A Critical Role 'Ship Has Officially Launched

A fan-favorite Critical Role pairing went "official" in last night's episode, adding another dash of romance to the popular tabletop roleplaying game series. [SPOILERS for Episode 118 and Season 2 follow.] In last night's episode of Critical Role, Fjord (played by Travis Willingham) and Jester (played by Laura Bailey) finally kissed after nearly 100 episodes of good-natured flirting and plenty of romantic moments. Fjord finally confessed that he had feelings for Jester after she put herself in a dangerous situation, trading away a portion of her lifespan (and growing a few years older in the process) to gain information on the Tomb Takers, a group with sinister intentions led by their former friend Lucien/Mollymauk. Afterwards, Fjord told Jester that he didn't want her to gamble with her life again, and admitted that he cared for her very much. The pair then finally kissed.

For a while, it seemed like the Fjord/Jester relationship was a bit of a one-way street. While Jester was openly flirtatious with Fjord, Fjord was much more hesitant, likely due to his complicated past. However, Fjord had grown a lot more comfortable with Jester in recent episodes, and it seemed like Jester putting herself in harm's way was the last push that Fjord needed to finally admit that he had feelings for her.

The pairing is extra adorable because Bailey and Willingham are married in real life, so fans have gotten to watch the romance play out with that extra context in mind. And while some fans were hoping that Jester would eventually wind up with another character - both Beau (played by Marisha Ray) and Caleb (played by Liam O'Brien) have expressed some interest in Jester - this relationship seemed the most inevitable. Of course, with the Mighty Nein on a collision course with a sinister sentient city, there's no guarantee that Jester and Fjord will get a happy ending.

New episodes of Critical Role air on Thursdays at 7 PM PT on their Twitch channel. The episodes are posted on YouTube the following Monday.