The 5 best moments from Dropout's Dimension 20: On a Bus, season 2

The 5-minute comedy sketch is now an hourlong episode, with Matt Mercer, Brennan Lee Mulligan, Abria Iyengar, and Jasmine Bhullar playing terrible D&D

Dimension 20: On a Bus was pitched and funded as a project during a Shark Tank-like episode of Dropout’s constantly shifting game show Game Changer. The video racked up millions of views largely just for the comedy of Marovitch, wearing an elaborate elf costume and calling herself the game’s “Dragon Master,” straight-facedly botching every possible aspect of running Dungeons & Dragons, while her pro DM players froth with frustration or just crack up.

It might not seem like that gag could be extended to a full-length Dimension 20 episode without losing steam. But for April Fools’ Day 2026, Dropout released an hourlong “season 2” of Dimension 20: On a Bus, and the episode keeps the energy and comedy going for the full show.

The same group of players return to reprise their characters, to the degree that the handful of random objects Marovitch gave them as gameplay minis in the original video (a ball of lint, a little green Army man, a blue M&M, and a metal Monopoly top hat) were ever characters in the first place. The dynamics are the same as in the original video: Mercer (Lint) gamely, politely tries to support Marovitch and steer whatever she’s doing in the direction of a coherent story. Mulligan (Top Hat) seethes and protests at Marovitch profaning something dear to his heart, but he usually seems on the verge of breaking down laughing. Bhullar (Little Green Army Man) seethes and protests and seems to really mean it. Iyengar (Blue M&M) just laughs at everyone, and prods and prompts them to exacerbate the comic friction. Here are the biggest highlights of the episode/season:

5 Dimension 20: On a Bus is the show’s highest-rated ‘episode’

In the Game Changer episode that spawned Dimension 20: On a Bus, Marovitch describes her plan for the original video as “the best DMs in the world, all forced to sit through whatever bullshit I come up with. Perhaps we’re on a bus, or in an Uber. Haven’t put much thought into it. Whatever it ends up being, the results are sure to be upsetting, not just to D&D fans, but specifically to Brennan. And what does the internet love more than an upset Brennan?”

Mulligan does seem particularly frustrated throughout this full-length season 2 episode, mostly because he sees Marovitch actively parodying everything he does as a DM, from the scene-setting monologue to the elaborate backstories she imposes on the players’ random-object “characters” this time around. She even steals some of his narrative monologues and repurposes them for her game. At one point, she produces a hideously bedazzled version of his Box of Doom prop, filled with Cheetos.

When Mulligan admits that the first Dimension 20: On a Bus episode has a higher IMDb rating than any other episode of the show, he sounds more resigned than offended. But then he tries to get her talking about the importance of storytelling and the value of his show, and she just keeps winding him up:

Mulligan: “I’m not mad at you, Katie. Look. I have been working on the show for almost 10 years—”

Marovitch: “Which show?”

Mulligan: “Dimension 20 will probably be the first line of my obituary. It will probably be the thing — I’m just being honest —”

Marovitch: “When is lunch?”

Mulligan: “Katie—”

Marovitch: “What time is it? Brennan, were you talking?”

The comedy of watching one person at the table being deeply sincere and another responding with goofy humor could be painful, if not for the other DMs clearly taking sides and adding punch-ups — particularly Mercer, who tells Mulligan with mock sympathy, “Sometimes a guest comes onto your show and does the best work your show’s done. Happens to us all, Brennan.”

4 Brennan gets an award

Further underlining how much Mulligan is the primary target here, at one point, Marovitch casually informs Bhullar that when the rest of the cast got on the bus and began their epic journey to LAX, Little Green Army Man’s wife (an elaborate custom Vecna mini made for Critical Role) and four children “didn’t make it.” When the whole table repeatedly asks whether those characters are dead or just didn’t manage to get onto the bus, Marovitch just repeats “They didn’t make it” over and over, in increasingly solemn, tragic tones. When Mulligan keeps pressing the point, Marovitch walks off the soundstage and comes back with a frilly pink badge labeled “Mr. Questions” and drapes it over his head.

It’s one of the few moments where the other three players seem entirely united in finding one of Marovitch’s gags hilarious. In a confessional-style insert, Iyengar can’t stop giggling as she describes how the badge didn’t fit over his head, so “it was kind of just over his mouth. You know, where the questions come from.”

3 Matt Mercer takes over as DM

One of the major reasons Dimension 20: On a Bus doesn’t run its central gag into the ground is that Marovitch keeps pulling the other DMs into her seat to take over running the game. Each of them in turn tries to make a story about a traveling group of grab-bag objects into a narrative with real emotional stakes, a coherent plotline, and a rules system that isn’t just “roll any polyhedral die and try to get a 6, or some other number that I might increase or decrease.”

While they each get a shot at it, Mercer gets handed the wheel first, and the energy he throws into it is honestly hilarious. “The bus squeakily takes off, the wheels grinding!” he exclaims, sending the rest of the table into hysterics. “Shivers and quiffs, and we’re off!” Mulligan says.

The fact that within a minute of taking over, Mercer introduces an adversary and a conflict, and gives the other characters their first coherent goals, is funny all on its own. The fact that he immediately stands down, telling Katie “You got this,” while the other players beg him to stay in the chair, is even better. Essentially, the rotating-chairs gag lets each of the DMs in turn exercise the strengths that make them professionals — but Mercer also winds up highlighting how supportive he is, and how game he is for the On a Bus brand of comedy.

2 Suddenly, D&D is a points-based game

When Lint has a moment of panic and Top Hat tries to comfort him, Marovitch tells Mulligan to roll a D6 and add 7 to the result, then tells him he has nine points, and “you only need 81 to win.” (Again, this is supposedly, nominally, a D&D game, which does not use points and which no one should be able to “win.”) This seems like more bait intended specifically for Mulligan: One of his most famous Game Changer quotes is “There is no corner of my heart I would not turn over to the world for five points” — an attitude that’s consistently played out over his highly competitive appearances across various Dropout shows and skits.

That’s what makes it hilarious when Iyengar immediately starts chasing points even harder than Mulligan does, successfully bribing lorekeeper and story editor Skye Smith to give her a pile of them for $40. Bhullar, for her part, gets more incensed about this than anything else in the game, yelling about how Marovitch promised her collaborative storytelling, not a points-based system. Amid all this, Mercer just quietly pulls out his wallet and notes that he has $95. After a brief frenzy of bribes and shouting, Iyengar suddenly changes the subject to a torrid affair her character had with Little Green Army Man’s Vecna-wife. Nothing is ever said about points or winning again.

1 Everyone really gets into this ridiculous D&D session

While most of the point of Dimension 20: On a Bus is Marovitch constantly confusing the players with an incoherent, unstable narrative, failing at any kind of consistent rules system (“Roll a D, um, 7 or whatever,” she says at one point), and undermining every attempt they make at roleplay, immersion, or drama, the four players are huge fans of storytelling, and they literally can’t stop themselves from identifying with their entirely notional characters and projecting meaningful emotions into this nonsense game.

Whether that means Mulligan authentically getting sad when Mercer tears his ball of lint apart to signify Lint’s tragic death, Bhullar becoming ecstatic when her Army-man toy successfully shoots a ball of moss representing a car, or the whole table screaming and cheering when someone successfully rolls a critical-success 6, it’s adorable how much they love the idea of tabletop storytelling, no matter how badly it’s done.

It feels like Dimension 20: On a Bus was conceived far more as a joke targeting Bhullar, Iyengar, Mulligan, and Mercer than as an April Fools’ Day prank on anyone actually watching Dropout. (The classic form of an April Fools’ Day joke would be promising Dimension 20: On a Bus season 2 was coming on April 1, then not actually delivering it.) But the real prank here is in luring four people who deeply care about narrative into taking a gag story seriously, even if only for fleeting moments in the middle of chaotic comedy.

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Dimension 20: On a Bus is streaming on Dropout and on Dropout's YouTube members channel, though given the company’s usual social-media strategy, expect clips and shorts from the episode to hit Dropout’s regular YouTube channel soon.