I was hooked by Campaign 4 of Critical Role after only the first episode. It delivers everything I enjoy: layered lore I’m still unpacking, a Dungeon Master who clearly reveres the setting, and a cast of characters I already feel invested in. Among them, surprisingly and delightfully, is the wild card of the 13-player ensemble — Sir Julien Davinos, portrayed by Matthew Mercer.
Editor’s note: spoilers for the ending of Critical Role Campaign 4, Episode 1 follow.
Campaign 4 already distinguishes itself from prior seasons. For starters, Brennan Lee Mulligan takes the DM chair for this arc, which frees longtime DM and voice actor Matthew Mercer to step into play as a character. That’s not Mercer’s first time guest-starring — he’s appeared in Dimension 20 and in Exandria Unlimited (as Dariax Zaveon) — but seeing him fully inhabit a PC for a long-form campaign is a novel shift.
As a player, Mercer brings the same craft he applies to dungeon mastering: a keen sense of pacing and a deft balance between roleplay, narrative, exploration, and combat. His previous turn as Dariax showed a character who was affable, helpful, and ready to get violent when needed. Julien Davinos, by contrast, is a carefully unpleasant sort of presence — smug, abrasive, and frequently reprehensible, though rendered with a performance that’s oddly magnetic.
Julien arrives at Thjazi Fang’s wake representing House Davinos, accompanied by his childhood friend Lady Aranessa of House Royce. From the premiere we learn House Davinos is vassal to Royce — and it appears Julien’s family reputation suffered after siding with Thjazi during the Falconer’s Rebellion. Given that the rebellion failed and the Sundered Houses emerged stronger, anyone aligned with Thjazi likely faced severe consequences. That context helps explain Julien’s hostility toward Thjazi and why he was instrumental in bringing him to account: he’s trying to repair his family’s standing.
Julien’s presence at the wake is intentionally provocative. He struts through the gathering, openly contemptuous of the deceased, and already holds leverage over at least two party members — Thaisha Lloy (Aabria Iyengar) and Halandil Fang (Liam O’Brien) — because he mentored their son Alogar. Whether he would weaponize that connection is unclear, but the potential for manipulation is baked into his relationships.
Compared with other characters who mourn or defend Thjazi, Julien skews more antagonistic — he openly desecrates the corpse, an act that immediately marks him as someone willing to cross boundaries. The shadowy figure Taliesin Jaffe’s character sees trailing Julien afterward suggests his actions might carry metaphysical consequences, too.
His dynamic with Aranessa is similarly fraught. Julien’s responses to her grief — minimization, promises of “protection,” attempts to steer her emotions — feel controlling and, frankly, unsettling. It’s a testament to Mercer’s performance that he can make such a morally dubious character both compelling and viscerally unpleasant.
Which raises the big question: where does Julien belong in the party’s long game? The premiere functions as an overture, the first of four episodes before the 13 players split into three smaller groups — Soldiers, Schemers, and Seekers. Those alignments will inevitably shift over time, but Julien’s temperament makes him a wildcard in any grouping.
I’d personally relish seeing him paired against — or forced to cooperate with — characters like Sam Riegel and Whitney Moore’s roles: the devout Wicander Halovar and his chaotic apprentice Tyranny. Wicander’s more law-abiding instincts and Tyranny’s unpredictability would produce interesting friction with Julien’s rigid, manipulative streak. Alternatively, Ashley Johnson’s Vaelus, driven to reclaim the Stone of Nightsong from the Sisters of Sylandri, could find a begrudgingly strategic ally in Julien, who also resents Thjazi’s deeds.
Whatever path Mercer’s Sir Julien takes, he adds an intriguing, morally complicated flavor to Campaign 4. He might provoke player-versus-player conflict, he might be nudged toward redemption, or he may remain the campaign’s delightful antagonist. Either way, I’m invested in watching how far Julien’s abrasiveness goes before something — or someone — breaks through it.
Source: Polygon
