Charlotte Nicdao teases the Mythic Quest season 2 finale and future of the show
The actor, who plays Poppy Li, teases the season 2 finale of Apple TV+'s workplace comedy
Aux Features Charlotte Nicdao
Mythic Quest is a delightful workplace comedy with a tense, surprisingly tender portrayal of the challenges of creative collaboration, depicted mostly through Poppy Li (Charlotte Nicdao) and Ian Grimm (Rob McElhenney), the co-directors of the titular video game company. Created by It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia’s McElhenney, Charlie Day, and Megan Ganz, season two of this Apple TV+ series has focused on Ian and Poppy’s rollercoaster friendship, one that is charged by the ability to bring out the best in each other despite their overbearing egos. Their frequent clashes come to a head in the penultimate episode, “Juice Box,” when Ian is hospitalized. Poppy is forced to shed her insecurity of singing in public—a fact she admitted to in “Please Sign Here,” after Ian revealed his fear of not having good ideas outside of Mythic Quest—to comfort him. Nicdao tells The A.V. Club they were building on this big moment all season long, which sets up their journey in the season finale and beyond.
“There was a lot of weight on this episode to help everyone understand where Poppy is coming from. This whole season for her was about recognizing some imperfections as she struggles with her new leadership position,” Nicdao says. “We had a lot of fun seeing how far we could push Poppy and ask the audience to be patient with her.” She adds that she loves the beautiful symbolism of her singing to Ian because “they don’t beat the idea of this [strong friendship] over the head.” When they find mutual trust again, it leads to some pivotal decisions in the upcoming “TBD,” which serves as the season finale. “Poppy and Ian head into it now knowing they’ve got each other’s backs. Episode eight was about them remembering they respect each other, so they’ve landed in a place that will help them launch into their best version.”
Ian and Poppy have worked separately on an expansion for the video game for most of this season. In “TBD,” which premieres June 25, they finally get to make big decisions about their future with the help of head writer C.W. Longbottom (F. Murray Abraham). Episodes six and seven, “Backstory!” and “Peter,” delved into C.W.’s past and revealed how he joined the team. Nicdao says this sneak peek into his history also comes into play in the finale. “We all now know C.W. understands what it means to not acknowledge one’s insecurities and letting relationships suffer because of it, so he chimes in to help Poppy and Ian make the right creative calls in episode nine,” she adds.
It’s rare for workplace comedies to home in so deeply on the emotional core of such a volatile partnership, and Mythic Quest maintains a platonic dynamic between Ian and Poppy. Nicdao says they’ve actively developed this from the start: “During my initial callbacks, Rob told me right away that we aren’t going to tell a romantic story with them. It’s about their push-and-pull professional collaboration and friendship. The show is already knocking out a workplace romance out of the park with the game testers, Dana (Imani Hakim) and Rachel (Ashley Burch), so there’s a place for our kind of partnership too.”
Nicdao says she tries to imbue vulnerability into her scenes with McElhenney during the dramatic beats because the team loves to punch audiences in the gut when they least expect it (see: season one’s “A Dark Quiet Death,” or even “Backstory!”). She references the “Juice Box” closer, when Poppy sings to Ian: “We are conscious when we’re shooting such fragile scenes between Ian and Poppy. It was exciting and scary to film all the hospital scenes, and we wrapped it up with the song. We did a bunch of takes and the one they used is when Rob improved asking me to sing something else, so it was a great way to break the tension but manage the beauty of the scene.”
The Australian-Filipino actor says she came up with the suggestion for Poppy to sing a Filipino lullaby, “Sa Ugoy Ng Duyan,” before she pivots to Willie Nelson’s cover of “Rainbow Connection.” For her, this touch of her cultural background helps make Mythic Quest seamlessly inclusive. “I’ve never felt like I’m part of this show to tick a diversity box,” she says. “I have done jobs where I knew they just needed an Asian actor, but Rob and Megan were interested in perspectives behind and in front of the camera. Once they had those, they also listen to them.” She cites Community, starring her MQ co-star Danny Pudi, as one of the first ensemble comedies she loved that didn’t make their actors of color the butt of the joke because of their ethnicity. “It’s so cool now to be on a show, and with Danny no less, that’s doing something similar.”
Poppy also gets to assume the mentor role this season with Dana, but she fails miserably at it. “She has been the victim of patchy mentorship herself,” Nicdao says. “She likes the idea of having something to teach but it would be a lot to ask that she’ll know how to do it well right away.” Nicdao further teases that in the finale, Poppy does find a selfish way of helping Dana out of a sticky situation, but if the show were to continue for a third season, the actor hopes to explore Poppy being supportive of those on the lower rungs of the ladder at the workplace. “The writers are genius, so no part of me questions whether they have something amazing in store for a potential season three, especially after we blow things up in the season two finale,” she says. “But I’d also love to explore the beginnings of her working relationship with Ian.”
20 Comments
I feel like the show is better at comedy than drama, and the excellent, exceptional “A Dark Quiet Death” maybe encouraged them to push too far in the latter direction. The CW and Ian/Poppy stories this season have set up what seem like they should be serious rifts that are more or less resolved in the next episode (the CW one works a little better because there is at least the illusion of time passing and consequences, but in real terms it all happens and gets resolved in like half an hour). It feels like a throwback to the days when TV was more strictly episodic. Part of the reason ADQD was so effective was that it doesn’t all work out and it takes seriously the idea that sometimes circumstances and relationships just change without being crushingly pessimistic about it.
I thought that “Backstory” worked really well, but immediately resolving it in the next episode undercut some of its effectiveness. It’s still fabulous on its own, but “Peter” felt more like a “We can get William Hurt, so we’re getting William Hurt” episode, and then the whole duology ends up slightly more awkwardly squished into the rest of the season.
It did a nice job of setting up CW as a man whose flamboyance and bluster is cover for the insecurities that result from knowing his career was originally built on a lie, and how that kind of life is ultimately hollow and alienating to the people who really care about you. It contextualizes his whole personality from the previous season and a half. That’s great!We don’t really get to explore the implications of that, though, because he’s just chillin’ with his oldest friend like twenty minutes later. Those are traits that seem like they should have caused a litany of other issues in the intervening decades, all of which are glossed over as we sprint toward a pat ending.
I mean, yes, but I absolutely still cried when the two old guys were sitting together at the end and it flashed back to each of their younger selves.Like, put a scene like that in literally anything and I’ll cry.
The whole thing about Poppy hating singing in public made me laugh a lot, if only because Charlotte’s a great singer and I’m a huge fan of her music:
Thank you—I had no idea she made music!
That’s neat, I also had no idea. Thanks!
I just started listening to the MQ recap podcast “Questie Besties”, and Charlotte sings the ridiculously cute theme song to that as well.
I friggin’ love this show.
This show is like if Silicon Valley and Ted Lasso had a baby. And I’m VERY into it.
I was thinking it was Always Sunny and Community’s baby. Not just because there’s a lot of overlap (in the cast, plus Charlie Day and Megan Ganz are co-creators of MQ along with Rob McElhenney), but the jokes and relationships between some of the characters, too. Obviously nobody on MQ is irredeemably horrible, so the similarities with IASIP are limited, but Ian kind of feels like what might have happened if Mac were smart or good at something.Also, no disrespect to Danny Pudi, but I’ve been referring to Brad as “Business Jerk Abed”.
See, I was thinking he was just worse Dinesh. Actively malicious instead of stupid mean.
Brad is actually my favorite character on the show, lol. Probably says more about me than I’d care to admit.
the fact that even Charlotte doesn’t know for sure if there’s a season three a few days out from the s2 finale has me very worried. if this show doesn’t get a renewal, it might actually be the biggest injustice since Netflix canned American Vandal
How could they cancel it? Apple tv has so little going on already.
I’m actually very surprised by how much of their original content I enjoy. MQ, Lasso, Servant, Central Park, FAM, and Alice are all better than “disposable but enjoyable” shows, especially the first three.
Video game footage aside, the show’s production values seem quite nice at a glance, so it might not be too cheap to produce if there’s not an audience for it. Sadly, many people wrote off this show on the basis of either being on Apple TV or “They’ve got this thing I know about totally wrong!!!”.
True. The season finale found what seemed to be a nice place to end the main storyline, should it be cancelled.
I truly hope it gets renewed, rarely does a show have this much heart and still manage to be so hilarious. With just about 20 episodes it became one of my all-time favorite.
Let’s run a Mythic Quest interview but not do weekly reviews of it! I’m sure this will definitely help it get renewed for Season 3!