Critical Role Review: Campaign 2 Episode 9

By: I.Am.No.Man

Miss my review last week? You can find it here!

Episode Nein: Steam and Conversation

[arve url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtnTlm6UBpg&t=7512s" /]

Recap

The Mighty Nein are ready for new adventures in the city of Zadash. Jester and Nott are up to no good, cheating at card games and stealing the buttons off a lady’s blouse. Caleb finds the biggest library in the city and covets everything inside it. Fjord tries to ‘My Fair Lady’ Beau and teach her how to smile and give nicer compliments to people, but Beau seems to be completely unteachable and remains her blunt, abrasive self.

Jester finds the biggest, most fancy hotel in the city, The Pillow Trove, and asks the front desk to check for a package from her mother. She had written a letter requesting money to be sent to the biggest hotel in the city and is desperately hoping her package is there. To her disappointment though, no package has arrived and a despondent Jester leaves. She finds a quiet moment to call upon The Traveler, her deity and best friend, asking for help and comfort. He appears to her and promises Jester that if she continues making a name for herself, and humbling more ‘overconfident brats’, her mother will find her.

Later, the group finds a ‘job board’ of sorts and peruse the listings for something of interest. They come across a listing for sell swords of able body to hunt down a sewer monster that has been threatening the city. The offer of 700 gold particularly entices the group and they decide to sign a contract to kill the beast.

Mollymauk leads the group to a local bath house and promises the hot soak will do them all some good. To their surprise, they find their old friend Yasha there in the communal bath. Yasha had been tracking them along their journey and was happy to meet up with them here. They tell her of their adventures so far and the contract they signed, asking if she wanted to join them for the quest. She agrees and the group set off to prepare!

Review

The first real filler episode of the new campaign, this episode felt a bit slow and inconsequential to me. The entire first half did feel like the cast were twiddling their thumbs trying to think of things to do before Ashley Johnson made her mid-episode appearance. I did really start to enjoy the last half of the episode, post-break, once Ashley got her groove going and began throwing jokes with the rest of the characters. I have been really missing Ashely’s character Yasha in the last few episodes and wondered how they would continuously incorporate her character. I was worried her character would be quite a sore thumb in the campaigns she popped up in because we really haven’t had a chance to get to know Yasha….at all…but that quickly melts away once Yasha eases back into the group.

I will say, I grew a bit bored during the first half of the episode and ended up missing some things the group did together and had to pay closer attention during my second re-watching. Matt was laying on the ‘civil unrest’ undertone quite heavily, with a secret meeting of rebels against the crown and talk of Crownsguard quashing the uprising rebellion in the capitol Rexxentrum. We’ll see if the Mighty Nein take the bait and become the spearhead for the rebellion. I’m a bit indifferent either way and was hoping more for a big, bad, evil Necromancer to be the main story arc.

Next episode does hold the promise of a giant monster battle and more Ashley Johnson! Thursday can’t come soon enough.

Episode 10 review. Here, take it!