The Critical Role of not Spoiling Your Friends

This blog post does not contain spoilers of any kind.

This week’s blog post was originally going to be a follow-up to my Riverdale post.

However, another show I watch has plagued my thoughts and emotions for this past week.

If you watch Geek and Sundry’s D&D web series, Critical Role, you know that show is so much more than what it says on the tin. Also, if you are up to date, you probably know why I haven’t been able to shake out of this vague emotional stupor.

This blog post isn’t about what’s going on in Critical Role right now, though. Not really, at least…

Because Rachel hasn’t watched it yet.

Now, okay. If you’re not familiar with Critical Role, I should brief you.

Critical Role is a show where a bunch of nerdy-ass voice actors sit around, roll dice, and play Dungeons and Dragons. It’s seriously great. A little less than two years ago, they transferred their home game to the Geek and Sundry Twitch and YouTube channels. They’ve been playing weekly ever since.

You should really give it a shot if you think it might be your thing. (The early episodes are rougher around the edges audio/visual-wise, but they get much better.) The players breathe an astonishing amount of life into their characters, led by their Dungeon Master (Matthew Mercer), who has to be one of the most talented storytellers ever.

The thing is, Critical Role is a bit of a time sink. Don’t get me wrong, it’s totally worth it. It’s just a pretty big commitment. Especially considering each episode is at least 3 hours long, and they’re having their 100th episode this Thursday.

It’s understandably daunting, especially if you don’t have a lot of free time in the first place. I caught up when they had less episodes archived, but Rachel is super busy, and super behind.

Anyway, I try not to bug her too much about it. I totally get it, and I don’t expect her to put things she wants to consume aside, just to fulfill my request.

I really can’t wait for her to watch it, though. Rachel and I talk about everything together. One of our favorite things to do is discuss the things we watch. Our hope is that she can start to watch at some point, and we can do some sort of series either on this blog, or our podcast, but who knows when/if that’s going to happen.

There’s so much I want to say to her about it, and there’s so much I want to hear her thoughts on. I mean, my brother watches Critical Role, but it’s just not the same as talking to Rachel.

So, I have all of these thoughts bubbling up inside of me, with no exit. Not to mention the fact that if/when she starts watching the show, I’ll have to be SO CAREFUL because of the potential for major spoilers.

This brings me to my questions this week.

Have you ever had to wait for your friends to catch up on a show? Agonized over not being able to discuss it with them? How did you get through it? And how did you keep from giving anything away, and spoiling them?

I remember when Game of Thrones aired the Red Wedding. Rachel watched if before I did. She did a great job of keeping it from me, but she didn’t have to wait very long.

I guess I’ll just keep hoping that one day, Ray will have the spare time to give to watching Critical Role. Until then, I’ll have to keep crying to my older brother.

My favorite set of dice

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