The 2024 TV schedule is quite literally heating up when it comes to The Legends of Vox Machina’s third season, as the crew of unlikely heroes is facing a massive red dragon with a lot of reasons to want them dead. The Prime Video series will return after its longest hiatus to date, and fans had little more to go on than brief clips and speculation based on the source material for months. Now, though, a full trailer for Season 3 has been released, and I’m excited about what I saw in it… but also worried about who’s missing from some of the trailer’s biggest moments.
Let's break it down.
The Legends Of Vox Machina Season 3
For full disclosure – I didn’t discover The Legend of Vox Machina until earlier this year, when I was in the mood for a fantastical break from the crime dramas and procedurals that I regularly cover for CinemaBlend. I wasn’t at all familiar with Critical Role prior to watching the series, and to date most of what I know about Dungeons & Dragons comes from what I picked up watching Stranger Things. But discovering Vox Machina relatively recently means it's all pretty fresh to me.
While I’ve seen some clips here and there from the D&D campaign that inspired the series, I have no idea what the source materials states will happen next after Vox Machina defeated the dragon Umbrasyl, encountered Raishan in Whitestone, and the tease of what Thordak is planning from the Season 2 finale. My slate is about as blank as possible in an era of social media and algorithms.
Basically, all I have is speculation without spoilers for what’s coming in Season 3 based on the new trailer, and the trailer has me concerned. In case you’ve missed it, take a look below:
Of course, all seven members of Vox Machina – Vex, Vax, Percy, Keyleth, Grog, Pike, and Scanlan – do appear in the trailer, so my concern isn’t as major as somebody being missing altogether, and it actually took me a second watch to realize what felt out of place amidst all of the cool visuals and Keyleth and Vax kissing. It looks like when the team goes to hell, a couple members won’t be with them.
What's Happening In Hell?
First things first! While trailers are of course cut to hook viewers without giving away all the plot details or even the order in which events happen, it's easy enough to connect from the trailer that five members of the team go to hell: Keyleth, Vax, Grog, Scanlan, and a very unwell-looking Pike. (Also, shout out to what appears to be a cameo of Critical Role DM and prolific voice actor Matt Mercer around the 0:28 minute mark.)
It looks like those five will face a formidable creature (that I would possibly be able to identify if I was familiar with D&D), sit in some surprisingly plush chairs, and probably end up worse for the wear after facing some other hellish monsters. There seems to be a whole lot of action going on in the scenes that are clearly set in hell... but not a whole lot of Vex or Percy.
In fact, no Vex or Percy.
So, Where Are Vex And Percy?
The good news is that there is a fair amount of both characters in the trailer, and most of their appearances in non-full group scenes are with each other. They also seem to be spending some time in more of an icy locale than the hell of the rest of their team. As a fan of Percy and Vex together from the first two seasons, I'm all for it... but it's hard to just celebrate the pair hugging when something probably went seriously wrong right beforehand, for example. Am I supposed to just ignore Vex's "No!" followed by what appears to be Grog as a pallbearer to a casket?
I'm actually guessing that Vex is safe from being killed in Season 3, since her death was given such weight in Season 2, but that's certainly not a guarantee. After Ripley's brief moment in the in Season 3 opening and the fact that – bless them – Percy and Vex aren't exactly magical or healing powerhouses, I have to worry about what they'll run into while the other five (including both of the members with healing ability) are in hell. That's if something hadn't already gone wrong for them that they weren't with the others!
A brief moment in the trailer does suggest that they might not just be on their own when the others are seemingly battling demons. Around the 1:15 minute mark, Percy and Vex can be seen fleeing from Vorugal's ice beam alongside Lady Allura and Kima. Given that another shot in the trailer (around 0:30) shows Scanlan removing a jacket in hell, is this a sign that Percy, Vex, Allura, and Kima stayed behind for Operation: Kill Vorugal while the other five went on Mission: Hell?
It seems like a bit of a stretch to imagine deliberately splitting the party when there's an ice dragon to fight, so my hypothetical timeline might be a bit off. After all, Vox Machina barely took Umbrasyl down when all seven of them were in the fight together.
Am I Totally Overthinking This?
For all I know, The Legend of Vox Machina will prove all of my speculation wrong within the first three episodes, and the campaign source material from Critical Role would surely yield some answers if I wanted to search for spoilers. It's just fun to speculate at this point, and would the series really be exciting to watch if it didn't feel like there was usually something to worry about? There are at least a few things I'm 100% confident of: the music is going to be fantastic, the visuals look great, and I really want to see the context of that Percy/Vex hug.
Like the first two seasons, Season 3 will consist of twelve episodes and release three episodes at a time. The premiere will become available on Thursday, October 3 for fans with Amazon Prime Video subscriptions. It remains to be seen if The Legend of Vox Machina will rank among the best Prime Video shows or even best animated shows when all is said and done in the third season, but I'm certainly looking forward to whatever is on the way... whether any of my speculation is correct or not.
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