When it comes to tropes on TV and in movies, the will-they-won’t-they one is ever-present.
If there’s a title with a male lead and a female lead, and they’re thrown together in an environment where they spend a lot of time together, the question inevitably turns to whether they will hook up. Sam and Diane. Mulder and Scully. Harry and Sally.
Two names you won’t be adding to that list is Ian and Poppy – Mythic Quest’s prickly colleagues who genuinely seems to love each other. But it’s a platonic love, that rare commodity in pop culture, but one which has just as much dramatic potential if you have good enough writers to mine it.
Mythic Quest does. The Apple TV+ workplace comedy is one of the low-key highlights of the past few years, a funny but emotionally deep series which will happily go for an easy joke, but then hit you right in the feels with some of the most insightful and resonant character beats.
The Ian and Poppy relationship is right at the heart of the show, the dynamics of which drive the series’ ambition to not just tell a story but to evolve one. Like the best shows on TV, it’s not static, these are characters that change and grow – and Ian and Poppy both have much to learn.
The series is currently in its third season on Apple TV+, and it’s already so different from where it started at the beginning of 2020, not long before covid hit.
It was Mythic Quest’s pandemic episode, set between seasons one and two, which really cemented the show’s commitment to character growth.
Like many others, it put out an episode in direct dialogue with the times we were going through, but it used the gimmick of the situation and the format (characters on zoom) to forward the story and the characters’ relationships with each other.
It was a moving episode of streaming TV at a time when everyone was feeling a bit raw and needed to know that their loved ones were still there, just beyond their walls.
Charlotte Nicdao, who embodies the prickly, messy and whip-smart Poppy could relate to a lot of what her character was going through. The Australian actor had just moved to Los Angeles at the beginning of 2020 when the whole world shut down.
“It was great timing!” she joked to news.com.au. “In the quarantine episode, Poppy’s talking about how far away she is from her family and the isolation of being in a different country while also being physically isolated – and that was something that I really related to.
“That episode also really moved Ian (Rob McElhenney) and Poppy’s relationship forward.
“We all in the past few years have had moments of extreme vulnerability and I think in those moments you realise who’s important to you, and that episode really depicts that for Poppy and Ian.
“And through seasons two and now three, more and more they’re having to confront what that means, what it means to have been so vulnerable with each other, what it means to have admitted how much they care about each other.”
The thorniness and push-and-pull of platonic relationships between a man and a woman are rarely dealt with onscreen. There are a few notable examples – Jack and Liz in 30 Rock, Joan and Sherlock in Elementary, Don and Peggy in Mad Men.
There’s a lot of will-they-won’t-they in Poppy and Ian’s relationship too, but it has nothing to do with romance.
“It’s not will they or won’t they kiss, it’s will they or won’t they create something great? Will they or won’t they find a healthy way to be around each other? Will they or won’t they force each other to eat buffalo chicken pizza?” Nicdao asked.
Set inside a video game developer studio, Mythic Quest is a workplace comedy that goes beyond the interpersonal dynamics of the team – although there is still plenty of that – and explores the conflict inherent in collective creativity.
Created by McElhenney, Charlie Day and Megan Ganz, it’s a series that’s much deeper than its goofy name suggests.
“We are getting into these headier concepts of at what point does a collaboration become too toxic to continue,” Nicdao explained. “And what does good mentoring look like? What does it mean to not be able to see your own creativity subjectively?”
And then balance that with less cerebral wordplay which nod to Poppy’s Australian background (changed to as such after Nicdao was cast) – “Shove Tim Tams up my bogan sh*tmaker”.
Mythic Quest has never lost sight of its fidelity to developing challenging characters who plays with your loyalties and compassion, such as the often loveable, frequently unreasonable and sometimes infuriating Poppy.
That she is so flawed is testament to the writers’ confidence that audiences will find compelling a multidimensional character one is not just one thing.
“The thing I have always found really interesting about her journey is that she’s pitched in season one as an underdog and someone that’s very easy to root for,” Nicdao said. “As each season goes on, she makes it harder and harder. It’s almost like a hero to villain story.
“I don’t know if her fate is to be a villain, I’m actually rooting for her to figure herself out and learn how to be a hero again. But I think it’s that tension that kind of makes it exciting to get a new script.
“What direction is she headed this season? Is she going to figure herself out? Is she going to become even more of a narcissist?”
That’s the real quest of Mythic Quest.
Mythic Quest is streaming now on Apple TV+
