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Spoilers for The Legend of Vox Machina seasons 3 & 4 follow.

Possibly the most well-loved episode of Critical Role's The Legend of Vox Machina season 4 was De Rolo's Eleven, the chapter in which the titular crew of fantasy heroes must sneak into a highly guarded station and remove a magical artifact. Written by OG Rolers Marisha Ray and Liam O'Brien, you might think that the action-and-humor-packed episode was one of the more fun to write. But the way Ray tells it - that's very much not the case.

Ray was recently a guest at a live taping of Collider Ladies Night along with costars Laura Bailey and Ashley Johnson, plus host Perri Nemiroff. At one point in the discussion, Ray revealed that she and co-writer O'Brien had really been looking forward to writing De Rolo's Eleven, especially after she came off writing duties for a Legend of Vox Machina season 3 episode she never wanted to touch.

"In season three," Ray explained, "I was like, 'I will write any episode, I just don't want to be responsible for the one where Percy dies.' Then that's the one they gave me. [...] So I wrote that, and I was fine, and I lived. It wasn't horrible, apparently, because I came back into season 4."

What was waiting for her, though, wasn't an episode she was dreading.

"This one was the opposite," The Mighty Nein's Beau continued, "Liam and I kept being like, 'Writing a heist would be so cool!' You're making puzzles and figuring shit out. Then we got in it, and we were like, 'Oh, we hate this. Oh, this is so hard.'" 

"You've got to be like smarter than the plot," said Ray, to a smattering of laughter from the audience, "You're going to be have to be really intelligent about it and make up problems that you then have to solve. It was a goddamn nightmare."

That said, Ray considers their joint efforts a success, saying that, "We did it, and it's great. It's a really good episode," although she's had her fill with the stealiest of genres.

"No more heists," Ray concluded, "I did it. I crossed it off my list. I don't need to write one ever again."

With two animated series on Prime Video, Campaign 4 in full swing, and so much more Exandrian lore to come, Critical Role is showing no signs of slowing down. That's why the adventuring party at Popverse are here to bring you everything we can from those nerdy-ass voice actors & Bo., including:

• Critical Role release schedule
• Critical Role's Campaign 4 characters ranked
• How to watch Critical Role in order
• Ways for you to relive the Critical Role panel from ECCC '26
• Taliesin Jaffe on playing Mollymauk Tealeaf for Campaign 2 vs. playing him for Prime Video
• Matt Mercer's homebrew warrior class (created originally for Vin Diesel)

...and much, much more. Roll initiative, player. Magic awaits.