Charlotte Nicdao and Rob McElhenney in Mythic QuestPhoto: Apple TV+
From the start, Mythic Quest has defined itself as a workplace comedy that emphasizes work. Rob McElhenney, no stranger to the deconstructed sitcom, understands the irony of passionate people using dispassionate machines to create something that can inspire passion in users. And video games certainly breed passion. This juxtaposition is a fundamental philosophy of the company that produces McElhenney’s show, Apple. As the company’s co-founder, Steve Jobs, put it, “Technology alone isn’t enough — it’s technology combined with the humanities and liberal arts that gives us the results that make our hearts beat faster.”
The show did indeed sing in its finely tuned second season, namely with CW Longbottom, played by a game F. Murray Abraham and, for a flashback episode, Silicon Valley’s Joshua Max Brener. As an example of Jobs’ point of view, the show focused on how this failed writer became the perfect vessel for plotting video games. CW needed to find the right vehicle for its ever-growing ideas, and since video games need to expand (in a way books rarely do), its vision provided the missing piece in the game’s code. But not everyone has learned the lesson. In the Mythic Quest season 3 premiere, “Across The Universe,” everyone is reportedly reformed and “better off without the other.” Intentional or not, the connection Jobs described is sorely absent here, resulting in an airless episode that feels more like a prologue than a season premiere.
RATING FOR SEASON 3, EPISODE 2, “PARTNERS”: B
In the lineless GrimPop office and after a $25 million pitch meeting, Ian (McElhenney) navigates and possibly builds a subsection of the metaverse while Poppy (Charlotte Nicado) stress chugs green soda. Poppy gives her gas when the email arrives and insists they take no less than their asking price, and Ian agrees. Unfortunately, they are offered $50 million. Gut checks feature heavily in the episode, and Ian has a multi-million dollar one, suggesting they turn down the offer. Poppy reminds Ian that she is responsible for GrimPop. It’s her game, so he leaves the final decision to her diarrhea.
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Poppy can be counted on to make a great game, but lacks business confidence. She just can’t sell this thing without Ian. In the meantime, her partner follows their instincts and assumes they’ll be able to overcome any hurdle that comes their way, because getting it right is a good gut feeling 51% of the time. Before Poppy can trust Ian’s gut, she has to trust her own.
David Hornsby, Naomi Ekperigin, Jessie Ennis, Rob McElhenney, Charlotte Nicdao, Ashly Burch and Imani Hakim Photo: Apple TV+
You know who doesn’t need a gut check? David (the underrated David Hornsby). The lanky former GM of “MQ” is TCB 24/7. When Diversity and Inclusion leader Carol (Naomi Ekperigin) comes to him with an existential crisis, David teaches her the “hokey pokey”: the endless jostling of meetings, the powerful pacing of the office, and the general “Thu ‘t don’t bother me” sentiment that says, “I’m busy.” David’s lack of ambition suffocates his subordinates and forces Jo (Jessie Ennis) to waste their time organizing the CW’s welcome party and Carol into a career spiral. But like Poppy, Carol has bigger ambitions, so she makes a gut decision: She rehires David’s nemesis Brad (Danny Pudi) as her janitor.
This season, the cast is more distant than ever, which dampens some of the excitement at the season premiere. COVID production restrictions and F. Murray Abraham’s abrupt departure give the episode a rushed quality – as it was edited to accommodate Abraham’s departure. It works thematically, especially in GrimPop’s Jony Ive-inspired hellscape. Poppy and Ian are on a different planet compared to the livelier atmosphere of the “MQ” office last year. However, in reference to the CW’s welcome party, Brad, David, Poppy, and Ian look like holograms. Television produced during this period will undoubtedly have a specific look.
True to its dramatic style, CW does not show up at the party and sends a letter revealing the character’s death. He succumbed to illness but died peacefully and his remains now fly in a satellite over “MQ” Studios. CW’s message bows to the episode’s themes: “Hold on to one another.” Gut checks and failures led CW to “Mythic Quest,” where he was able to connect with humans; Those connections are his legacy, not what they made together. Poppy trusts her gut and passes the money on, much to Ian’s dismay (he had a different gut feeling). Belly checks are good because some mistakes result in an “MQ” family, while others mean a $50 million loss.
Naomi EkperiginPhoto: Apple TV+
True to its title, Across The Universe kept the characters apart, and continuing that spot-on titling convention, episode two, Partners, puts our restored pairings to work. Now that they’ve decided to work together, Ian and Poppy have to prove it, but the cold has taken them to opposite ends of the spectrum. Ian uses the metaverse to fulfill his aspirations by giving sales pitches no one would ever ask for. Ian thinks well beyond the scope of Hera and dreams of adding the game to the blockchain. It’s a bad idea, but he’s right. Ian’s job is expansion; However, this Web3 whim is the sort of thing that has been excellent (well, okay) at managing the infrastructure of “MQ”. Poppy can’t bloat Ian’s ego all day with her sugar crashes and coding crunches. He’s an idea generator, investigating all aspects of the game, from the smallest shovel to the most unfungible token. Poppy’s job is to bring the plan to fruition and if Ian didn’t keep trying to improve the idea she might be able to finish it.
On “MQ,” David’s things are going suspiciously well with Brad as the caretaker. Brad was an exceptional, if not sus, team member, supplying bathrooms with $68 vanilla bean removers and folding toilet paper into little dots like in a fancy hotel. David’s skepticism means nothing to Carol, who Brad, a formerly incarcerated person of color, sees as a success for diversity and inclusion initiatives. It’s a cynical win for Carol, but apparently “that’s what it’s all about.”
Rob McElhenneyPhoto: Apple TV+
As we catch up with Poppy, she sees the matrix code and is munching candy in her “Hera” crunch. She’s here in the zone, with McElhenney’s direction showing the glowing creative world Poppy finds in her work and mirroring Ian’s fake web3 guidebook out of the cold. If only she could do something for the people. Dana (Imani Hakim) arrives on her first day at Hera, interrupting her flow and asking Poppy to fulfill her promise and train the aspiring programmer. Poppy is too busy and gives Dana the day off. She puts in the work long enough for Ian to interrupt her with a plan to change her diet paradigm. But of course Ian will always put those menial tasks, like shopping for lunch, into something bigger because he’s a great thinker, like Thomas Edison or Jim Jones. As Ian points out, great thinkers need practical thinkers to sell and vice versa.
On the day off, Dana and Rachel (Ashly Burch) pass the time by visiting their old hangout at the “MQ” test cabinet. Unbeknownst to them, they have been replaced by a new generation of testers who immediately offend Dana and Rachel. Dana, Rachel, and later Jo’s interactions with the new testers result in an HR meeting not dissimilar to that seen in the series premiere, but with a different dynamic. David is in charge but doesn’t trust Brad, who is now at the bottom of the “MQ” ladder, where he manipulates people into following their worst instincts. Poppy and Ian shouldn’t even be in the office, let alone trying to rip off a sliver of staff for some Metaverse nonsense. But here they still fall back on the exact solutions.
David Hornsby, Jessie Ennis, Austin Zajur, Ben Stillwell and Danny Pudi Photo: Apple TV+
Partners is about collaboration and how most often a partnership isn’t between two people doing the same job. It fills in each other’s cracks and shares responsibility for creation. Ultimately, it’s a new collaboration between Dana and Ian that leaves the episode on an oddly upbeat note that makes our hearts sing — we hope.
Stray Observations
- Welcome to Mythic Quest Recaps! This show ended up being one of the best, if not the most underrated comedy on TV last year. I have high expectations for the season, which may have led to some disappointment for what was an understandable but no less boring housekeeping episode.
- The Mythic Quest staff’s inability to wait 20 seconds for an answer is exactly the energy most of the episode lacks. They have the attitude of a Springfield mob, which is all any mob could hope for.
- “Look at your body. You are all angles.”
- “What are you burning for? Don’t say dog.” “Cat?”
- Is Apple saving money on sets by allowing Mythic Quest and Severance to film in the famously wire-free Apple Park office?