the reason they changed this story beat a lot for the show (for anyone who was wondering/sad it's gone) is they didn't know if they were getting a s4 until after s3 was made, so they didn't want to potentially abandon the show on such a sour note, but now s4 is confirmed they have said they want to at least do a nod back to this plotline there
but as far as the campaign went! scanlan had had a resentment for vox machina that had been building a while, over thinking that vox machina didn't care about him and was just keeping him around because he was a good healer and a good joke
(it wasn't really their fault and several members of the team had tried to get closer to scanlan but he's the kind of person who instinctually deflects and keeps things close to the chest, so there wasn't really any winning there)
kaylie was one of the reasons he realised he wasn't happy with vm, because he finally had someone else in his life, someone whose opinion he really cared about
but that last two hit combo thordak raishan dragon fight is where it really built to a head
because by that level as a dnd game they had hit the point where multiple people dying mid fight and then being revived within a few seconds was pretty normal, but with matt's homebrew revive rules every time you bring someone back, even if it's only been a few seconds, it gets harder to do it the next time
scanlan died during the thordak fight, and they brought him back just fine
scanlan died during the raishan fight (the only person to take a lethal hit from both dragons in a row like that), and the revive failed
so they had to go through a much more difficult process like they did with percy to get him back (percy's revive had happened only a day after he died in the campaign, so there was space to breathe between the two)
(i really do love the addition of scanlan writing a song for kaylie though, because originally she wrote one for him, it was her playing violin that managed to get him back)
but revivals like that leave you exhausted, as far as dnd rules are concerned, you're extremely weak/tired for the next four days
so vox machina, as a way to lighten the mood, in one of the poorer decisions they've ever made, decided to pull a prank on him while he was sleeping, by dressing him in a nightgown and covering him, his bed, and his room, in vanilla pudding
which for scanlan when he woke up, was just about the last straw, and basically confirmed all those negative thoughts he'd been having about his team
and he got really mad at them, the angriest they'd ever seen scanlan. all that stuff he'd been keeping buried just exploded in the worst way. (some choice quotes include "we battled a city of vampires so percy could feel good about his name. we traveled planes of existence so you could fix your fucking daddy issues. but you've never done anything for me!" and of course the famous "what's my mother's name? easy question, died in front of me, killed by a goblin, biggest part of my life. what's her name?")
vox machina tried to argue they've asked him questions about that stuff before and he deflected, but that just made him pull away further, and tell them he didn't need their help anyway. wanting to look good in front of kaylie and being ashamed he died twice in a row had all of scanlan's emotional hackles raised from the start, and no one was communicating
pike and grog were mourning their best friend, percy was having major abandonment issues over his new family being broken apart just like the last one, vex looked up to scanlan as a father figure and he'd thrown it all back in her face, vax had looked up to scanlan's ability to smile in the face of doom and was reeling that it was all a lie, and keyleth was just trying to keep an already broken situation from spiralling out of control
and then vax yells at scanlan to stop lying to himself and scanlan says "that's just it. i'm a really good liar." and they all know they've lost him
and then kaylie comes in and just says "so, you coming?" and they both walk out of whitestone, seemingly for good (though not before scanlan gets a final last word proving he knows all of the other characters' mother's names)
the cast didn't know this was coming either, so some of them weren't sure if this was sam leaving the show entirely, and after a really long really emotionally heavy argument they were all pretty stunned
but i really love some of the character moments afterwards, because yeah, grog is holding this team together. he's okay with letting scanlan go and figure himself out, he trusts scanlan will come back if and when he's ready, and he's going to make sure vox machina don't make the situation any worse in the meantime
and it's such a sharp change from his usual role in the group but you remember that yeah, he's pretty emotionally intelligent, and he is mature enough to be the parent to a bunch of lost kids when they need him to be
(and it gets a favourite line of mine from percy which is "grog? i know we don't always agree, and i know i can be unkind, but.... you know you're family, right? it's... nice, having an older brother again")
and then when vox machina finally manages to pull themselves back together enough to start tying up some loose plot threads, sam shows up in the last 5 minutes of the episode playing surprise new character: the biggest asshole he can possibly invent!
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