The Legend of Vox Machina: The Ascension (4x12)

The season went so fast, as usual!

Cons:

One thing I've noticed about myself watching this show is that I don't really like stories about fate, because like... I don't believe in fate in the real world, and even in a fantasy setting it is something that tends to either remove agency from the characters for their choices, or just becomes like this inexorable battering ram that makes the ultimate outcomes feel inevitable no matter what anybody does. I wouldn't say this show goes as far as doing that, it's not that serious, but... I still find myself squirming in discomfort over the idea that Vax was fated to die killing the Whispered One, and then Keyleth says "fuck fate" and that's like... a literal mechanism within the story. It's hard to explain it entirely, but I guess where I'm going is that in the campaign originally, Vax's death at the hands of the Whispered One was more or less random happenstance during a combat, and the fate/inevitability angle is more about the fact that the Matron of Ravens doesn't like people thwarting death entirely, right? Like, Vax dies because he's killed in combat, and he comes back because the Matron grants him temporary reprieve, both unwilling and unable to fully return his life to him. Here, it's murkier because the Whispered One literally says "if you do this, you'll die" to Vax, like it really is this destiny that you can't fuck with. And that's just not as interesting of a story to me, personally?

Also, I really wish the blight had just been gone after he expended his powers on that final push to kill Gideon during his ascension. It was weird to me that it was there and was still going to kill him without the elixir Keyleth made. What, then, was the Matron up to? She was trying to give him a power-up but also she was cool with him dying even if he didn't kill the Whispered One? Again, it's just murky to me. I really thought the second we saw that the blight was the power-up, it had ceased to be a thing that would kill Vax imminently. But whatever.

I do like the fact that Grog is the one to make Pike see reason, but I also felt like her return to the "good side" was a bit anticlimactic. Grog makes some good points about why you can't trust someone like the Whispered One. But what does not get addressed is all of Pike's very serious hurt feelings over abandonment and the way Vox Machina has failed those they've tried to save in the past. None of that is resolved, and I hope it does get talked about more in season five. Someone commented on my last review and pointed out that actually, Pike and Grog were the only members of Vox Machina who weren't helping the world during their year apart: everybody else was working to make the world a better place, even Scanlan was offering entertainment and a place to form community. This is one of those things where I can't tell if I'm pointing out real flaws, or intentional threads that will be wrapped up better in the final season. So. We shall have to see.

Pros:

I liked this finale, though! One thing I want to talk about is Keyleth's arc this season. It's something I haven't paid a ton of attention to in these reviews as of yet. The start of the season is Keyleth completing her Aramente and becoming the Voice of the Tempest. But after that, her arc is being really, really, really scared that Vax is going to die. And I honestly kind of love the fact that she starts the season taking on this mantle to be a leader, and ends the season on her knees, willing to bend to the will of an evil god to save Vax's life. Parallel that with her refusal to let the Kraken through the portal even though it offered to save Vax if she did! She's lost sight of something throughout the season. And I'm not saying giving Vax up is the right choice, I don't know if I love that as a theme set-up when Grog says it to Pike either, but it's interesting to see Keyleth become frightened enough to narrow her focus, just after she comes into her power as a leader. I'm really excited for the final season, because I really do think this show understands Keyleth very well. There were times in the earlier seasons when I doubted that, but not anymore.

I'm a broken record but we must once again delight in all the little details that happen in the combat with characters saving each other and having each other's backs... Pike showing up like a bad-ass, Keyleth charging up with Mythcarver to deal the killing blow... the moment when Vax yoinks Percy out of the way of danger... I just love all the combo moves, how they all work together.

And because I love me some angst, I cannot pretend I don't loooove to see Grog and Pike and Percy and Vex and Keyleth all kneeling to the Whispered One, in full view of the world, to save Vax. Like, they really are the insular, co-dependent, fucked up D&D party of my dreams. They want to save the world, but Pike wasn't wrong when she accused them of putting their family first. I very much dig that they all make that choice, and that Vax makes a different choice and dies in defiance. As I said above, I do like the overall theme better if Vax dies kind of randomly, but I can't knock the effectiveness of this scene on an emotional level, either.

It felt so nostalgic and fun and bad-ass to have a proper villain monologue from the Whispered One. He has them all frozen and he just goes off about how he needed one of them to kill him, I guess because it's twisted up in their fates from way back in season one when Delilah tried to do the ritual before, and also I guess because they had the Vestige... and that he manipulated Tary as a pawn to reunite them all in order to get what he needed for his ascension. It's so goofy but in a sinister way, it's a proper villain speech and Andy Serkis sounds sooooo cool. I love the design for the Whispered One, it does not disappoint. I also wonder if the fact that Scanlan did not join back up with them is going to be a significant factor in season five. After all, if the Whispered One had this evil plan and it involved reuniting all of Vox Machina, then... he failed, did he not? One living member of Vox Machina has never bent the knee to the Whispered One, after all. Two, if you count Tary. Sam characters unite!

I do love how dire and depressing this is as an ending to a season of television. It's where I kind of expected the season cliffhanger to go, right with Vax disintegrating in front of our eyes. The road we took to get there was very odd and a lot of things did not line up for me. I'm so thrilled in theory to have a Pike-centric season, which I think it's fair to say this was, but I had so many issues with the execution of that. Same with dealing with Vax's whole thing. The fact that Pike and Vax didn't have a single conversation to tease out the distinctions in how they feel about their respective gods... huge missed opportunity that causes real issues for me as a viewer trying to understand this theme. But all that said... there were some truly bad-ass moments in this season, and I do like the overall darker tone. I am an angst fiend!

Some friends and I are slowly doing a watch-through of this show, and I'm wondering how I'll feel about all this by the time we get back to this season for a re-watch. I'm excited to see how my opinion shifts, too, once we have season five!

8/10