Trying to explain Mike Tyson Mysteries in any coherent fashion is almost impossible. In the show, the former boxing heavyweight champion of the world has a team that solves mysteries. That team includes his adopted Chinese daughter Yung Hee Tyson; the ghost of the Marquess of Queensbury, aka Marcus; and man who has been cursed to live life as pigeon.
As off the rails as the first three seasons were, Season 4 somehow took things to new levels of insanity. But there were many moments that stood out in the season, some because of how horrifying yet funny they were.
Edward's Off Color Last Name
Theses kind of jokes are low-hanging fruit to say the least. A character's name sounding like an off color word is a premise that has been done to death by lazy writers over the years. It's a hallmark of poorly thought out comedic choices. Unless it's well executed, of course.
What helps this version of the joke land is Pigeon yelling about the offensive mispronunciation of the name. He loudly talks about the other honorable people he's known with the same last name. Leaning into the gag that hard actually made it work.
Mike Knows He's In A Cartoon
One of the biggest, and funniest, developments of the season is the fact that the main characters seem to be aware that they're in a cartoon. Many of them have moments that evidence this, such as Marcus and Yung Hee discussing what happened to her in previous episodes and mentioning the episodes by name. But oddly enough, Mike is the one who seems the most cognizant of this fact and brings it up the most.
In one episode, Mike is on the hunt for an acai berry smoothie which he never can find. Suddenly, he shows up with one. When asked where he got it by other characters, Mike points out that he remembered he's in a cartoon and just told the animators to draw him a smoothie.
Mike Cooks For Charity
An episode opens with Mike participating in a Chopped-esque cooking competition alongside two other sports celebrity chefs. They are competing for charities, specifically their own foundations. Well, everyone except Mike, who makes up a foundation on the spot.
Using the items in the basket, Mike prepares a meal that is brilliantly horrifying. Nothing, including the baby squid, was cooked. He put a can of cream of mushroom soup on the pile that he didn't even open. And he topped the dish with a quart of his own blood. Shockingly, Mike was the first person eliminated from the competition.
Miriam's Parrot
In one of the more banal cases the Mystery Team accepted, they met with an old woman named Miriam about helping her find a lost loved one. They thought it was her husband at first but it turned out to be her beloved parrot, Perry, who was missing. This upset Yung Hee who was annoyed about how much time was wasted on the endeavor.
Perry returned on his own. He then proved he was a hell of a mimic, and could replicate a variety of voices. That included Miriam's late husband. As it turned out, Perry could not only mimic his voice but repeat his dying words, which were the husband begging Miriam not to kill him.
John Douglas
The Marquess of Queensbury puts up with a lot of crap from the rest of the Mystery Team, particularly Pigeon. While the homophobia Pigeon exhibits is inexcusable, there are legitimate reasons to be annoyed with Marcus. Partway through Season 4. he finally revealed that he could pass through solid objects. That would have been helpful information for the team to know earlier.
Another new piece of information was his real name, John Douglas. The team usually just calls him Marcus, which is based solely on Mike's mispronunciation of the word Marquess. John explains why he's tolerated this, then everyone just goes back to calling him Marcus.
Pigeon, The Marquess, And A Cliff
Sometimes the simplest moments are the funniest. A young woman had married a wealthy elderly man, then he suddenly disappeared. Her explanation of the situation was that aliens had taken him away. Naturally, everyone assumed she killed her husband for the money. But this is Mike Tyson Mysteries and nothing is ever quite what it seems.
The elderly man was actually abducted by aliens but they accidentally killed him. The funniest moment of the episode saw Pigeon suddenly and callously push the Marquess off a cliff to the shoreline below. The moment catches you off guard, even though you know it's coming.
Deezy Hangs Around
Mike's manager is Deezy, a generally incompetent, down on his luck guy. Towards the end of Season 3, Mike agrees to let him live at his place with the Mystery Team. But in Deezy's case, he's not allowed in the house. Instead, he lives out back in the pigeon coop which he keeps accidentally burning down.
To pull his weight around the house, Deezy went to put Christmas lights up. The gang knocked the ladder out from under Deezy, leaving him hanging from a second story gutter and he's there for hours. The scene of him begging for help is longer than expected, and is hilarious as a result.
Textable Plot
Pigeon is pretty much uninterested in anything the Mystery Team does. All he really wants is booze, drugs, and women, and not necessarily in that order. The only reason he goes on the mysteries is the off chance that he might stumble across one or all of those things.
At one point, Pigeon came up with an inventive way of ending the mission early. Specifically, he put it to the fans. He looked into the camera and asked fans to text whether they wanted mystery to continue or not. Graphics even appeared on the screen. Then, he claimed fans said no and the team went home. Being that this was an animated series, no one could have texted in, which should have exposed his plot.
Margaret's Wish Comes True
The second episode of Season 4 saw the team trying to help a little girl named Margaret. It turned out the wish she made hadn't come true. But she couldn't tell the team what the wish was or it would never come true. Marcus came up with the idea of traveling to Fantasy Forest and looking for the missing wish in the thick bushes around the Wishing Well. Because that was the only logical plan.
As it turned out, Margaret just wanted her father back. The wish came true with the help of the Mystery Team. Unfortunately, her father was in prison. Upon returning, he and her prostitute mother almost immediately kill themselves in a meth related explosion, leaving Margaret to be raised by the denizens of the Fantasy Forest.
Mike Kills God
The funniest moment of Mike Tyson Mysteries Season 4 is Mike accidentally killing God. Marcus and the team ascend to Heaven where ripped, shirtless angels wearing tight jeans who speak with Australian accidents tell Marcus he can finally become one of them. After the rest of the team returns to Earth, God appears to bestow wings on Marcus. None may look at God or his glory will destroy them.
While this is going on, Mike is desperately trying to find a bathroom. He runs back up to Heaven, allowing God to accidentally see himself in the reflection of the new chrome braces Mike got on his teeth. God immediately explodes, and Mike craps his pants. Thus ends Season 4 and the series.