Mythic Quest Season 4 Standalone Episode, Rebrand, Explores Child Stardom

Mythic Quest is known for its seasonal standalone episodes, starting with A Dark Quiet Death in Season 1, Backstory! in Season 2, and Sarian in Season 3. Now, near the end of its fourth season, Mythic Quest adds another to its repertoire: Rebrand. The story centers on Brendan, aka Pootie Shoe (Elisha Henig) a massively popular streamer and the estranged son of Ian Grimm, and his mother Shannon (Alanna Ubach) on Brendan's 17^th birthday as he attempts to "rebrand" and take the next step towards adulthood - only to find he might not be ready to let go of childhood quite yet.

Personal Experiences

The episode is as heartfelt as it is funny, and tackles issues like working from a young age, relying on a child for the family income, working through the challenges of an absent, semi-famous father, facing responsibilities, and finding work-life balance. Both Ubach and Henig have been working from a young age, and Henig, who is currently not much older than his teenaged character, wrote the episode.

"Writing this episode was quite personal," says Henig. "I think that the journey from doing this job as a kid, it messes with your head. You have to start all over again as an adult when you transition through puberty, but I think you also have to reevaluate everything and have a realization of how strange your life has been.

"I have no complaints about being a child actor, but I do think there's a certain trauma inherent in the profession, and I think the streaming world is maybe even more intense in some ways. I mean, those streamers will work for like 12 hours a day when they're 13. This episode felt like a natural vehicle to express some of the thoughts I was having."

Ubach agrees, recounting her own experiences auditioning in Los Angeles as a teenager. "I started working professionally when I was about 13. It's funny - my mom was so sick and tired of driving me to all of those auditions along Ventura Boulevard, she looked at me one day and said, 'I can't do this anymore, just take a cab. I can't take those moms anymore.'"

Mommy Managers

In the realm of mommy managers, Ubach's character, Shannon, is something of an enigma; both a mother who wants to protect what's left of her son's childhood and stop his emancipation request, but also a woman who has benefitted from the empire Brendan created - the episode references that Brendan's followers raised money for her to correct a boob job gone wrong, and that Brendan owns the massive house (complete with a pool and guesthouse) that they live in.

"What I discovered with most of these mothers is that their sons espoused them," says Ubach. "Because the son suddenly becomes the breadwinner, and all of a sudden, the son knows everything. 'He's always right, he's the king of the castle, he's so talented, so brilliant.' And it becomes the mother's job to just feed their ego."

At the same time, Shannon is also keenly aware that Brendan has grown up to be entitled, not unlike his estranged father. In one early scene, she mutters to herself that she "raised a f***ing monster." It's ironic, given that both she and Brendan hate Ian, and Brendan wrestles with his relationship with his father throughout the episode.

"It's the classic Greek myth," says Henig. "In Brendan's case specifically, because his father is really an absent father, I think Ian's shadow looms a little larger."

"Well, sure. Brendan was forced to become the man of the house, wasn't he?" Adds Ubach. "And did a damn good job of it while Ian was off effing around and pretending to be the biggest celebrity on earth. It's really funny, you see it in really famous stars from the 60s and 70s - if they weren't around while their kids were growing up, you see that kid become one of the biggest celebrities on the planet. Some people wonder what drove them, but I know what it is: yeah, I'll show you. I'll show you, dad. I'll show you, mom. Just you wait and see. I'm going to have you by the balls. Give me five years. And it happens! And it's so dramatic. It's a soap opera."

"So any parents out there with talented children?" says Henig. "If you want them to succeed and become famous, just abandon them. (laughs) Don't show them any love."

In the midst of all of this, Brendan is struggling with what it means to be a responsible adult. He wants to buy a Lamborghini (after all, as he reminds his mom in the episode, he has a business, is a homeowner, and owns six parking lots in Palm Desert), and start taking steps towards rebranding himself. While losing the "Shoe" from his username "Pootie Shoe" and dropping his famed "Butthole Rating System" seems like no big deal to him, it's not that simple - there's a massive brand contract that wants the whole package, B-holes and all. But hey, if Brendan can come up with $10 million to break the contract, he can rebrand all he wants. Most adults - his agents, managers, and mother included - would think twice at that number, but Brendan doesn't sweat it. He'll do almost anything, even if that means fighting another content creator live on stream. Well, almost anything; he won't ask his father for help.

Work-Life Balance

One of the major themes of Mythic Quest season four, as well as its upcoming spinoff series Side Quest, is maintaining (or striving for) work-life balance, and it turns out to be important in Rebrand as well. After getting a hard lesson about what it means to be an adult from his agent (Charlie Day), Brendan slows down a little bit, deciding to skip his emancipation hearing to play the guitar. Henig and Ubach reflect on why work-life balance is important as actors.

"You tend to live. That's my take on it. If you want to master anything creatively, you have to get a life," Ubach says. "You can't obsess over the work, or else the work will just sort of simmer and stay the same temperature. You'll hit a ceiling creatively if you just concentrate on the work. But I always feel like you'll branch out and grow into this beautiful oak once you get a life."

"I definitely think in creative fields, a lot of it does draw on life experience and opening your mind in different ways." says Henig. "I think a hallmark of child actors is not having a life, and I've gotten a life more so in the last few years as I've grown up. It's a little push and pull because you can devote a little less of your energy and your time when you have other priorities, but I do think it helps you, especially in acting. Because in acting, you have to inhabit all these people, and the more people you can meet, the more people you can absorb, the more people you can be in your life, then the more you have to draw on for that kind of thing."

"Humanity, baby." says Ubach.

Rebrand stars Henig and Ubach, with an appearances from Mythic Quest star Rob McElhenney and a guest appearance by Charlie Day. Henig also wrote the episode. Mythic Quest is executive produced by McElhenney and Day under their RCG banner, Michael Rotenberg and Nicholas Frenkel on behalf of 3Arts Entertainment, and Margaret Boykin, Austin Dill, and Gerard Guillemot for Ubisoft Film & Television. David Hornsby and Megan Ganz also executive produce. The series is produced for Apple TV+ by Lionsgate, 3Arts, and Ubisoft Film & Television.

Watch Rebrand, and the rest of Mythic Quest Season 4, exclusively on Apple TV+ before the season finale airs on March 26, and don't miss its spinoff series Side Quest when all four episodes premiere on March 26.