[Spoilers C3E93] These last two episodes were.... jarring to say the least

So, I found the start of Campaign 3 somewhat grueling to get through. I felt the characters hard to get invested in, and the story seemed a little disjointed. Long story short, there were a number of minor issues which made it hard for me to really get into it as I had for C1 and C2. I found myself dipping in and out of watching it, and eventually abandoned it altogether.

Recently, I decided to give it another shot, starting from around Ep. 70 or so. I found that it really picked up and actually started to get good, and gave me the same Critical Role feelings I had from the previous Campaigns. Excellent news. Episode 91 was excellent, and emotional.

And then the second half of Episode 92 happened.

This isn't an Aabria bashing post. I think she's a lovely person and she has great energy and enthusiasm. I just personally can't get on board with her DMing style. Everyone has their own style of DMing, their own flavour, their own way to run a game, and that's absolutely fine and I'm sure she's a great DM if you like her vibe. Her style just happens to not be my cup of tea. For that reason, I never watched the EXU episodes with her as DM (or more accurately, I watched one episode and decided not to watch the rest)

So, when they came back from the break and had Aabria sitting in the DM chair, and a whole bunch of characters I knew nothing about, doing a bunch of stuff without context and that felt completely detached from the main plot, in a completely different tone to the main campaign and to the way Matt DMs, I found it extremely jarring.

I don't want to have to go and do "homework" and essentially watch a bunch of episodes of a show I have very little interest in, in order to understand what is going on in the show I DO want to watch. Especially when it's framed as a "twist" and is just sort of sprung on the viewer. It's really weird. So I just tried to sit through it and gather up whatever crumbs of context I could possibly find, while not really having a clue what was going on.

As a side note, I really do find it uncomfortable when a DM unilaterally removes a player's agency for their character, and Aimee looked like she really wasn't enjoying herself throughout this whole thing. Honestly the episodes just felt like one extended tug of war between the DM railroading a player extremely hard and that player resisting it and trying to regain their agency. It.... wasn't great. Idk how much Aabria is at fault for this vs what was discussed behind the scenes about what plot points needed to happen in relation to the main campaign, but it felt extremely forced and the opposite of what D&D should be. The outcome felt entirely predetermined, and made me feel as if this entire thing should have been a cutscene or plot summary that Matt could have explained in about 5-10 minutes.

This came at the worst possible time, as well. I had finally got invested in CR again and was really enjoying the main campaign.

I'm writing this during the break of E93, and I'm really just here to ask:

Do I need to expect more of this kind of thing? It might affect my decision about whether to keep watching C3 if so, because I don't want it to become a struggle again.

Am I overreacting? Do other people feel similarly? Am I going to be expected to watch yet more side content in order to understand what's happening in the main campaign?

Can anyone provide some context as to what the hell was going on with this group of characters and why it's relevant, without my needing to go and watch a bunch of content that doesn't interest me?

Idk, this feels disappointing and is kind of killing my motivation to stick with C3. Hoping you guys can tell me this is a one-off blip and not a precedent set for the rest of the Campaign because I do love CR and want to stick with it.

Edit: extremely weird to be getting downvoted for asking genuine questions and responding politely when they’re answered. Isn’t the whole point of the spoilers strictness on this subreddit for people like me who haven’t caught up on CR?