It’s the last day of school at Mythic Quest. The Apple TV+ show finished its second season with a fantastic finale that offers up satisfying conclusions and promising new beginnings in equal measure. “TBD” follows up last week’s impeccable “Juice Box” and continues the Mythic Quest tradition of being not-quite-so-far from perfect.
Mythic Quest was created by three alumni of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Rob McElhenney, Megan Ganz, and Charle Day surprised no one by creating a show that knocks its comedy beats out of the park. What is surprising, and often deeply moving, is the show’s general refusal to dish out archetypal characters. Where Sunny entertains by displaying characters who are little more than an amalgamation of humanity’s worst impulses, Mythic Quest entertains with, and sometimes in spite of, characters that are themselves rounded, fully-formed human beings.
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The first season of Mythic Quest blew its audience away, and while highs like “A Dark Quiet Death” are nearly impossible to top, the second season has raised the bar on almost every level. With few exceptions, all nine episodes are richer, funnier, and more tightly written than anything that’s come before. The episodic escapades of the season thematically cohere into an arc that’s as satisfying as any fully serialized tale. If this was the end of the road for Mythic Quest, it would have spent its time well, but Apple’s all-but-inevitable renewal of the show will be welcome news.
“TBD” sets out to wrap up the season’s dangling plot threads. Ian and Poppy have an expansion to finish. Brad and Jo have an accidental insider trading scheme to see to its end. The testers have some educational and vocational mix-ups to contend with. In short, everyone is taking a brief look back while making plans for the future.
Rob McElhenney and Charlotte Nicdao are once again the show’s best elements. Their chemistry shines through every single one of their scenes together, to the point that one starts to wonder why most of this season tried to keep the two of them apart. Before there’s much time to focus on those concerns, another great joke or warm moment of genuine friendship pulls attention back to the screen.
Their best scene closes the episode. It feels like both the perfect conclusion to everything Mythic Quest has done for the last two seasons and a promising start to a new batch of phenomenal episodes. Their funniest scenes, however, come when the two of them are paired with another Mythic Quest employee. Their focus on the quality of their game over literally everything and everyone else plays for constant laughs while also refusing to glorify ambition as an ideal character trait.
Over the course of this season, Poppy has taken on more and more of a leadership role within Mythic Quest. Throughout the process, she’s constantly mimicked Ian’s leadership style – having no other role model to turn towards. As she’s become more like Ian, her ideas get better, but her connections to coworkers get worse. Ian and Poppy shed all other relationships because each is the only one that helps the other grow, at least in terms of creative growth. Their friendship is real, and it’s a delight to see on screen, but the show doesn’t make any moves to obscure that it’s also unhealthy, even if they end in a good place.
Most of the other prominent side characters get similarly complicated, albeit with the show spending less time exploring those complications. In a reversal from the beginning of the season, Rachel plans to head to Berkely (inspired by C.W. and Peter to become a writer, poor girl), while Dana stays behind to pursue her dreams as a game designer. Ambition is at the core of their relationship, as well, but it seems to be pulling them apart. The show leaves them in a long-distance relationship, but chances are it will refuse to play out the tropes of that plot in the same way it refused to follow a “will they or won’t they” plot with the couple this season.
Brad settles his differences with Jo in a way that doesn’t diminish the unearthing of his character in “Breaking Brad”, but leaves him in a position to return to his careless, cutthroat role in the future. The only character who doesn’t get a nice dose of added humanity is David Brittlesbee. He continues to be life’s punching bag, constantly embarrassing himself in the pursuit of nothing other than a cure for loneliness. Maybe he’s Mythic Quest’s way of saying that ambition defines everyone, whether they’re aware of it or not. Be careful what you desire.
Mythic Quest might be the best sitcom, if it counts as a sitcom, on TV, if it counts as being on TV. Apple TV+ has a real hit on its hands, and Ted Lasso is the only other show on the platform that comes close. The writing team deserves a standing ovation for their work on the second season, especially considering they rewrote most of the episodes after the beginning of the pandemic. With any luck, these two seasons are just the beginning of a long run for Mythic Quest.
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