Danny Pudi breaks down Mythic Quest’s season 2 finale cliffhanger

Mythic Quest’s season-two finale, titled “TBD,” is all about setting up new beginnings. Ian (Rob McElhenney) and Poppy (Charlotte Nicdao) quit MQ to work on their own project, Rachel (Ashley Burch) is heading off to Berkeley, Dana (Imani Hakim) is going to start school, and Jo (Jessie Ennis) goes back to being David’s (David Hornsby) assistant. As for MQ’s crafty Head of Monetization, Brad Bakshi (Danny Pudi), his new adventure involves a possible prison stint. In the episode, Brad proves he’s a shark with a heart when he takes the fall for Jo after she is tricked into doing insider trading by his brother, Zack (Parvesh Cheena). The secret softie that he is, Brad calls the SEC on himself before Zack gets the chance to throw Jo under the bus. “I love the moment he does his perp walk across the office,” Pudi tells The A.V. Club. “No one is surprised he is arrested, it’s like they saw it coming. I found that super funny.”

Pudi says Brad’s entire arc in season two was about peeling back layers to understand his manipulative behavior. His tumultuous dynamic with Zack, which is explored in “Breaking Brad,” explains a lot. “You get to see his vulnerabilities. I was excited to crack open that side of him. We have such a tremendous team that we can swing wildly from over-the-top humor to raw, honest character moments,” Pudi says. The storyline kicked off with Zack’s introduction and his acquaintance with Jo comes full circle in “TBD.” It leads to Brad saving his mentee and also gaining some street cred for going to jail: “Jo might have out-sharked him by going to his brother, but the finale then has this brief but beautiful moment with both of them where they realize they do have room to grow as people and be there for each other even if it’s masked under a snarky attitude.”

Their mentor-mentee relationship began in the premiere, when Brad had a walk-and-talk with Jo that almost predicted the turns their relationship would take. In “Please Sign Here,” the duo participated in the strangest dance-off to determine who is the apex predator. But in the finale, this bond surprisingly strengthens. “I don’t think Brad wanted to go to jail necessarily,” Pudi suggests. “I almost admire his quality of not being concerned with people liking him. In this episode with Jo, though, there’s a genuine moment of being like ‘this person sees me and accepts me,’” he says. “Neither of them have got that in this office before, so it was fun to play with that and work with Jessie on it, who is an incredible actor and just so collaborative.”

After two seasons and 20 episodes (including two specials, “Quarantine” and “Everlight”), the Apple TV+ comedy crafted multi-dimensional characters. Pudi, who starred on Community for six seasons, says that it’s a wholly different time in TV now: “Community season one alone was 25 episodes. It was my first big show and I was so excited to be there, but I also didn’t know what I was doing. I don’t think I fully comprehended what I was doing until the end of that first season, and then we really just sunk into it. With MQ, we’ve been given a lot of trust by the writers and by [series co-creators] McElhenney and Megan Ganz.”

In the finale, Brad is escorted away by the feds, and casually mentions to David—who really has no clue what’s happening here—that he’ll be back in six to eight months. It’s a strong indication that he will definitely be spending some time behind bars. “I wonder if Brad will come back with any prison tattoos?” Pudi wonders. “I’m thinking lots of knuckle tattoos, and Brad will probably want to start giving Ted Talks or something in prison.” Apple TV+ has yet to officially renew Mythic Quest for season three, but it might look very different now that half the MQ employees are technically no longer around. Pudi says the finale does take some interesting turns, but he’s confident the writers will know how to work around them. “I’m curious to see what it’ll be like for Jo and Brad now since she’s the only one who knows what he did and why. It’ll be exciting to find out.”