From its first episode, there has always been an echoing quality to “Mythic Quest,” Apple TV+’s comedy about the sacrifices, victories and heartbreaks of trying to make a career in art. For a long time, those voices were loudest around Charlotte Nicdao’s Poppy, a brilliant and passionate game developer whose arc was reminiscent of that of series co-creator Megan Ganz.
Ganz first started working with Rob McElhenney and David Hornsby during Season 12 of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” a series she used to love watching in college. However, it wasn’t until “Mythic Quest” that she developed a creative partnership with McElhenney. Much like Poppy, Ganz had to figure out how to work with a creator she had admired for years.
“We just put in a lot of like our own selves into it. The reality of the situation was I had been watching him on TV for a decade before we’d ever worked together,” Ganz said. “We realized that Poppy’s character, she’s trying to fight for her own patch, but she’s not comfortable with the fact that Ian is good at some things and she’s good at other things. She wants to be good at everything, because she thinks that’s the only way she’ll be respected.’”
When the series first started, Ganz noted they were writing about creativity, ambition, clashing egos and “how a creative partnership is a really difficult thing to maintain, in some ways as difficult as marriage because you are trying to blend your two methods of expression,” she said.
“When you’re running a multibillion-dollar company like they are at ‘Mythic Quest,’ the stakes are always going to be high and the adversity is always going to be there. So how do you navigate those things?” McElhenney told TheWrap. “There’s a lot of parallels between that and actually running a television show. A lot of the dynamics that play out in the show are actually extensions of very small, less critical and less exciting versions of what happens in my life.”
Now that the comedy is in its fourth season, the Apple TV+ series is getting uncomfortably close to its other creator: Rob McElhenney. Season 4 sees Ian (McElhenney) in a role he’s never been before: not as an overconfident leader but as a man who’s slowly realizing it may make more sense for him to step back.
“[Ian] is, at least outwardly, very confident, usually bordering on arrogant, which — as we all know— shows an exceptionally deep well of insecurity,” McElhenney said. “It becomes laid bare when his creative partner and his best friend is, from his perspective, not there for him when he needs her most. You see him slowly start to crumble over the course of a season. And that’s always fun to play.”
It’s no coincidence that this version of Ian is coming as the far more emotionally stable McElhenney has entered a new era of his own career. Between owning multiple football clubs and producing new seasons of FX’s “Always Sunny” and “Welcome to Wrexham,” as well as Apple TV+’s “Mythic Quest” and the upcoming spinoff “Side Quest,” the creator and star has been stretched thin. But unlike Ian, who takes it personally that his partner and company may not need him as much as they once did, McElhenney is more gracious about how his art has expanded beyond him.
“It’s a testament to the people who I’m partnering with, most importantly Kaitlin [Olson], who has given me the space and the ability to go and find the bandwidth it takes to make these things, make them great and give each individual one the time and attention it needs to grow and to be the best version of what it can be,” McElhenney said. He especially praised his wife and “Always Sunny” co-star for allowing him to pursue these projects while maintaining “a robust and meaningful relationship with each other and with our family.”
McElhenney has been especially proud to see Olson “find her own massive success” in past couple of years. Though the actress has always been a highlight on “Always Sunny,” her turn as DJ Vance on Max’s “Hacks” has earned her critical acclaim and awards nominations. She’s also the star of ABC’s crime drama hit “High Potential,” which scored a Season 2 renewal before it even finished its first installment.
For McElhenney, witnessing his wife’s success has been “the most important and rewarding part of the last three or four years of our lives.”
As for what’s ahead in his own professional future, McElhenney feels like he can make both “Mythic Quest” and “Always Sunny” “forever.”
“I think that the world will continue to give us opportunities to write things about what’s happening in the zeitgeist, and, as cultural norms continue to evolve and change, so will workplace dynamics,” McElhenney said. “That’s exactly what we’re trying to write about on ‘Mythic Quest.’”
With “Mythic Quest” Season 4 out, “Always Sunny” Season 17 being delivered to FX and “Welcome to Wrexham” Season 4 being shot, McElhenney finds himself now in a rare lull.
“I’m being pulled in so many different directions and across so many different industries, yet I always still find myself drifting back towards a writers room,” McElhenney said. “There’s just something about being in a room full of really talented people with different points of view that challenges you to be the best version of yourself as a person and as a professional. So I have to figure out what that next show is. But most likely it’ll be a TV show.”
“Mythic Quest” Wednesdays on Apple TV+.
