‘Mythic Quest’ Season 4 Is the Courageous Apple Comedy’s Best Yet — and Pairs Perfectly with ‘Severance’
Finding your work/life balance has been a buzz-phrase long enough that merely mentioning the word “boundaries” is enough to send anyone listening sprinting back to their lousy job or horrible home life. “I know I work too much! I know I don’t spend enough time with my friends and family! Hello, welcome to capitalism — now stop telling me to ‘find balance’ like it’s a lost puppy or something else that actually exists.”
But, dear readers, what if you really were empowered enough to achieve such stability? What if the challenge of balancing work and life wasn’t practical, but psychological? What if you — now bear with me here — love your job so much it becomes your life? What if you truly love your co-workers, too? What if you get so much fulfillment out of doing what pays the bills that it’s impossible to imagine doing anything else? Plenty of weary souls crunching numbers in barren cubicles may dream of such an opportunity, but balance isn’t only necessary when you have to work more than you should. It’s also vital when you want to work more than you should.
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For the cheery team at “Mythic Quest,” wanting anything other than a successful career isn’t just a low priority, it’s also a practical impossibility. After all, their jobs — as programmers, creative directors, and various other staff positions behind a massively successful online role-playing game — create the setting and narrative of the series. Enough of them have to love what they do for the comedy to click and for the story to connect. If Ian (Rob McElhenney) or Dana (Imani Hakim) suddenly didn’t want to make video games anymore, it would be like Leslie Knope giving up on government work, Larry Sanders leaving late-night TV, or Dennis Reynolds abandoning Paddy’s Pub for family life in North Dakota. The workplace comedy just wouldn’t work anymore.
So that’s exactly the impassable path “Mythic Quest” fearlessly treks in Season 4. After learning how to respect each other’s boundaries at the end of last season (which first premiered in January 2023), Ian and Poppy (Charlotte Nicdao) set out once again to build a new expansion for their MMORPG. But where their past obstacles have been vocational — establishing an equal working partnership, deciding to branch out into a new game, and re-establishing how their equal working partnership can actually, you know, work — now the duo faces an outside threat of the personal variety. Poppy has a boyfriend. And what she gets from him isn’t something Ian can offer her. Heck, it’s not even something Poppy knew she wanted.
Yes, one of those needs is sex, which Poppy relishes with her new beau Storm (Chase Yi) but can’t imagine getting from Ian without retching up her green-flavored Big Gulp. No, a romantic relationship for their platonic partners is a non-starter, a point “Mythic Quest” emphatically makes just enough times (and with just enough humor to make each repetition funny). But her other needs are more nuanced. Spending time with Storm opens Poppy up to new perspectives, ideas, and avenues. She’s still the same Poppy, but suddenly she’s distracted from the very thing she’s been fully, happily invested in for most of her adult life: Mythic Quest.
This subtle but seismic change creates quite a problem for Ian. He’s committed to respecting Poppy’s boundaries in order to be the best creative partner he can be, but that leaves him feeling out of the loop when she no longer wants to spend all her time working. What happened to the Poppy whose version of an “early night” was going home after 10 p.m.? What happened to the Poppy who was constantly available, listening to his big ideas and turning them into (virtual) reality? What happened to the Poppy who he finally figured out how to work with?
The short answer is she’s finally exploring a side of herself that doesn’t involve Ian, doesn’t involve “Mythic Quest,” and doesn’t really involve “work,” at least as she’s come to understand it. Poppy is changing, which can be a challenge when Ian very much wants everything to stay the same. The tension between them is rooted in the unknown; in breaking what’s already working in order to discover something new; and it’s a philosophy “Mythic Quest” has always embraced, even while producing a comforting, endlessly rewatchable sitcom.
Whether it’s the quarantine episode that was shot and released during the early days of COVID, the tone-shifting departure episodes that won acclaim every season, or building off those experiments to launch a full-blown episodic anthology spinoff series (“Side Quest,” premiering March 26), “Mythic Quest” isn’t a sitcom content with coasting. Yes, the series is tightly scripted, inviting in its tone and composition, rich with charming performances, and regularly, reliably hilarious. But it also just keeps pushing the boundaries of what those sturdy attributes can support. Season 4 is just as refreshing as previous seasons. It’s just also taking a fundamental dynamic and bending it as far as it can, while growing the main characters in exciting, relatable ways. (As if “Mythic Quest” is acknowledging the considerable challenge it’s set for itself, Poppy’s initial task is to “code courage into the game.”)
So if you find yourself enamored with how “Severance” illustrates the impossible pursuit of happy and healthy Innies and Outies, then you owe it to yourself to check out “Mythic Quest,” too. One’s a drama, the other a comedy. One’s science-fiction, the other reality lite. One is firmly rooted in the perspective of people who hate their job (or should), while the other focuses on workers who love what they do. (That being said, I imagine Mythic Quest’s art department would more easily see themselves in “Severance.”) The MDR employees exist in a cage made by Lumon and entered into by their other half. The Mythic Quest workers operate in a cage, too, but a gilded one of their own making, where they hold the key. The severed workers can’t just quit, and the MQ team doesn’t want to quit. Both groups want the same thing — the freedom and support to follow their own dreams, in and out of the office — but neither situation offers a simple solution.
Taken together, the two shows strike a nice balance. One is just a lot funnier. And come on now — don’t you deserve a nice break?
Grade: A-
“Mythic Quest” Season 4 premieres Wednesday, January 29 on Apple TV+. New episodes will be released weekly through the finale on March 26.
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