‘Mythic Quest’ returns to Apple TV+ this week, and Season 4 will see the same cast of characters (including Rob McElhenney, Charlotte Nicado, David Hornsby and Ashly Burch) returning to team up and (hopefully) develop new innovations in the video game world.
Season 3 formed a new status quo amongst the MQ minds, but this fresh season brings the dynamic duo of Poppy (Nicado) and Ian (McElhenney) back together to try and figure out their new normal.
“Last year we really dove deep into Poppy, and this year we thought it would be interesting to dive deep into the psyche of Ian Grimm. The wake that he leaves behind is always such a central part of the storytelling, but we don’t really get into what makes him tick in the way that we did with Poppy in Season 3,” McElhenney explains.
“So we thought it would be really fun and interesting to do that in Season 4. And to watch as this guy, who has to really take a look in the mirror and if he is going to try to keep his partner—who he desperately needs in his life—he’s going to have to make some changes. The question is, does he recognize what those changes are and is he willing to make those changes?”
Things will obviously be different for the pair, and that’s apparent right in the first ten minutes of this season’s first episode (enter a new hunky character who may create some havoc.) But, overall, the balancing act explored in Season 3 continues in Season 4 to new levels of the playing field.
“These are questions that we’re always asking ourselves just as human beings. So as we sit in the writer’s room, what interests us as people is what we find most interesting to write about and hope that the audience comes along for the ride.”
But ‘Mythic Quest’ isn’t just Poppy and Ian, and as McElhenney puts it, he enjoys watching all of the dynamics between its colorful cast of characters.
“I love watching Poppy and David. Really, I like watching David and anybody and everybody. He’s just one of the funniest people on earth to me,” the ‘It’s Always Sunny’ star states.
“I was just talking about this with my kids last night. We were watching the episodes and I kept pausing it and they were like, stop pausing it, Dad. I kept pausing it to go: ‘Oh wait, and then she did this, and then they did that, and let me just tell you a little bit more about the two of them.’ I just love thinking about how we got to different places with the actors and the writers and how we found the fusions of those things and what we thought was going to work but didn’t work and what did work.”
Over the course of three seasons, we’ve seen every cast member on the show grow in their own way, and as McElhenney teases, that will also be the case for the fourth installment.
“I just feel like we are hitting such a groove with the way that all of the supporting cast interact with one another that it’s so hard to pick out any of them. But I mean, Jo (Jesse Ennis) and any character, or Jo and Brad (Danny Pudi) specifically, they had a whole season-long arc that has been so fun to watch,” he says. “It’s so hard to choose which ones stand out to me. There’s so many.”
Mythic Quest’s footprint has become so prominent on the streaming service, that Apple has decided to premiere a spin-off series once Season 4 ends in March. Inspired by the regular one-off episodes (like the Quarantine episode in 2020), ‘Side Quests’ will offer even more stories from the world of ‘Mythic Quest.’
McElhenney is excited for what the future holds and all in all, the Philadelphia native turned Canadian resident (in the show) had one last sentiment to leave off on — “Go Birds.”
The 10-episode fourth season of ‘Mythic Quest’ will premiere globally with the first two episodes on Wednesday, Jan. 29, followed by one new episode weekly through Wednesday, March 26 on Apple TV+
