'Miracle Workers: Dark Ages' Episode 4 sees Prince Chauncley pick up some life skills while Al and Mikey bond
Geraldine Viswanathan who plays Alexandra aka Al Shitshoveler in 'Miracle Workers: Dark Ages' has spoken about how creator Simon Rich's comedy is tinged with sweetness. This especially applies to the two most hopeless characters this season -- Prince Chauncey (Daniel Radcliffe), heir to the throne, with zero life skills and Mikey (Jon Bass), Al's slow-witted brother, who is so simple-minded that he is a walking target for bullies and scammers.
Nobody has told Prince Chauncley how useless he is. But he sees some "salt of the earth" types talk about their laborious jobs which give them blisters and corns, while they say "TGIF" to each other during their smoke break. Prince Chauncley, on the other hand, complains about the missing spritz of honeysuckle in his "tepid" lavender baths.
When he realizes he is a bit out of touch with "real" work, he gets Lord Vexler (Karan Soni) to get him an internship, no matter how "humbling".
Lord Vexler, spies Eddie Shitshoveler (Steve Buscemi) on the street, calls him up and forces him to take the prince as an intern with the added instruction that he couldn't tell Prince Chauncley that he was doing a bad job or else... Eddie clarifies that this means he will be executed if he doesn't comply.
And so begins the first and last day of Prince Chauncley's internship. He has brilliant skills as an arsonist (which his father might actually be proud of since he is a tyrant). But Prince Chauncley has no career in shit-shoveling because he has the unfortunate habit of setting his clients' houses on fire. The prince finally gets Eddie to tell him the truth and takes his first step to self-reliance by sipping his own soup by himself for the first time, a task he was relying on Eddie, Lord Vexler and his servants for.
We were expecting some interactions between Al and Prince Chauncley in this episode, but instead, we see her in the plot B of this series' installment. It is one about lonely Mikey, who is too dumb to keep up with his sister. Shooed away by Al, he goes hangs out with the "Merry Band", a notorious gang who steal from the rich and instead of giving it to the poor, buy drugs.
Mikey, in his sweet-natured idiocy, thinks they want to be friends with him when they are out to scam him and generally take advantage of him. At first, Mikey is resentful about Al warning him about the Merry Band. But then, he realizes that while Al might be patronizing and pay him very little attention, she does have his best interests at heart.
By the end of the episode, the siblings have bonded with each other and also given the Merry Band some payback. While the episode is low on all-out laughs unlike the previous three, the sweetness of this one can smooth over any grumbles we had.
'Miracle Worker: Dark Ages' airs on Tuesdays at 9:30c on TBS.
