Mythic Quest season 3 episode 5 recap & review: Playpen

In episode 5 of Mythic Quest, Poppy struggles to come to terms with her failure to make Hera fun while Ian turns his attention to the MQ movie. The episode is streaming on Apple TV+.

Recap

Poppy is looking for ways to make Hera fun but she comes up with silly ideas and Ian lets her know that. She suddenly notices that someone is stripping code away from their server and the digital signature says that Dana’s the one responsible.

Ian sees the news about the MQ movie and he wonders aloud why he wasn’t consulted on it even though he had a huge role in its conception.

David gathers Carol, Brad and Rachel to find out whose idea it was to insert NFTs into the game without running it by him first. He says that Jacques and Jean-Luc want the name of whoever is responsible and each of them takes turns accepting the blame with Carol chiming in first.

Carol gets a message from Montreal saying that they would like to speak with her and Jo says that she messaged them as soon as Carol accepted responsibility.

Ian and Poppy confront Dana about the code she was stealing and Poppy is very animated about it but Dana says she just downloaded the Playpen tool kit that Poppy created to keep Dana busy.

Dana says that despite being quite basic, it’s a fun coding tool to play around with which is why she shared it with her friends and Poppy has a tough time understanding that. Ian says he’s going to talk to David about the MQ movie and heads out.

Carol is done with her call with the bosses and Brad walks in to apologize for getting her fired but Carol says she’s been promoted to Director of Unexplored Development Initiatives because they loved the NFT idea.

She gets higher pay and a budget allowing her to hire people and make actual changes in the company. She and Brad momentarily enjoy her promotion.

Dana takes Poppy into the VR world of Playpen and shows her how much fun it is. Poppy keeps belittling how simple it is even though she created it but she still ends up enjoying it.

Ian walks into David’s office to complain about being left out of the MQ movie decision and the two of them have a chest-puffing contest. Brad initially has the upper hand but Ian eventually convinces Brad to let him consult on most decisions.

Brad is in a room with many screens and fancy equipment when Rachel rushes in because he messaged her that it’s an emergency. He asks her if it’s possible to be a good person and earn obscene amounts of money together and she says that it’s all about finding creative ways to make the game profitable.

He says that she should be the new Head of Monetization and the opinion she just shared is proof that she’d be good at it. He says that he’ll help her along because he obviously cannot be the Head of Monetization again due to SEC regulations.

Dana finds Poppy in the washroom crying and asks her what the matter is. poppy says that she can’t see things the way Ian does and was hoping that Hera would be her crowning achievement but it isn’t any fun.

She did create Playpen but she couldn’t see the fun in it the way others did and she considers herself a failure. Poppy takes her back into the Playpen VR where all of Dana’s classmates are present to applaud Poppy and praise her for what she has created.

Poppy feels so happy and she rushes to Ian’s house to tell him that she wants to switch her focus to Playpen because that’s her actual masterpiece and he agrees.

Review

• The scene where Poppy talks about her failings feels so emotionally raw and Charlotte Nicdao puts in a brilliant performance. her vulnerability shines, as does her sheer delight when she gets the recognition she deserved later on.
• For a first-time out as director, Danny Pudi does a good job with this episode. It’s quite funny and well-structured, striking the right balance from start to finish.
• Carol, Brad and Rachel continue to be this fun trio of characters that interact with each other and have contrasting personalities that mesh well together. The whole acronym business regarding their positions is simple yet incredibly funny.

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Also Read: Mythic Quest season 3 episode 4 recap & review: The Two Joes