The Legend of Vox Machina – Season 2 Episode 6 “Into Rimecleft” Recap & Review

Into Rimecleft

In The Legend of Vox Machina Season 2 Episode 6, Grog dreams that his sword is compelling him to kill his friends. When he turns around, another goliath is telling him he’s made the Herd proud. He wakes up gasping for breath.

On the party’s way to the sphinx, his blade tells him he still hungers. Pike asks Scanlan if Grog has been acting strange. Scanlan just makes a sexual joke about the situation, and Pike berates him for never being genuine. Pike asks Grog about his blade, but he evades her questions.

Keyleth asks Vax if he’s getting used to the armor. She wonders if he could ask the Raven Queen for help, but he doubts it. Off yonder, a creature watches the party’s trek.

Eventually, they make it to Rimecleft, the place Vax saw in his vision. They find an obelisk surrounded by skeletons and covered in ancient runes telling them to flee this land.

Vex flies up on her broom and finds a hidden entrance. They enter an old temple built before the divergence.

The sphinx comes out to attack them until they inform him Osysa sent them. Kamaljiuri says they must prove their worth before they can get the information they want. He gives them several challenges, and they choose one: wound him.

Suddenly, they find themselves in another dimension. Each of them will have the opportunity to wound him in a one-on-one battle. First up is Vax, who is almost immediately defeated. The sphinx tells him Vax lives, but he’ll fall in the void forever unless one of them succeeds.

Grog’s sword tells him to feed him, or he will feed himself. It then starts to suck strength from Grog’s body. To try and appease it, Grog gives the sword some of his own blood.

Vex fails, then Grog tries to go at the sphinx with his blade. He’s no threat, however. The sphinx only tells him he doesn’t know where his strength comes from.

Scanlan thinks there must be another way to hurt the creature, but the rest of them decide to all strike at once. Percy, Keyleth, and Pike all fall.

Only Scanlan is left. “All jokes and no heart,” Kamaljiori tells him. So Scanlan tries for once to be sincere, as Pike wished. He starts singing a song to highlight the hole in Kamaljiuri’s heart from missing Osysa.

“You have done what no other has before,” Kamaljiuri tells him following his song, a tear streaming from his face. He believes Scanlan to be wise for a mortal. He must be someone who knows true love in his life.

“I have no one,” Scanlan admits. He wants love, but he can never get it right. The sphinx then advises him to let love find him.

The rest of the party wakes up to find Scanlan has saved them all and gained the good opinion of Kamaljiuri. He then shows them the vestige Mythcarver. It’s connected to all myths and legends, including the other vestiges.

The Mythcarver shows him a vision of a place that looks like the Fey Realm. There is another vestige in a tree: a bow. It then shows him a city of goliaths that’s been invaded. One of them has a glowing gauntlet, which Grog immediately recognizes.

Suddenly the ground shakes, and Vex’s head starts to hurt. They’ve been followed by Umbrasyl. He tells them “the woman” was right. They have vestiges, and he wants them.

The sphinx helps them in their fight, but Umbrasyl takes Scanlan and the Mythbreaker and starts flying away. Kamaljiuri goes after him. He attacks the dragon; Scanlan and the sword fall. The dragon catches Scanlan, but barrels into the ground and becomes badly hurt.

Kamaljiuri thanks him for showing him Osysa one last time. The dying sphinx then closes his eyes, while the dragon returns to grab the vestige.

“I hunger,” Grog’s sword whispers as its holder’s eyes glow red. He fights Umbrasyl as the others look for a way out. Keyleth begins to make a portal out of there, and Pike tries to get Grog to leave with them, but he’s consumed by bloodlust.

When Pike gets in front of him, he stabs her with his blade and she falls unconscious. He’s finally taken out of his reverie and carries her to the portal. Keyleth doesn’t have enough time to finish the spell, so she casts it early. Keyleth, Vex, Percy, and Vax arrive in what looks like the Fey Realm–without Pike, Grog, and Scanlan.

The Episode Review

One of the biggest critiques lobbied against The Legend of Vox Machina is the show’s at-times juvenile sense of humor. To an extent, I get it. It’s not everyone’s forte to be bombarded by sex jokes and pop numbers while watching an epic fantasy.

I’m of the mind, however, that this show’s unique brand of comedy writing makes the fantasy adventure no less epic. And when Scanlan breaks into song in front of Kamaljiuri while the lives of his friends hang in the balance (which is so Scanlan of him), I couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of the situation. The scenario works not only to comically break up the serious atmosphere and provide unlikely hope in a dire place–it’s also a huge breakthrough for Scanlan’s character.

I hope that, as we dig more into Scanlan’s failure to embrace sincerity, the show doesn’t lose sight of the fun-loving nature of the bard. He may get a second chance to prove to Pike that sincerity and silliness can coexist–as long as he can learn to be vulnerable. If Pike survives, that is. The poor cleric–getting hurt because, out of the entire party, she cared the most for her friend.