Workplaces are a lottery – sometimes it’s like a found family but other times it’s more like prisoners on a cellblock, thrown together not by choice or chemistry but by myriad life circumstances.
And then COVID hit, forcing many of us home. When people returned to offices months, maybe a year, later, for a proportion of officegoers, it was with great reluctance.
It’s not just that intimately interacting with lots of different personalities became odd, it’s that the microaggressions from that arsehole colleague now feels so much more offensive when you know of a world where you can do your job and never have to see them.
It’s no wonder the thorny energy of modern workplaces is so ripe for TV comedies to explore, and contending with the changed dynamics after a period of working-from-home makes it all richer and more hilarious.
Mythic Quest, streaming on Apple TV+, is a hidden gem workplace comedy set in a video game developer’s office that brings the laughs and the depth. It returns for its second season today with a double episode that picks up with everyone back in the office in the post-WFH world.
RELATED: Channel 10’s premium streaming plans
Between the first and second seasons, Mythic Quest put out two special episodes, one that was filmed remotely during quarantine and another that specifically looked at the return-to-work process.
Those two episodes signal the series’ intention in grappling with the changed world we live in, rather than ignoring it, although the latter is also a perfectly fine creative choice.
The decision made by the Mythic Quest team to throw out its original scripts for season two and start from scratch to reflect what the world had gone through is a smart one. It adds another layer to the characters they’d already established and takes them on another growth journey.
The nimbleness the show exhibits in its storytelling makes it one of the more resonant workplace comedies of our era.
Maybe that’s making Mythic Quest sound too serious and dour because it really is very, very funny, full of wackiness and shenanigans. It’s in that tension between different personality types, each with their own ambitions, agendas and breaking points, that you find the comedic magic.
RELATED: What to watch on streaming in May
The battle of the warring egos between founder Ian (Rob McElhenney) and chief engineer Poppy (Charlotte Nicdao) has shifted, the two having recognised each other’s value in their lives at the end of the first season and across the challenges of the pandemic.
But as their docile boss David (David Hornsby) says, it’s the calm before the storm and the seemingly jovial relationship is bound for a nasty schism.
Elsewhere, David has lost his assistant, the wry and probably sociopathic Jo (Jessie Ennis) to Brad (Danny Pudi), the unscrupulous head of monetisation. Jo is hoping to learn at the feet of something with fewer ethics.
RELATED: The Great North is a cosy family sitcom
The budding romance between game testers Rachel (Ashly Burch) and Dana (Imani Hakim) is progressing while the team’s self-aggrandising writer C.W. Longbottom (F. Murray Abraham, who, at 81-years-old, appears in the season’s earlier episodes virtually) has been advised to keep working remotely.
What Mythic Quest does so superbly is ground its zanier premise with these emotionally honest moments, particularly between Ian and Poppy, two high-strung high-achievers with bags and bags of vulnerabilities.
Watching McElhenney and Nicdao bounce off each, the genuine hurt and genuine joy sparked by their characters’ platonic relationship, is the heart of this series.
A flashback bottle episode later on in the season – tracking C.W.’s first literary job in the 1970s (Silicon Valley’s Josh Brener plays a young C.W.) – only cements the series’ curiosity in how workmates can alter the path of our lives.
Created by Rob McElhenney, Charlie Day and Megan Ganz, who all worked on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Mythic Quest is not a straight mirror to our own workday experiences. It’s a heightened, funhouse reflection.
But through the quips and the absurdity, the fights and the triumphs, Mythic Quest offers us something hopeful about these forced relationships we have that are sometimes fulfilling and sometimes toxic – a sense that we’re all in it together and that sometimes the way through is with each other.
Mythic Quest season two is streaming now on Apple TV+ with new episodes available on Fridays
Share your TV and movies obsessions | @wenleima
https://news.google.com/__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?oc=5
2021-05-07 09:02:16Z
52781570828890
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar