The Legend of Vox Machina Season 4 Episodes 1-3 review: a strong, darker return

The Legend of Vox Machina Season 4 landed on Prime Video on June 3 with a three-episode premiere. A year has passed since the Chroma Conclave's defeat, and the season opens by asking whether these characters can actually live without each other — or without adventure at all.

The first three episodes spend real time on the state of Exandria post-dragon. Vox Machina saved the world, but not everyone in it — towns are ruined, people died, and the show doesn't let the team off the hook for that. Into that vacuum has grown a cult promising immortality and an end to the old order, worshipping a figure called the Whispered One. Critical Role and D&D fans will likely clock the identity immediately, but the show keeps it deliberately vague for now. As antagonists go, the cult is a fresh threat — no giant monsters, just true believers who are very hard to kill. Visually the show remains excellent: vibrant, dynamic action that stays easy to follow even in busy sequences. One underwhelming CGI creature in the premiere is the only real stumble.

Scanlan Shorthalt's absence is felt, but the show fills that chaotic comic-relief gap with Taryon Darrington — a wealthy Vox Machina fanboy who fancies himself an adventurer and travels with a robot biographer. Wayne Brady plays him with an improvised energy, like Taryon is actively refusing to follow the script. You can see Scanlan's DNA in the character, but Taryon is clearly his own thing with his own story threads. The standout arc in these episodes belongs to Pike, the gnome cleric still reeling from her crisis of faith last season and from Scanlan walking away. These three episodes find her at her lowest, questioning whether the team has done any real good at all.

Season 3 made bold changes to the source material, and Season 4 is already paying that off with more compelling individual stories. Characters like Vex are openly pondering fate, and Pike's trajectory hints that the show is willing to break from what happened in the original web series entirely. It's a confident, darker start to what looks like the most ambitious season yet.