The first season of The Mighty Nein ended just before Christmas, bringing with it plenty of questions surrounding its main characters. For fans not in the know, one of the biggest questions after watching “The Zadash Job” is probably just what the heck is going on with Mollymauk, the sword-wielding tiefling voiced by Taliesen Jaffe who they’ve become attached to.
Short version, Molly is… complicated, and talking about him requires some minor (after a fashion) spoilers.
Early in the campaign the series is based on, Molly was killed in-game by a slaver named Lorenzo and above-table due to some bad dice rolls. It was a shocking moment to fans and the players, and his death hangs over the rest of the story. During his life, Molly was a colorful, fun-loving character, which hasn’t changed for the adaptation. But he’s also been positioned by the show as something like the group’s heart and moral center, with some scenes informed by what grim fate awaits him.
During a press event for the show, Jaffe admitted it “wasn’t great [not] knowing how much time I had” with Molly during the original game. But since the animated Mighty Nein puts everyone at ground zero, he’s “really enjoyed” getting to properly chart Molly’s course now that all of the cast knows “that we’re leading to this focal point.” And because the show is covering a lot of ground in 40-50 minutes’ worth of time, there’s proper breathing room to explore Molly’s history in a way the campaign just couldn’t.
io9 asked Jaffe how he viewed this iteration of Molly in comparison to the live show counterpart. To him, the “heart” of his character remains the same, and any changes to him have opened up new opportunities for the show, like showing how he fits into the dynamic of his circus troupe before things end badly for nearly everyone.
For fans, the biggest Molly-specific divergence is the lack of barbarian Yasha (Ashley Johnson). Her campaign counterpart is his friend in the circus, but the show has her as a looming force hunting for the beacon. When she finally crosses paths with the Nein in “Zadash,” she’s freed from her master’s control and begs the Nein to help her. Whether the two have crossed paths before the show or if they’re truly meeting for the first time, the show has now “pushed [their relationship] in other directions” from the source material.
Another new direction for Molly is the show’s handling of his backstory, which begins to “leak out,” starting with last week’s “Belonging.” There, he tracks down Cree, an associate from a literal past life who knows him as Lucien and wants the pair to reassemble their old crew known as the Tombtakers. While the campaign doesn’t pick up this thread until later on, this episode teases the Lucien identity and another important alias, “the Nonagon.” It also establishes a connection with Lady Vess Derogna, who sports similar tattoos as Molly and wants to kill him now that she’s the new Nonagon.
Establishing Lucien and Nonagon so early is just one of the character-specific changes to Mighty Nein. All the cast have threads set up that are meant to play out and pay off in future seasons, with “Belonging” and “The Zadash Job” laying particular groundwork for not just Molly, but also Fjord (Travis Willingham), Jester (Laura Bailey), and Yasha.
Everyone’s respective stories are spread out through the campaign, but in the show, they’re either much more explicit (relative to these moments playing out in the live show) or just naturally part of their introduction that further colors your view of the character.
Such changes to the source material haven’t come without criticism and comparisons from longtime Nein fans, but the creators think it’s fine for those things to be telegraphed in advance. To Willingham, this has the benefit of shaking things up for those longtime fans and making things exciting for newcomers, and it “pays homage” to what the characters originally experienced.
The creators may not have exact specifics on how individual seasons will end, but Willingham thinks over time, they’ve gotten better at “setting the table” for their cast and have a good idea of their approach on divulging character information—not just how much, but also when the best moment is in the show’s story.
“We’re taking it all in increments,” Willingham said. “We’ve left ourselves a variety of options, and we’re really interested in seeing how the audience reacts to a lot of this.” For those older fans, he encouraged them to see what’s changed by continuing to watch Mighty Nein.
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