Romantic Metaphors in “A Dark Quiet Death”

Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet is a series that is not talked about nearly enough, although this is probably in part because of its status as an Apple TV exclusive. For anyone who hasn’t heard of it, this is a comedy series centred around the antics in a video game studio, filled with not only in jokes for lovers of the medium, but ones that draw attention to the problems plaguing the industry itself.

There is a lot to love about this show, but it is one that is impossible to talk about without calling particular attention to its fifth episode, “A Dark Quiet Death”.

Let’s just start with a quick look at what this episode is about:

(Spoilers for this episode throughout, and the full first season of Mythic Quest in the section about the full series)

“A Dark Quiet Death”

Written by Katie McElhenny

Directed by Rob McElhenney

“A Dark Quiet Death” takes place at exactly the midpoint of the first season of Mythic Quest. The prior four episodes, and the subsequent four episodes, all follow the same cast of characters all working on the development on the same game (there is a tenth episode, but it is a bonus one added later as a response to the Covid pandemic). The first thing that sets this episode apart is the way it follows entirely new characters working on a completely different game. It is as standalone as an episode can get to the point that a viewer could watch this without seeing a single other episode and still get a full story.

The episode utilizes huge jumps in time, taking place between 1993 and 2010, with the crux of the story being the relationship between our two main characters, Doc and Bean, and the creative project that is the result of (and at the core of) their relationship. Doc is played by Jake Johnson and Bean is played by Cristin Milioti, and they are both absolutely fantastic in these roles.

We start off in 1993 where the pair have their own little meet-cute in a video game store. Bean complains out loud about all the games being trash, and Doc tries to help her find one she might like. The two acquire the pet names that we go on to know them by after Doc cites Doctor Robotnik and the Mean Bean Machine as a game that might fit Bean’s sensibilities. Finally, things wind up in a place where Doc reveals that he is a video game publisher, and that if Bean can’t find the game she wants to play, she should make it herself.

From here the episode jumps to 1995 where they are looking for a publisher to help with the cost of finishing their game, A Dark Quiet Death. We’re also seeing in this time that the two have started a romantic relationship in these past two years. Jumping a year further, they are looking to buy a space to house their new studio to develop the sequel. As more people get involved, the question of the original vision Vs what the audience wants begins to play a very important role, until in 1997, it reaches the point that Disney wants to make a movie.

When we next catch up with the situation once again, it is 2000, and Bean is gone. Doc is still heading their studio, and now he’s dating the star of the A Dark Quiet Death movie adaptation. And while he seems happy at first, things quickly change. Doc is asked to add a final boss to the game that has, up until this point, been about the inevitability of death. The player is meant to die at the end, not be able to heroically beat the monsters. And, in the end, this is the last straw even for him.

Six years later, Doc and Bean stumble upon each other in a video game store again. Doc seems completely remorseful over what happened, but Bean has a new family of her own. While they share a nice moment, Bean leaves to return to her children far sooner than Doc would like. Doc finds himself staring down at a box for the original A Dark Quiet Death, remembering the moments that made this game happen.

There is a quick sort of epilogue with the character Ian Grimm pitching Mythic Quest to the same Montreal based publisher that put out A Dark Quiet Death, and that’s where it ends.

The Doubling of the Partnership

Every step of the way, every scene of the episode, the idea of a creative and romantic partnership in intrinsically linked. When Doc and Bean meet, they both flirt and decide to work together. When they find a publisher in Montreal, this formalizing of their partnership by getting a distributor involved is like the equivalent to getting married (the scene even ends with their first dance). When they buy a studio, the scene plays like a couple buying a house. As Doc brings up needing space for them to make the sequel, is could just as easily be a scene about him wanting more space to raise a baby.

It can be argued that it is at this point the relationship takes a turn, but while it is made obvious and explicit here, there have been signs of their relationship faltering since the beginning. These are two characters who want the same thing: to make a great game. If we want to look deeper into metaphor, we can read this a few different ways. There are possibilities for it being about children, there are possibilities for just the type of relationship they both want. But while they want the same thing, the problem comes from the fact that they define it differently.

Right from the beginning, what gets Bean excited is the idea of making her own game. It is Doc’s line about how the game she wants doesn’t exist, so she should make it herself. There is some heavy flirting before this point, but this is the moment where it becomes more serious for her. She wants this. Doc has shown her, to an extent, that he wants it too. But even in the next scene, where the two are pitching to the Montreal publisher, Bean is ready to be rejected because of her need to keep the game as is and not to conform. Doc has a very different attitude about it. Even as the title is spoken, he refers to Dark Quiet Death as a working title. Bean wants this game to exist, but Doc wants this game to be played by as many people as possible.

This debate between the two of them plays out just like a player moving through their game; death is an inevitable for the player as it is for their relationship. As Doc pushes further and further from what Bean wants in order to make the game (their relationship) closer to what society at large would most approve of, Bean can’t take it anymore.

What is especially interesting about the dynamic of this wedge that is forming between them, is that neither of them is really wrong. If Bean refuses to listen to anyone, it could be near impossible to get it out into the world (at least, back then). If Doc gives in to everything, their game stops being their game.

About two thirds through the episode, their relationship is over, but Doc isn’t single. Instead, he is now dating Tiffany Winters, the actress playing the lead role in the movie based on their video game. She is the embodiment of all the changes that Doc has been agreeing to in order to get more people to buy the game. Literally in the scene we find out that they are together, it is directly after hearing the movie’s trailer bumped their sales numbers by 35%.

Again, looking at all of this as a metaphor, we can read this all as Doc and Bean beginning a relationship with these goals of not conforming to usual standards. Seeing his new girlfriend, the idea of Doc being with a hot blonde movie star is the epitome of him giving in to what society says he should want.

Before Bean ever leaves, Dark Quiet Death loses the titular “dark” by making all the levels super well lit and it loses the “quiet” by adding guns. But, while Bean has given in on some of these things, she refuses to let her game lose the “death”. What makes this game what it is, is the fact that there is no final boss, the player can’t win. In the end, inevitably, the monster kills the player. And this, we come to see, is the last straw for Doc as well.

Doc is asked to add Roscoe, this adorable purple mascot monster to the game, and he practically laughs it off. It’s too silly, Dark Quiet Death isn’t for kids. But then Tom, their brand manager, tells him that isn’t exactly true anymore. Since the movie (which was made by Disney) came out, a lot of kids are playing. Doc can’t parse this with the game he knows, even after every concession he has made, he still sees it as what it was. Here is where Tom brings up a final boss, and where a very interesting reversal takes place.

Doc grabs hold of a flashlight mounted on the wall. This was a gift from Montreal, as a congratulations for selling so many copies of the game. This had been a point on contention between him and Bean because she refused to give it any respect (it is a symbol of all the changes she has to make), but for Doc, it really meant something (because it symbolized what he wanted). During this final argument with Tom, Doc takes down the flashlight and puts it up on the desk like Bean often did. He sits in the chair she once sat in, and Tom sits in what used to be Doc’s. As Doc finally tries to defend the original vision of the game, he fully takes on Bean’s position in an incredibly literal way.

Doc is our point of view character for almost the entire episode. We don’t get scenes with Bean alone; we only see her through his eyes. We never once get Bean’s name, but we get’s Doc’s name here, because it is at this point that reality dawns on him. He is taken out of the romance, the metaphor, all the glamour of having this huge game, and thrown down to Earth with the only utterance of his real name. And as that happens, Doc puts his foot down for the one and only time. He chooses the game over the sales. But it’s too late, and he loses the game entirely.

When Doc and Bean are reunited one last time Doc is in a video game store, starring down at a game starring Roscoe, and Bean comes over. The thing is, now she’s married to someone else and even has children. After just moments of catching up, it is clear Doc wants more, but Bean has moved on. If this were a romantic comedy, this would be the scene where they both confess how much they missed each other and how Doc shouldn’t have done what he did, how he’s learned from it all, how he loves her! But… this isn’t that.

In the end, Doc is left alone. He finds an old copy of the original Dark Quiet Death, and it takes him back to the good times. But even then, they are painfully few. There were so few scenes before things really went south, before the changes started to really pile up, that it lasts only a few seconds. He hands off the game to someone else, telling them it is a great game, but even while he does this, Roscoe is hanging in the air above them, a spectre over this great relationship he once had.

Jumping back to the idea how this could be about children. There is a definite argument for the creation of something like A Dark Quiet Death being their baby. They got into this partnership based off their similar view on wanting to have this baby. But, where the problems came in, was how to raise it. It is metaphor, it is never going to be totally one for one, but it can easily be seen as something like the debate of what religion to raise it as where they discover this is where their goals don’t quite align.

Relationships and creative partnerships aren’t all that different. They are huge commitments, that can be unbelievably rewarding. But, when you enter into that kind of commitment with someone, and you have different goals, things are made that much more difficult There is almost something to be said about Bean being forced to change what she wanted the whole time without Doc having to do the same. For things to work, creatively or romantically, there has to be some meeting in the middle.

Connecting to the Rest of the Series

As mentioned above, “A Dark Quiet Death” is essentially a stand-alone episode. Any viewer should be able to watch this single half hour and fully appreciate what is going on. And while that works in favour for this episode, it begs the question of its purpose in the series as a whole.

There are two real connections to the rest of the series, and one sillier one, within the episode itself. The sillier one is that Roscoe’s game pops up at least one other time in the first four episodes. I don’t think there is any deeper meaning, it’s just basic world building. But the other two connections are the studio space, and the Montreal based publisher. This studio’s building is the same one that we have been seeing used to develop Mythic Quest in every other episode, just years before the character we have been following ever moved in. And the publisher, as we see in the final scene, is the same one putting out Mythic Quest.

If we look only at this episode, these can be taken as almost fun Easter Eggs for the viewer, just to sort of tie it all back. But, when we look at the episode and how it fits into the season finale, “Blood Ocean”, thing take a much more foreboding turn.

The season ends with Ian asking Poppy to be Co-Creative Directors on Mythic Quest going forward, showing her how two mysterious people, Bean and Doc, carved their names into the building. While Ian and Poppy don’t seem to have a romantic partnership (though it could happen, but personally I think it would be a stronger choice not to) the idea of them working together does call to mind the ways in which Bean and Doc didn’t see eye to eye and what it inevitably meant for their game.

While “A Dark Quiet Death” feels pretty out of nowhere when it first airs, looking at it retroactively after the season ends it feels like it is telling us where the show is going as a whole, or at least what might come between Ian and Poppy now that they are going to be partners. If they can’t find ways to agree with each other, is all of Mythic Quest totally doomed?

Conclusions

“A Dark Quiet Death” is a beautiful done tragic metaphor for partnerships. It manages to be both standalone and matter to the series at large, in a way that feels almost unprecedented. Honestly, it’s just an incredible episode of television, from a fantastic show.

When a story does such an amazing job of taking something as niche as video game development and exploring it by way of something so broad as a romantic relationship, it becomes empowered to be far more than the sum of its parts. It makes the episode mean more, while simultaneously giving outsiders a foothold in.

And hey, it has a pretty great message to. When in a partnership, romantic or otherwise, communicate. Be aware of what the other wants, and make sure you both know to what degree you can compromise. Otherwise, just like it is for the players in A Dark Quiet Death, death for the partnership is inevitable.