When we finally leave, six of them have been jailed after a circus disaster in which Mollymock’s entire carnival troupe is killed, as they and some guests are transformed into monsters. Angry at each other for their plight, the imprisoned group decide to protest together and prove their innocence by rescuing Toya, the young elf singer under Kylar’s control who was responsible for the previous night’s massacre. Like the opening episode of the actual drama, the party finds Toya under her control and the two have to separate.
But unlike the said actual game, they are only half successful here. While the fighters finish off Kylere, Jester and Nott are unable to save Toya and she dies. They cremated him that night, the loss clearly affecting each of them. It’s a sobering conclusion to the campaign’s early stages and shows how the creators wanted this animated adaptation to respect its live show counterpart and differ from its animated predecessor, Vox Machina,
Voice actor Matt Mercer told io9 that such changes stem from “re-looking at the logic and intent” of the arcs and sequences from which the show is drawing. Since the circus is where the Mighty Nine came together, it seemed appropriate to put them in a situation where “the danger and loss are even more impressive.”
A darker tone was always the “intent right out of the gate” Neen, And he’s glad he got to do so, especially because the longer episode lengths give him time to “lean into the series’ tone shift”. Future episodes will lean further into that darkness, which was part of showrunner Tasha Huo’s original pitch. As a self-proclaimed fan of the campaign, she already knew that the characters would go to “dark places” and the “risks” they took to create the show, so its tone wasn’t one of them – IIn fact, the creators felt the same way as him about making it tonally specific, further underscoring how much this is the show they wanted to make.
To say that many of Critical Role’s founders are involved with the two shows would be an understatement: as well as voicing the main (and some minor) characters, they executive produce and write them. The episode is titled “The Mighty Nine”. Co-written by Knut and Fjord’s voice actors, Sam Riggle and Travis Willingham, who also wrote episodes for Vox Machina, As are Marisha Ray (Beau) and Liam O’Brien (Caleb). And if there’s any episode this season where the cast will take charge and pen the exploits of the titular adventure party, it’ll definitely be this one, where it begins with the Jesters collectively dubbing them “The Sensual Seven” and ends with them giving them their official branding.
During our interview, Willingham said that any writer can take any episode they have a “really strong point of view on” and push it forward, with the Critical Role team then providing input on their characters after seeing the entire script. Ray likes all scripts and writers collected, but said scripts written by artists often say something – a character has that “extra X-factor” that tells you who was behind them, from the character’s dialogue choices to having a few more jokes than usual.
Riegel explained that it made sense for him to “take the reins of specific plot points or storylines, we were there when they were invented and refined.” While not all of the founders have “the time and energy” to tackle an episode, they hope that when all of these shows take off, everyone will have “a script or two” to their name.
But it will take some time, like The Mighty Nine Its first season is about to end on Prime Video, followed by a season two in the near future.
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