These episodes achieve the goal to which any ensemble sitcom should aspire: recognizing not only what’s inherently funny about each character, but what’s funny when they cross the path of every other character. (Ian, simultaneously trying to be better while also being his usual smug self: “Helping women is exhausting!”) David and Brad’s rivalry also continues, but now with the complication that David’s sociopathic former assistant Jo (Jessie Ennis) has adopted Brad as her new boss and mentor. Ian and Poppy split up to work on different halves of the new expansion(*), and enlist the testers as their new assistants, and Ian’s exasperation with Rachel - and the ways that Rachel keeps unwittingly re-enforcing his patronizing attitude - is an ongoing delight. All of these dynamics continue this season, often in fun new ways - as Rachel and Dana consider becoming a couple, they prove an endless headache for HR boss Carol (Naomi Ekperigin), who just wants everyone to shut up and behave like adults - but the new episodes smartly mix and match the characters into unexpected and effective new combinations. And it kept the supporting characters mostly siloed into smaller groups so that, for instance, flirtatious game testers Rachel (Ashley Burch) and Dana (Imani Hakim) mostly just worked with each other, while David Hornsby’s meek producer David was primarily a foil for Danny Pudi’s ruthless money man Brad. The first season leaned on the tension between narcissistic Ian, who founded the game on his own, and neurotic Poppy, who felt long disrespected for her work until Ian finally promoted her to his level. Murray Abraham, has to keep FaceTiming into meetings because it’s less safe for him to go out than it is for his younger colleagues.) It’s now a consistently funny show, on top of an emotionally effective one.
(Well, mostly: The first half of the season has an inspired running gag in which the game’s technologically inept head writer C.W. That quarantine story was a tremendous achievement, and Mythic Quest continues to level up in Season Two, even with the characters all back in the office together.
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