Maybe it’s just the Apple TV+ connection, but “The 12 Hours of Christmas” made me think back to last year’s Ted Lasso Christmas episode more than anything else. “Carol of the Bells” was polarizing and, admittedly, had nothing to do with the main plot — Apple had granted the season two extra episodes, limiting the writers to something stand-alone — but it was a genuine tearjerker, one that reminded you how much you loved those characters.
Mythic Quest’s Christmas episode should work even better in comparison. For one, it’s airing in December, not August. It’s also a little more rooted in the season plot, featuring the first real look at Rachel’s tenure as head of monetization and boosting the popularity of Poppy’s new tool kit. And like “Carol of the Bells” focused on Ted’s loneliness away from his family, “The 12 Hours of Christmas” is mainly about lonely, divorced David’s desire to re-create the joyous familial traditions he never actually got to experience as a kid. All the ingredients are here for something great. And yet while this is a perfectly fine episode — fairly funny and more wholesome than the last few — I found myself slightly let down by it, especially on rewatch.
As I’ve said before, Mythic Quest is often at its best when it’s capturing the eccentricities of the video-game industry: the brutal working conditions in an industry reliant on crunch and the passions that keep these overworked programmers and artists coming in every day anyway. So I was excited to see how the show handled a Christmas episode with everyone unhappily working through the holidays to keep the servers functional. A workplace like this isn’t conducive to a normal Christmas celebration the way AFC Richmond (or Dunder Mifflin) is — something David himself learns when Ian urges him to downplay the holiday and avoid reminding everyone they’re away from their families.
David makes for a natural Ebenezer Scrooge as he overreacts to competition from Ian and Poppy, who are throwing a much more fun, genuinely energizing party downstairs. They’ve essentially turned GrimPop into a nightclub, complete with drinking and ill-advised hookups, and they’re letting programmers mess around with Playpen. (They’re also raffling off Poppy’s Porsche, a nice callback to the prize Montreal gave her last season.) David is right when he points out Ian and Poppy’s selfish motivations for swaying the programmers to their side. But they do have a point, and his sudden insistence that everyone buckle down and get back to work makes him look only worse.
At the end, though, when David wakes up in the morning to a heartwarming display of Christmas cheer, it rings slightly hollow. It’s a nice gesture from Ian and Poppy, sure, and it leads to a sing-along that’s hard not to smile at. But this episode is more about the workplace itself — and the workers’ shifting feelings about the execs — than the complicated friendships between those execs. From that perspective, it feels a little too easy that everyone is grateful to the benevolent overlords again just because Rachel secretly pulled out an extra million dollars for their bonuses. Even the elaborate decorations, fake snow, and much-sought-after vat of chili are possible not through Ian’s hard work or generosity but through the art department’s perennially underappreciated labor. (According to Brad, they were happy to do it.)
Of course, Mythic Quest is not a show primarily about labor rights and Silicon Valley exploitation, and exec characters like David are never really framed as people we should hate. But the show also rarely shies away from the inequity of the industry and from the sacrifices that are necessary if you do want to have a healthy workplace. (Think back to the finale of season one, when David is initially fired after fighting for his workers to get overtime pay.) Maybe this fundamental disconnect is the problem with episodes like this, in which sentiment is at odds with the reality of the scenario — especially considering there aren’t many named characters anymore who aren’t in positions of authority for us to empathize with. While I find David a very endearing character, and it’s theoretically touching to see him achieve something he’s always wanted, the episode runs into some difficulty by trying to prioritize his feelings over those of his overworked employees.
I am, however, enjoying Rachel’s new journey as head of monetization and her guilty enjoyment of making money for a corporation. She looks to Brad for guidance by default, but Dana helps her remember that she needs to trust her own instincts; after all, she got this job because Brad recognized her ability, and she doesn’t need to always implement his ideas. In fact, the million they make that day is all because of her plan.
We haven’t seen much of Rachel and Dana as a couple this season, so it’s nice to see them in the same space. Still, it feels like a bit of a wasted opportunity, especially when we don’t get to see them go to midnight Mass with Dana’s parents. Instead, Rachel asks for Brad’s help with making everyone happy, and she learns the obvious lesson she sort of already learned earlier in the episode: She can’t make everyone happy. But then the story just kind of ends, getting subsumed into David’s story and providing the deus ex machina needed to give everyone Christmas bonuses. So I guess Rachel can make everyone happy after all.
The story that might actually work the best here is Jo’s, which is becoming a pattern as this season goes on. She has a simple but engaging conflict: She’s trying to be vulnerable and become closer with her new friends Poppy and Rachel, but she finds her gestures unreciprocated. As in multiple recent episodes, it’s easy to get invested in Jo’s tentative steps toward becoming a normal-er human being. And it’s really nice to see her find validation in the end, when Poppy and Rachel gift her something made with Playpen: Brunch Crushers, a game that lets you crush brunching women with a tank. They really know her!
There’s a lot of interesting stuff going on in this season of Mythic Quest. But alongside these nice bits of development with characters like Jo or David, there’s a narrative looseness that isn’t serving the ensemble as well as it could. As amiable and enjoyable as this Christmas episode is, it doesn’t feel quite as genuine or heartfelt as the Ted Lasso episode I compare it with. I know this show is capable of pulling on my heartstrings, but this one made me feel a bit like a Scrooge.
Level Rewards
• I didn’t need this episode to be centered on Ian and Poppy, but it might’ve been a nice time to really reaffirm their bond (or complicate it?), considering their reasons to feel lonely on Christmas. I do like the moment when they realize they both did something sweet for each other, but it can’t touch the scene from the quarantine special when Ian came over to comfort Poppy. That wasn’t a Christmas episode, but it kind of works in the same way, and it’s still arguably the emotional peak of the series.
• Ian to Poppy: “You’ve never had sex.”
• “I’m Yoda, bitch.” I do think Dana becomes a better, more specific character the longer the show goes on.
• Jo does a great throwaway Bill O’Reilly impression: “We’ll do it live!”
• This episode really could’ve used some Carol!
