It’s not hard to claim thatMythic Questis one of the best comedy shows out there right now. It might be even bigger if it were on a streamer that has more people dedicated to watching it, but even on Apple TV+ it has quite a following. It has that following because most weeks, the laughs start right from the beginning of the show and keep going all the way through. However, so far this season,Mythic Questhas been a bit uneven from the season premiere. The fourth episode of Season 3, “The Two Joes” was uneven as well. In fact, it was easily the worst episode of this year’s run and it isn’t really close.
It’s not hard to pinpoint what exactly went wrong in thisepisode ofMythic Quest. From the jump, it just felt like there was too much going on. It’s also worth pointing out that most of the main stars of the show were all in different spots. Poppy and Ian never interacted with each other. Brittlesby had two scenes where he was with anyone else at all, and both of those scenes were about five minutes long. Dana and Ian spent some time together, but their dynamic and energy simply aren’t that great. It felt like everyone was struggling to be funny while pretending that people were talking to them when they really weren’t.
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There’s also the fact that some of the characters have gone in a direction in thisseason ofMythic Questthat goes against the roadmap that was lied out in the first two episodes. That includes David Brittlesby actually being a commanding presence. The series seems to be leaning far too hard into Joe not really understanding how to act like a regular human being. She has long been one of the best characters on the show because she is indeed offbeat. But in both this episode and the one before it, she seems to be someone who doesn’t really understand humanity at all.
It’s also sort of weird that Joe seems to constantly being finding out how people interact with another when she’s at a restaurant.The scene with Joe Manganiellowas also quite unfunny and it seems at least part of that is because the “other Joe” just didn’t seem all that dialed in. It’s always weird when actors are playing themselves but he didn’t really seem to be own that part of the show. It’s even weirder because by all accounts, he’s going to be a fairly major part of the show and yet he felt an awful lot like a five-minute guest star.
It’s possible that Manganiello suffered from the same thing that most of the rest of the cast did, in that most of the scenes were just a little off-kilter. It’s hard to put a fine point on just what made so many of the scenes feel as off as they did. But the fact that they were all rushed and none of them were really tied together in any way didn’t help. Several sets of characters were all doing their own thing and theepisode of the Apple TV seriesdidn’t seem to know who it wanted to follow.
The first and the best of the “side quests” in thisepisode ofMythic Questfollowed Poppy finally being done working on Hera and wanting to find someone to test it out. She first goes to Dana, who is apparently no longer a tester. Though it’s not entirely clear what she is doing with GrimPop, which also lowers her comedy value as she just seems like she’s an extra piece there for Poppy and Ian to play off of, instead of each other. Without being able to use Dana, Poppy decides to go up to MQ and use the company’s testers. This continues to be a weird dynamic where everyone who no longer works at MQ is constantly hanging out there.
Bring The Mythic Quest Gang Back Together
Four episodes of everyone hanging out at the studio seems like it would have just been easier to have the entire group working on a different game and not have everyone going off in their own directions, since they aren’t really going in their own direction at all. The lack ofpresence from F. Murray Abrahamis also still being felt. It seems as if he was the “outrageous” presence that allowed everyone else seem normal in comparison. This episode especially felt as though every character that was on screen was a caricature of a much better version of themselves. That does not apply to Carol, who manages to be the funniest bit of the entire show as she freaks out and then announces she’s going to a cat cafe. It seems as though getting out of the episode without investing much time into was the best move of the group.
Mythic Questcontinues to suffer form the direction it started to go inSeason 2 of the Apple TVshow in that there is far less focus on the actual video game. The series was at its best when the problems and action were centered around things that were actually happening in the game. There was far less focus on that in Season 2, but there continues to be almost no focus at all on video games this season. Even when Poppy is showing off Hera, the audience still has no idea what it is. It’s clear that’s on purpose, but it still seems to miss the point of the entire series.
Mythic Questhas always beenat its best when the series has everyone in the same room, riffing off each other. This is the second straight episode where everyone is off in different locales and it just doesn’t work as well. That’s especially the case when Ian and Poppy are not able to directly play off of each other. It’s honestly a bit perplexing while the characters have spent so little time being in the same room together. If the show wants to get back on track, that needs to be fixed in the coming weeks.
New episodes ofMythic Questair every Friday on Apple TV+
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