Miracle Workers: End Times 4×1 & 4×2 Review: ‘Welcome to Boomtown’ and ‘The HOA’

It’s the end of the world as we know it, and Daniel Radcliffe feels fine. The first two episodes of the fourth season of Miracle Workers do their job of world-building and get out the laughs.

I was provided with advanced digital screeners for Miracle Workers season 4. The opinions I have shared are my own.

If you’re not familiar with the series Miracle Workers, created by Simon Rich and shown on TBS, you can jump into the fourth season as a newbie. (Although I do highly recommend seeing the previous three seasons. After all, where else are you going to get Daniel Radcliffe dressed up in pioneer lingerie to sing a version of “She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain” that makes you blush?)

The show is an anthology series, with each season taking on a new concept but with the same core cast. Season 4, titled “End Times”, takes place in a post-apocalypse land, giving winks to the genre along the way.

The first two episodes premiere July 10, 2023.

Episode 1, “Welcome to Boomtown”, is basically setting up the location and characters. Sid (played by Radcliffe) is a wasteland warrior, with echoes of Mad Max in his character. He meets up with Freya Exaltada (Geraldine Viswanathan), a warlord ready to kill anybody and everybody but who falls for Sid. They decide to move to Boomtown, referred to as ‘the suburbs’, with Freya learning to work from home and taking care of Scraps (John Bass), one of her war dogs who acts literally like a dog. Sid gets a job working for Morris, the local junk man (Steve Buscemi), playing with the humor of Office-style comedies as set in a wasteland.

The couple seems happy, but a visit from TI-90 (Karan Soni, playing a killer robot with a shade of the Terminator in his programming) shows that maybe Freya isn’t quite yet ready to give up the warlord lifestyle.

Episode 2, “The HOA”, dives a bit more into Freya’s dissatisfaction, as – after putting up the heads of her enemies in a fun display in her yard – receives a note from “the HOA” (aka the homeowner’s association), and decides the only way to conquer the group is to run for president. Meanwhile, Sid and Morris go to deliver a powerful device to a man that is a dead ringer for the Baron from Dune and talks about how he wants to overpower the town. Sid spends the episode trying to convince Morris to not give him the device.

I admit: I love this show. I had binged the first three seasons during the pandemic and thought this was a great show for Radcliffe. With each season being different, he’s able to do something new while still sticking with the same project. In season 4, he seems to be giving a nod to his role in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, playing up the idea of working for the local junk man as though it’s a dream come true.

I also love Viswanathan’s characters in all the seasons, and this one is no different. The humor comes from seeing the strong warlord ready to conquer everything having to deal with the culture shock of the suburbs. I love what she brings to her character. No offense to Radcliffe, but Viswanathan has become the main attraction for me in this series and I am looking forward to seeing where the writers are going with her character.

Additionally, as with his previous iterations in the show, Buscemi seems to be having a field day playing his character, a sort of amalgamation of every horrible boss that’s out there.

The jokes weren’t fast and furious, but there are a good couple of laughs in the first two episodes. It does what it needs to in terms of setting up the situation and introducing everything and everyone.

Miracle Workers Season 4 Episode 3 and Episode 4 will premiere July 17, 2023, on TBS.

More information about the show can be found on the official TBS website.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDjZP4lTmaE]

Author: Angie Fiedler Sutton

Angie Fiedler Sutton is a writer, podcaster, and all-round fangirl geek. She has been published in Den of Geek, Stage Directions, LA Weekly, The Mary Sue, and others.

She also produces her own podcast, Contents May Vary, where she interviews geeky people about geeky things. You can see all her work (and social media channels) at angiefsutton.com.

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