TV Review: The Beauties of Friendship in "Mythic Quest"
Now in its fourth season, the Apple TV series excels because of the complicated and heartwarming friendships at its core.
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Warning: Full spoilers for the series follow.
Regular readers of this newsletter know that I love almost nothing more than finding a new TV series and making it my new obsession, and it’s happened again now that I’ve finally discovered Mythic Quest, the Apple TV series that just started its fourth season. I know I say this a lot–and I make no apologies–but this may be one of my very favorite shows of this decade. It’s smart, it’s funny, and it's poignant. In short, it’s literally everything I could want from a workplace sitcom and maybe even more.
At first the series focuses primarily on the various people involved with the game Mythic Quest. Rob McElhenney (of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia fame) is Ian Grimm, the creator of the game who works with Charlotte Nicdao’s Poppi Li to expand it. They are aided in this endeavor by executive producer David Brittlesbee (David Hornsby), head of monetization Brad Bakshi (Danny Pudi), testers Rachel Meyee and Dana Bryant (Ashly Burch and Imani Hakim), human of HR Carol (Naomi Ekperigin), and story writer Carl Longbottom (F. Murray Abraham). Completing the mix is arch-conservative and zealously devoted assistant Jo (Jessie Ennis).
The first season is primarily about the foibles and squabbles among the various creative minds, and by the end of it Ian and Poppy are gearing up for an expansion, which occupies most of the second season. By the time that the third season dawns, the various characters have gone their own ways, while also maintaining important connections to one another and to the game that originally brought them together. The fourth season continues this trend, with some important personal milestones for everyone.
When I watched the first season I was under the impression that I was watching a pretty typical workplace sitcom, if one that had all of the gloss and high production values that we’ve come to associate with the age of streaming. Each subsequent season, however, has demonstrated that this series, like so many others that have been produced by Apple, is something more special and more distinct than that. It’s obviously quite funny–I’ve lost count of the number of times that my partner and I have guffawed at David’s frequently futile attempts to wrangle his employees or Jo doing something deranged–but it’s also poignant. It understands that what sets the truly great sitcoms apart is the ability to dive deeply into the nuts and bolts, the tissue and sinew, of human relationships.
Arguably the most important relationship in the show is that between Ian and Poppy. McElhenney and Nicdao have some astonishing chemistry, and it’s been a marvel to watch two people share a deep and sometimes fractious bond that miraculously (and refreshingly) doesn’t turn romantic. To me, the most magical and poignant moment occurred in the break between the first and second seasons, when the team, like the rest of the country, is in lockdown. Though many jokes are made regarding Poppy’s lack of personal hygiene, it soon becomes clear, though, that all is really not well, and Ian is really the only one who really picks up on this. He ends up going to her apartment and, after convincing her to open the door, gives her a much-needed hug. The show is never afraid to wear its heart on its sleeve, but even so it’s still a remarkably touching moment, particularly since neither Ian nor Poppy are very good at being touchy-feely.
One of my favorite episodes occurs near the end of the third season and, in keeping with the series general practice–in which one episode in a season is set in the past–it’s a flashback. In this case it features two stories, focusing on Ian and Poppy and how they came to be the people that they are today. While Ian grew up with a mother with untreated bipolar disorder, Poppy had functional parents who, nevertheless, never quite understood her own particular brand of tech genius. When the two meet in adulthood, it’s clear from the beginning that this is a true mind-meld. The brilliance of the episode lies not only in casting young people who can both act and also look like their older counterparts but also in its blend of the tender and the humorous. When it comes right down to it, they’re just two oddballs who were lucky enough to find one another and whose idiosyncrasies, at their best, work together rather than against one another.
The rest of the cast is uniformly excellent. Everyone simply is their character, and even the departures of some characters–such as Abraham’s Carl–are handled with grace and genuine emotion (the actor was fired from the show for inappropriate behavior). I think my favorite character, however, would have to be Jo, and I give a lot of credit to Jessie Ennis for making her so deliciously demented, capable of doing literally anything so long as it is in service of the people she serves. As she says at one point, she’s simply born to be an assistant. And let me tell you: she’s damn good at her job.
Mythic Quest sings because it is so adept at crafting characters who work so well together, in both the good times and the bad. You can have the best cast in the world and the sharpest and zingiest writing, but if you don’t have characters that actually forge strong bonds with one another, and if you’re not able to get viewers to engage with and become invested in those relationships, you’re never going to be able to break into the upper echelons of the genre. From showing the unusual (and somewhat disturbing) friendship that springs up between Poppy, Jo, and Rachel to the rather tender moment between David and Brad at the costume party in season four, this is a show that understands the strange alchemy of friendship.
Moreover, the series is remarkable for the extent to which it allows its characters to grow and change with each season. No character, not even the chronically weak and vacillating David, remains completely static during the show’s run. Everyone has their own arcs and their own struggles, their own hills that they have to climb, and there’s even queer representation in the relationship between Dana and Rachel, who get engaged in season four in an episode that is both hilarious and quite touching. And no one, not even the ruthlessly cynical Brad, is entirely beyond redemption. Everyone has hidden depths that slowly come to light, allowing us to see them in all of their glorious and frustrating complexity. And, to be totally shallow for a moment, it’s also one of the most beautiful casts in the history of the sitcom (I particularly love that we get to see McElhenney’s butt on a number of occasions).
In addition to being quite funny and heartwarming, Mythic Quest also does a remarkably good job at pointing out the foibles and pitfalls of gaming culture, both from the industrial and gamer side. Several plots, particularly in the early seasons, revolve around the team’s efforts to grapple with dissatisfied gamers, particularly the influencer Pootie Shoo. Later seasons, meanwhile, focus more on the nuts and bolts of not only building new games but also maintaining old ones in an industry that is constantly seeking the new and exciting.
I ultimately think there’s a lot of truth to the reviews which argue that this series may be one of the smartest on TV. It’s the kind of show that never goes for the cheap laughs, instead realizing that the best and funniest comedies are those that allow the chemistry in the cast to shine through. Here’s to another successful season, and hopefully many more in the future!