The Legend of Vox Machina – Season 2 Episode 4 “Those Who Walk Away” Recap & Review

Those Who Walk Away

In The Legend of Vox Machina Season 2 Episode 4, Vax rescues Vex from bandits. While escaping, they come across a bear that has been brutally tortured. After Vax ends its suffering, Vex takes its cub (Trinket) and insists they take him with them.

In the present day, Zahra and Kash find Vox Machina standing over Vex’s dead body. Kash starts a revival ritual. But as they are inside the Raven Matron’s temple, the spell doesn’t work.

Vax sees the Matron of Ravens come for Vex. Her spirit is tied to Vax, but it rises to meet the Raven Queen. Vax cries out for her to take him instead, and the hooded figure turns to him. She severs the cord connecting the twins and leaves.

Suddenly, Vex breathes again. Everyone thanks Kash for saving her, not knowing what went on with Vax and the Raven Queen. But when they turn to Vax, he’s wearing the vestige. Zahra and Kash still plan on taking the vestige, but they first need to come up with a plan.

Leaving the temple, Vax hears whispers as he observes paintings of The Calamity. When he turns around, he sees visions of a battle. 

Zahra decides to try to best Vox Machina by releasing a tentacled creature from her locket and sending it after them. While fighting it, Vex has a vision of Emon. In it, a skeletal soldier comes after him. It’s Purvan Suul.

Kash doesn’t feel good about Zahra’s plan. When he steps in to help Vox Machina against the creature, Zahra gives in. She decides to recapture the beast in her locket, but he grapples and paralyzes her before she can.

It paralyzes both Pike and Scanlan, then Trinket. Meanwhile, Vax stays motionless as he battles the skeletal soldier in his trance. He briefly sees a vision of a young Vex. “Whatever happens,” she tells him, “it’s out of our control.”

When the soldier comes at him again, Vax closes his eyes and waits for the blow. But when his blow does nothing to Vax, he kneels before him. “Hail the new champion,” says Purvan Suul.

The Raven Queen then appears, branding the vestige with magic light. Vax then wakes up with new powers and a quickness he wields against the creature. Only he and Kash are left now, so Vax fights the creature while Kash works on saving the others from paralysis.

The others watch on as Vax delivers a killing blow to the beast’s eye. Vex then turns on Zahra and Kash for disappearing when the creature showed up. Zahra says they didn’t want a vestige falling into the wrong hands. But she now realizes they are worthy.

When they get out of the temple, Percy tries to apologize to Vax, whose only answer is to punch him.

Zahra and Kash tell Vox Machina they’ve misjudged them. Zahra gives Vex her necklace, a locket that can keep a creature tucked away in a pocket domain. She likes the idea of keeping her bear Trinket in it so she can keep him safe.

Vax has another vision, this time of a shed. In it, the Raven Queen looms over a dying man. Vax tries to back away, but a cord of light binds him to the scene. When he turns around, he’s facing his own skeletal body.

Vex approaches him and confronts him for acting strange. He tells her how he begged the Matron to take him instead of her. Vex doesn’t know what it means, but knows they will figure it out.

Meanwhile, a woman scries on the twins just outside of the burning city of Westruun, recently ravaged by the dragons.

The Episode Review

“Those Who Walk Away” may be the darkest installment in the season yet. Although the dynamics of Vex’s and Vax’s relationship weren’t as well-established in the last episode as I would have liked, this episode ramps up our emotional connection to these characters significantly. Vex truly becomes not just Vax’s twin, but his reason for living–which just makes his sacrifice for her all the more incredibly moving.

It’s not entirely clear yet what being the champion of the Matron of Ravens means. But it looks like Vax is in for an upheaval of his entire life as he knew it. How will this affect him–and Vox Machina as a whole–moving forward?