The following story contains major spoilers for The Legend of Vox Machina Season 3 Episodes 1-3, currently streaming on Prime Video.
The Legend of Vox Machina‘s third season is here! On Thursday, the show debuted on Prime Video with the first three of 12 episodes — and while fans delighted in the series returning, longtime audiences of the show and the original TTRPG campaign on which the show is based were excited to be served some very special scenes…ones that even the cast themselves were excited to include.
“That was on my list of things that we absolutely have to have in the show, you know what I mean?” Laura Bailey told TV Insider, referring to her character Vex’ahlia’s infamous moment of greeting Percy (Taliesin Jaffe) by opening the door naked when he comes to visit her room in Whitestone. Of course, the moment happens in the wake of both characters starting to explore their feelings towards each other.
“We would’ve been murdered without it,” Jaffe adds with a laugh. “Well, I would have murdered without it!”
The first three episodes laid the groundwork for the story arc of the season, while also teasing exactly how much emphasis would be placed on inter-party relationships. (Spoiler alert: a lot!) And Vex and Percy’s relationship isn’t the only one getting a spotlight in Season 3, or the only one that gets a late-night visit in Whitestone during Episode 3, appropriately titled “Vexations.” While the half-elf ranger and gunslinger finally take their attraction to the next level — “It’s steamy! It’s really steamy!” Bailey proclaims and if you’ve watched the episodes, you’ll agree — Keyleth (Marisha Ray) and Vax’ildan (Liam O’Brien) display a similar emotional journey as they come to terms with their attraction and what that means for their characters and the baggage they carry.
Unlike Percy and Vex, however, there’s no steaminess between them. While Keyleth is finally ready to go all in for Vax, he’s haunted by the visions from the Raven Queen where he knows she’ll outlive both him and everyone she knows — and his fear of not being able to always be there for her pushes him to tell Keyleth they can’t be together, despite the fact his actions might have shown otherwise (the pair finally kissed in the first episode).
In the campaign, Vax and Keyleth have more of a slow-burn romance. It’s one that plays out over 115 episodes and shows the ups and downs of learning how to accept love and face the future. But with only 12 episodes in a season (and lots of other story to tackle), the cast was tasked with finding a way to show relationship growth that felt complete without cutting corners. The solution came by way of Vex and Percy and making both relationships a significant part of the season. As O’Brien points out about some scenes in Episode 3, “Animation literally puts them side by side for you to compare and contrast.”
“Everything about hindsight and pacing was really a lot of, you know…obviously, Keyleth and Vax kind of have a bubbling, kind of slow-paced romance over the entire campaign,” says Ray. “But when you have more limited time, some things need to move quicker or slower, especially when it’s being mirrored with how different Percy and Vex’s relationship is. So where things might have happened more in chunks in the campaign, you can kind of go back and forth and use it to highlight how in very different places each of these couples and really all the individual characters are.”
With just three episodes, The Legend of Vox Machina has already set the bar high for its current season. And things are just getting started.
The Legend of Vox Machina, Season 3, Prime Video
More Headlines:
‘The Legend of Vox Machina’ Cast Breaks Down THAT ‘Really Steamy’ Fan-Favorite Scene‘Abbott Elementary’ Crossover Revealed as ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ Stars Visit Set (PHOTOS)Garth Brooks Accused of Raping His & Wife Trisha Yearwood’s Makeup Artist‘Celebrity Wheel of Fortune’: Pat Sajak’s Final Season Contestants RevealedEminem Reveals Daughter Hailie Jade’s Pregnancy in New Music Video