The Mighty Nein: The Zadash Job (1x08)

God damn, that was some incredible fight animation! So much going on here.

Cons:

Broken record, but yeah, now that I've seen the shape of this first season and how Essek was deployed as a character, I really would have done things differently. I kind of wish he'd been a presence this season in a way more similar to how Yasha was. Like, we see him, we get these glimpses, he shows up out of nowhere during a climactic moment to play keep-away with the beacon. Imagine if Trent saying "Essek?" was the first time we'd realized that they had a preexisting relationship. Imagine if we knew Trent had an off-screen conspirator in the Dynasty, and this was how we found out who it was. (By "we" I mean show-only watchers, of course.) This is all to say, Essek going after the beacon, failing to get it, and ending up seemingly in Trent's hands at the end of the season maybe would have worked better for me with a different arc for his character this season. I'm less frustrated than I was at some earlier points, but still not 100% sold on how they decided to do this.

The Mighty Nein: Belonging (1x07)

I really, really liked this episode, it is maybe my favorite of this season, to my surprise!

Cons:

I'm much less intrigued by the machinations of Trent Ikithon than I think they want me to be. He's just kind of a bog-standard villain in a lot of ways. Power hungry and pure evil. Whenever we spend time on him and who he's working with, who he's betraying, my eyes kind of glaze over. I think it's most interesting when we see the interplay between him and the Volstruckers, and we didn't really get that here.

The Mighty Nein: Many Gifts (1x06)

Okay, I have some Things to Say.

Cons:

At this point I just feel so... frustrated and unhappy with all the Essek stuff. I've been trying to fight this feeling, but so much of what made him interesting, structurally, in the campaign has been thrown out entirely in order to give him more of a main character arc. I think it makes him seem more sympathetic and also way more stupid. Seeing Trent influence him so easily, seeing him do his magic math on the chalkboard and then leaving that work when he leaves the room, and the Beacon, in the hands of the Volstruckers? Like, here we are in the first season, still very far away from Essek meeting the rest of the gang, and Verrat has... discovered Essek is a traitor? So, I guess the entire way Essek gets integrated into the story is completely out the window at this point. We're not going to see the Mighty Nein realize he's a traitor, as he's not going to be assigned to them by the Bright Queen. Or at least I assume not. I don't know, this feels dangerously like someone griping because they don't like change, but I promise it's not that. I'm not going to complain about the Yasha changes, for example. Big drastic changes to story can be great. But this version of Essek seems like a naive little baby who just stumbles into war crimes, and that's... not Essek Thelyss, to me. He is the weakest part of this adaptation to animated form so far, and he was one of the things I was the most excited to see.

The Mighty Nein: Little Spark (1x05)

Caleb, the epitome of a poor little meow meow. A lot of stuff in this episode hurt my feelings in the best way.

Cons:

So, I did love this episode, but in a weird way I'm coming to the conclusion that this show is suffering from comparison with the stream more than TLOVM did. By that I don't mean it's worse than the other show, but that my preexisting knowledge of stuff is getting in the way of the experience in some moments, in a way I wasn't expecting. The main way I see this function is in how the "reveals" manifest. I complained already about the Essek thing in the show so far, how the big "holy shit" moment of revealing his treachery is blunted by following along with his story. Now, here, something a little different is going on. See, since we started off with SO much information and focus on Trent Ikithon and the Volstruckers, I thought, wow, this is going to be such an intense and interesting reveal when the other members of the group find out that Caleb is a Volstrucker. When the audience finds it out. I felt like I knew how it would go down. That in a combat moment when shit was going wild, some of the bandaging on Caleb's arm would slip, and we'd see it: scars in a telltale pattern, the same as what we see on Owelia, Astrid, and Eadwulf. Everyone will gasp, as the truth washes over them in a singular moment of understanding.

The Mighty Nein: The Mighty Nein (1x04)

The gang's all here, y'all! Well, not all, but we're getting there.

Cons:

I've seen a lot of people feeling upset or even just ambivalent about Essek's characterization so far, and I have to admit that, yeah, I do have some real concerns about how this is shaking out so far. For one thing, him spilling the beans to Trent about his mother is just like... how stupid are you? I could buy the idea that over a long period of time, Trent sort of tricks Essek into revealing hints about his mother, as Trent feeds on his loneliness. But this was just like... my dude, what part of Trent Ikithon's whole deal makes you think you can trust him? Why are you confiding in him like this?

The Mighty Nein: The Fletchling & Moondrop Traveling Carnival of Curiosities (1x03)

That was a lot of fun! And the gang is (almost) all together now!

Cons:

The same aesthetic comments I made in the last review still stand, of course, but by and large I think this episode was my favorite of the first three!

Still in the category of questioning/wondering, I'm very curious as to what the implications will be for Caleb that this inciting incident that brings the group together was sort of caused by him? Like, he wanted to steal the bugs for magic, and that's what let the devil toad off leash, so to speak. Obviously Beau and Nott were also involved in things going bad, but I'm just curious about this as a character beat. I don't have strong positive or negative feelings about it yet, I just hope the implications are explored in a satisfying way.

The Mighty Nein: Who Will You Be (1x02)

Let's dive in! I'm still having a lot of fun but also I'm wondering about a few things... I wonder if I'm just being nitpicky or if other people agree with any of my comments in the "cons" section.

Cons:

I have a lot of... what I guess I'll call aesthetic objections? The show looks great, and a lot of this is a matter of preference, but there are a few things that I know aren't a big deal end of the day, and yet I definitely noticed them so I want to point them out.

The Mighty Nein: Mote of Possibility (1x01)

We're here! I'm going to start this review with the big caveat that my memory of campaign two of Critical Role is shaky as fuck. Like. With the Vox Machina stuff I was frequently making comparisons between the stream and the show, and here I'm going to try to do less of that because a) I don't remember what order shit is supposed to happen in, and b) I understand that this adaptation is going to be a lot looser about a lot of stuff. That said, same with Vox Machina, if there are particular moments or character beats that I remember and I have a comment about how they've adapted it, I'm going to say something! Let's dive into our first episode. I'm soooo hype for this, y'all.