Critical Role's 3rd campaign is drenched in nostalgia and shows why Amazon is smart to bet on it

Amazon's commitment to giving the Critical Role crew room to create two animated series makes sense, considering the sheer depth of fandom lore.

• Critical Role is serving up peak nostalgia in its third D&D campaign.
• Some old faces are back in this campaign, and it's made for some striking fan-service moments.
• The return of beloved characters is a reminder of just how much content this nerd empire is creating.

Warning: Spoilers ahead for "Critical Role" campaign 3, episode 95.

There's nothing quite like the face of a beloved character to rally a fandom in full force.

Now multiply that threefold, and you'll get the feeling of Thursday night's episode of "Critical Role" — nerdy nostalgia at its finest.

Fans who love the eight-member crew will be delighted to discover, in the 95th episode, that the beloved character Essek Thelyss is back full-time.

The cast's campaign three characters met Thelyss, an elven wizard, some years after the end of the second campaign — and he appears wiser, happier, and far more settled into a new life.

People patiently waiting for the release of the Amazon-backed animated show based on an earlier campaign may have been hoping to see him again, and now they need not wait any longer.

While it may be hard to pick one character from more than 1,300 hours worth of "Dungeons & Dragons" Twitch streams to bring back, I have my favorites.

After all, I've asked dungeon master Matthew Mercer and cast member Liam O'Brien about Thelyss several times, but they've been tight-lipped.

That said, I think the crew was happy to have him back.

That's not where the callbacks ended in episode 95.

The cast, reprising the nostalgia of the second campaign, took a tour through Zadash, one of the campaign setting's major cities.

They re-encountered Astrid Becke, a powerful wizard who fought the group in the last campaign, and Pumat Sol, an enchanter who quickly became one of the team's favorite shopkeepers.

The crew's third campaign has called back to its previous work several times. Several members of Vox Machina — player characters from the first campaign — have popped up along the way, too.

The depth of "Critical Role" lore over three campaigns is a testament to how it's becoming sustainable as a long-term phenomenon.

Its CEO, Travis Willingham, recently confirmed the fall launch of season three of "The Legend of Vox Machina," the animated series Amazon started backing after a record-breaking $11.3 million Kickstarter run.

Comicbook.com also reported, citing SAG-AFTRA production listings, that the series' fourth and fifth seasons are also in the works.

That's on top of the "Mighty Nein" animated series, the multiple new games the crew is releasing, and Beacon, the in-house "Critical Role" streaming service that just launched. TL;DR? It's a lot.

All in all, these are exciting times. For now, I will float into Friday — satisfied with the return of Essek and looking forward to more high-stakes shenanigans in campaign three.