it doesn’t work. Something is seriously wrong with Percy, who isn’t worried over Keyleth’s impending death and just happy that he has Lady Briarwood (Grey Griffin) at the end of his pepperbox. Priorities here dude. Read the room.
Scanlan (Sam Riegel) realizes that something isn’t right and tries to catch a spell, only for it to fizzle out. The orb must be blocking all magic in the room, which would make sense since it wasn’t until after it appeared that Pike (Ashley Johnson) disappeared. Vex makes the call to get Keyleth as far away from the Ziggurat and that spinning orb of death as possible. Percy and Cassandra (Esmé Creed-Miles) grab Lady Briarwood and follow behind them. Outside the room, Grog (Travis Willingham) spots Lord Briarwood’s (Matthew Mercer) sword and holds it for safekeeping. That definitely won’t lead to bad things.
Keyleth (Marisha Ray) and Vax (Liam O’Brien) in The Legend of Vox Machina. Image courtesy of Amazon Prime Video.
The group rushes down and Grog offers to take Keyleth from Vax, who is struggling to keep up with the group. Now that they are safely back in Ander’s (Stephen Root) acid trap room, Vex goes to grab another elixir only to find the bag empty. Magic kisses and tears aren’t going to help here. But Vax remembers that Keyleth has all the components for the spell she cast on Cassandra and with a bit of help from Scanlan, he manages to cast a spell.
Cassandra and Percy try and get information out of Lady Briarwood, but she just wants a quick death. But Percy, or his smoke demon, seems to have other ideas. As he continues to monologue over how he will torture Delilah, the others realize the smoke is getting worse. Finally, Keyleth (yay, she’s alive!) points out that what they are looking at isn’t Percy but that the possession has taken over. But that isn’t all. Keyleth also realizes that this demon has been using Percy and once it gets what it needs, Percy will be gone.
And like the boss Vex is, she stands between Percy/smoke demon and Delilah and asks Percy to take off the mask. Still not moving, she does it for him and we see the actual pain that Percy is in as he fights the demon. Percy makes a move to try and end his own life in order to stop the demon, but it refuses to let him and takes control long enough to attack Vex. Keyleth reminds everyone that Percy isn’t in control and they need to be careful not to hurt him. He needs to be the one to defeat the demon. The best thing they can do is keep him from killing Lady Briarwood.
Percy (Taliesin Jaffe) in The Legend of Vox Machina. Image courtesy of Amazon Prime Video.
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Now starts the game of “keep the crazy lady from the crazy smoke demon.” Knowing he needs complete control of Percy, the smoke demon takes over and locks Percy within his brain. As he battles against his nightmares in Whitestone, his friends try and keep him at bay in the real world. Poor Percy is forced to relive the terrifying moments in his life like Stonefell (Darin De Paul) and Dr. Anna Ripley (Kelly Hu) murdering his whole family and failing his parents.
Everyone takes their chance drawing Percy’s attention and most of them come out relatively unscathed. Except for Grog, who gets a bullet in the shoulder. Don’t worry; he will make Percy pay for that eventually. But it’s Vex’s voice that pulls Percy out of his mind for a brief moment. But long enough for him to realize that it’s the demon forcing these images on him. And we finally learn just how the smoke demon came to be living in Percy’s soul. His need for vengeance summoned him and the smoke demon gave him the means for his revenge and Percy provided him with souls for dinner.
Percy continues to battle when Vex tells Cassandra to finally do something for her brother. And she gives him a rousing speech on pain and how he can reclaim himself. The demon fights for control one last time and knocks everyone back. Just before he is about to end Delilah’s life, he shoots himself in the hand, forcing him to drop the gun and release himself from the demon’s control.
Vax (Liam O’Brien), Keyleth (Marisha Ray), Orthax (Matthew Mercer), Scanlan (Sam Riegel) and Grog (Travis Willingham) in The Legend of Vox Machina.
Everything seems to be going well until Delilah decides to speak up and try to call Percy a failure for not being able to kill him. Percy decides to be the bigger person and let her live, but Cassandra can’t. After everything they have put her through, she couldn’t let Delilah live. I’m just happy that she is back on Vox Machina’s side again. They decide to toss her body in the acid as Percy goes to grab his pepperbox. Except Scanlan beats him to it, afraid that he is going to go all crazy again. Percy doesn’t think that is going to happen until Scanlan yeets it into the acid and we watch the demon cry out.
It may have been a total guess. But it was the right one. Now that things seem to be handled down below, the group makes their way and finds the people of Whitestone celebrating their win. Keyleth is worried about handling the newfound fame and Vex tells her to just smile and wave. And she calls her Kiki, so things between the two of them are getting better. Scanlan tries to hit on someone and Vax drags him away while Grog makes a funny pun about a giant’s eye. Good times.
Cassandra tries to convince Percy to stay in Whitestone and lead, but he thinks it should be her. She doesn’t seem to agree, but Percy reminds her that she is a survivor and is the only person who can help ensure Whitestone will live forever. Elsewhere near the Suntree, Vax finally approaches Keyleth about everything he said the day before. (Seriously, it’s only been a day?!) And while she understands, she has way too much on her plate to be starting relationships with devastatingly good-looking rogues. Awkward turtle makes awkward babies. Just walk away.
Vex (Laura Bailey), Scanlan (Sam Riegel), Vax (Liam O’Brien) and Keeper Yennen (Gina Torres) in The Legend of Vox Machina. Image courtesy of Amazon Prime Video.
Vex spots Keeper Yennen (Gina Torres) and questions her about Ripley and the spinning orb of death. No one has seen Ripley and one of her fellow holy people is downstairs looking into the orb. We get to watch as he gets sucked into it and most likely dies. I guess it’s not as safe as they think. With everything handled here in Whitestone, the group decides it’s time to head back to Emon and face the council. Keyleth uses one of her new spells to open a portal in the Suntree to transport everyone back. And before they do, we catch a genuine smile on Percy’s face. It’s charming and just as magnificent as his RBF.
“The Darkness Within” cuts to the group in Emon and back to normal. Percy has repaired his hand, Keyleth is taking care of her plants, Vex and Vax are giving Trinket a mani/pedi while Grog puts up new doors. Even Pike is back with the group. Scanlan has been working on their legend and is about to start singing when Captain Jarrett (Eugene Byrd) arrives to summon them to the Cloud Top.
The group arrives and we get another fun moment with Gilmore (Sunil Malhotra) before Sovereign Uriel (Khary Payton) gives his speech. He opens up about his mistakes and that without Vox Machina, they would have all died. Just after renouncing his position, Vex gets one of those dragon feelings and then the bells ring out. The season finale of The Legend of Vox Machina draws to a close as four dragons fly closer to Emon.
RELATED: Check out all of our recaps for The Legend of Vox Machina!
Seriously with the cliffhangers! Thankfully, we know that The Legend of Vox Machina is going to get a second season, so setting up the Chroma Conclave arc from Critical Role isn’t the worst cliffhanger ever. But I hope they have already had this animated, voiced and edited so we can have this drop next week. I also hope that Amazon Prime Video has an announcement in the next few days telling everyone that they are going to animate the entire campaign from start to finish and then head into the other ones. Because two seasons of this show will never ever be enough. But alas, we have to wait. At least we can spend our days rewatching all 12 of these fantastic episodes.
What are your final thoughts on The Legend of Vox Machina? Let us know in the comments below and on social media!
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