Posted in: Apple, TV | Tagged: mythic quest

Mythic Quest Original vs. Revised Series Ending: Let's Take a Look

Apple TV+ gave the team behind Mythic Quest a chance to swap out the cliffhanger ending with a True Ending (as video games call them).

When Apple TV announced that Mythic Quest was cancelled last week. Two weeks after the season four finale premiered, they also announced that the finale episode would be re-edited with a new ending to make the episode a series ending instead of a season-end cliffhanger. Writer-director Ashley Birch said they had shot the alternate ending for the finale during production as a Plan B if the series didn't get renewed. When Apple TV announced the series would not be coming back, they simply went back to the editing bay and removed that final shot, replacing it with the finale minute seamlessly.

The Difference Between the Cliffhanger Ending and the "True Ending"

In the final episode of Mythic Quest, the company faced a regime change while Ian (Rob McElhenney) talked Poppy (Charlotte Nicdao) into leaving the company to start a fresh life with her baby daddy and her impending new baby. In the final scene, a heartbroken Ian returns to the office to continue to work on the expansion he and Poppy and created together. He's taken by surprise when Poppy walks in rather than getting on her plane to fly away. They bicker as they always do, but she insists on knowing why he insisted on coming back to work on their expansion. He admits that he wanted to keep the expansion because it was the only part of her he had left when she left the games industry to start her new life. Touched that he finally did something selfless at last, she hugs him and, in the moment, they kiss and start to make out before pulling away and looking at each other in shock. Cut to credits. That was the cliffhanger ending to set up season four when Ian and Poppy have to deal with the breaking of the "will they? Won't they?" impasse that had been the subtext of their relationship throughout the series.

In the new final ending, or True Ending as video games might call it, instead of kissing, Poppy breaks the hug to tell Ian she's going to write down his passwords for him since he can never remember them to log into his own computer. Then they sit at their desks – hers is empty – and start to bicker all over again. Life goes on. You could argue that the True Ending is the better one because the "OMG! THEY FINALLY KISS!" cliffhanger ending broke the series' central relationship by having Ian and Poppy kiss when the real heart of their love story was never sexual but their mutual respect for each other's skill and talent at creating games. They're complementary soulmates who are more siblings than lovers, and to dial up the sexual tension might have been a sign that the series had run out of ideas, so it was probably just as well that the series ended here. Sure, it would have been fun to see the rest of the cast go through yet another chapter of changing-but-staying, where they find new ways to torture each other, but leaving the audience wanting more is the better way to go.

Apple TV has removed the original cliffhanger ending, so it's like it never existed, but it's really no great loss. The True Ending makes more sense for Ian and Poppy… especially as a series finale.

Mythic Quest is streaming on Apple TV+.

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