Typically, quests involve a series of challenges that test the mettle of a hero or heroes. Among those challenges is time spent lost and confused. The protagonists must wander as they struggle with double until, finally, they rediscover the correct path. In Mythic Quest Season 4, it isn’t until the fifth episode of the nine screened for critics (out of a 10-episode season) that our favorite motley crew of video game company employees find their way.
The path until then is not devoid of its pleasures. Episode 4, “The Villain’s Feast,” in particular, is a delight. The crew, including Poppy’s (Charlotte Nicdao) new boyfriend Storm (Chase Yi), travel to a remote island for a murder mystery party. As the episode unfolds, each character gets a spotlight moment, a chance to demonstrate their comedic talents while hinting at further depths. Alas, the three episodes that precede it feel like filler in comparison, a sensation that only grows stronger as the season ramps up on its back end.

Throughout, the writing is still capable of delivering laughs. The performances remain appealingly odd. Even as they grown more lived-in, there continues to be a sense of comedic anarchy to their actions. All of that acknowledged, from this critic’s standpoint, the show was beginning to feel like perhaps the time had come for a little “It’s not you, you’re still great. I’m just not into you anymore” speech. This happens sometimes with a multiple-season series. The quality hasn’t necessarily dipped, but with time, its familiarity has robbed it of some vibrancy. No one is phoning it in, certainly. Nonetheless, to strain the metaphor to near its breaking point, perhaps Mythic Quest and the audience have grown apart.
After those initial meandering, if still entertaining, episodes, though, Mythic Quest Season 4 gets its feet underneath it. Always as much about finding your community as anything else, this season reveals itself to be about what one begins to need more than their community can provide. Whether it is Poppy looking for a life beyond working with Ian (Rob McElhenney) or Dana (Imani Hakim) finding the tradeoff in accepting the safety of being part of a salaried video game developer, each storyline concerns the balance between appreciating your current situation and reaching for something new. A bit of irony, considering where my head was regarding outgrowing the show.

As the themes take shape, Mythic Quest Season 4 doesn’t gain more jokes. However, it does become more entertaining. While “Villain’s Feast” was great, episode 8, “Rebrand,” which follows Ian’s estranged son Pootie Shoe (Elisha Henig) as he wrestles with impending adulthood, is as funny and significantly more emotionally resonant. Quest’s secret gift has always been sneakily adding dimensions to characters that read like cartoons on first encounter. It never over-sentimentalizes them but recognizes even the strangest, most self-involved people can have inner lives.
And yet there are those first handful of episodes. To start what is the show’s final season with wheel spinning and throat clearing is undeniably disappointing. And while the second half of the season proves the creators still have it, that only makes those openers feel even less essential. What remains unresolved going into the series finale—which again, I still have not seen—adds to this as well. The comparison heightens every misstep.
Mythic Quest Season 4 is still worth watching, especially for those who have loved it to date. To reiterate, it is never bad. It’s just that the upswing in quality retroactively makes the season’s early episodes feel like a misfire. It’s wasting time that audiences will see would be better spent on the kind of storytelling seen in the season’s second half.
Mythic Quest Season 4 starts its last level January 29 on AppleTV+.