‘Mythic Quest’ Season 3 Review: Still the Best Workplace Comedy on TV

Typically when you’ve seen one workplace comedy, you’ve seen the all. Most of these shows juggle the same handful of problems: How do you handle an in-office crush? What do you do with a boss you hate? How do you balance new ideas with tried-and-true methods? Those are never the questions Mythic Quest on Apple TV+ cares about. For its third season in a row, Rob McElhenney and Megan Ganz‘s comedy once again skirts the predictable to explore the niche corners of corporate America.

It’s true that most of the hurdles addressed this season have to do with middle and upper management. For example, Carol (Naomi Ekperigin), this show’s underrated HR head, finds herself as the Head of Diversity after failing her way up. But once she’s there, her work ethic constantly battles against the relief that comes with obtaining a cushy job. To a lesser degree, Rachel (Ashly Burch) finds herself in a similar predicament. Meanwhile, Poppy (Charlotte Nicdao) and Ian’s (McElhenney) journeys both have to do with their egos. After spending oh-so-many years of hyping themselves up to believe they can do anything, both of them are slapped with the realization that isn’t true. They have limits, no matter what their deepest insecurities tricked them into believing.

It’s through that specificity that Mythic Quest shines. Every comedy on the market jokes about how work sucks. But few have explored the exhausting push and pull that comes when you turn your creative passions into your livelihood. Even fewer have tried to grapple with the exhilarating and toxic emotions that emerge when that commercialized passion becomes how you measure your self-worth. These are big, a-year-into-therapy ideas. Yet Mythic Quest is able to throw them out as casually and confidently as any one of Brad’s (Danny Pudi) insults. It’s a work of art.

Mythic Quest doesn’t want to be everything for every office worker. It wants to honestly reflect the specific frustrations of a select few. It’s through that hyper-focus — these longer emotional journeys that force viewers to keep track of who’s where on the corporate ladder, how they got there, and what it cost — that Mythic Quest becomes universally relatable. Everyone’s workplace struggles are endlessly fascinating to them and boring to everyone else. McElhenney and Ganz’s comedy continues to erase that line, transforming the snarky emails and dull office parties that would typically make your eyes glaze over into genuine sources of drama.

There are parts to Season 3 that are a tad too cutesy. Ian and Poppy’s new edgeless and windowless office, for example, always feels too cartoonish for the rest of this show. Likewise, this season’s standalone episode isn’t as strong as others. It’s sweet, and it does fit into the themes of this season. But it’s also an episode where the edges are slightly too perfect, an element that feels jarring for this show that delights in the messy.

But when it comes to the broad brushstrokes, Mythic Quest still reigns supreme. There is simply no other show that better understands both the privileged and endlessly stressful position of being paid to do what you love. That was true in 2020, and it remains true two years and an entirely new working ecosystem later.

The first two episodes in Mythic Quest Season 3 premiere on Apple TV+ Friday, November 11.