Tag Archives: Party Down

Well Party Downers, this is it, the end of Season 2, and possibly the show. This season, Party Down established itself as one of the finest comedies on television. It’s grand finale was funny and bittersweet, a culmination of what the show was all season. While I don’t think the episode was the best of a stellar 10 episodes, it was pretty high up there on the list. With the triumphant return of Jane Lynch/Constance, Party Down set the table for its possible future, one in which Ron gets his dream girl, Roman writes a masterpiece, and Henry (might) go on to bigger and better things.

It was great to see Lynch back on the show, where she was a natural fit. Lynch is the bright spot of Glee, but as the undying optimist Constance, she was at the top of her game. Now engaged to Howard Greengold, an elderly Jewish movie producer that is making Constance 10th wife, a fact that makes Casey and Henry very nervous. Their wedding is a cross between traditional Jewish and Buddhist hippie, with yarmulkes and pot cookies, several of which are mistakenly eaten by Roman. Kyle’s band is set to play a song for the soon to be happy couple, and Ron must confront the fact that Danielle, her fiance, and her Party Down-owning father are there. And then there’s poor Lydia, Constance’s replacement, who can’t figure out “which part is flanks.”

For a while, the party seemed to be going in just a completely disastrous direction. The pot cookies sent Roman into a hazed out world, where he calls paramedics, fearing that he’s dying. Constance threatens a still confused Lydia. Danielle breaks off her relationship with Ron, tearing him apart. Casey becomes increasingly more concerned that Constance is going to have to sign away everything in a pre-nup forced upon her and Howard by the latter’s daughter. And then there’s Kyle’s song, perhaps my favorite part of the episode. Singing about the trials of a young, wannabe actor, Kyle sings to a group of elderly Jews that, “they brand you with a star,” and “give you a number.” His complete ignorance combined with his sincerity in singing the song made the moment less cringe inducing and more hysterically funny.

Perhaps the most poignant scene the show has ever done happens in a study, where Henry finds Casey in tears over the news that her big scene in the Apatow movie was cut. He tries his hardest to encourage her not to give up, and seemed sincere in doing so, but Casey justifiably doesn’t want to hear it from a guy who, for the whole show, has reveled in the fact that he’s given up. Party Down had relatively few somewhat serious scenes, and this one stood out thanks to the chemistry between Adam Scott and Lizzie Caplan.

But Party Down surprisingly enough, wasn’t ready to leave our characters at the lowest depths. Ron stands up during the wedding when the call for objections is made (as did Patrick Duffy!), and professed his love for Danielle, a move that got him punched in the face, but also won over Danielle. Constance’s friend that baked the pot cookies talks Roman through it all, and helps him wright his “masterpiece” on a roll of toilet paper. And though Howard dies in the car as it’s leaving the wedding, Constance is grateful for their time together, and its discovered Howard had signed the pre-nup as “Jack Shit,” which Henry knows from an earlier conversation that he genuinely loved her. Unlike it’s first season, Party Down ends on a happy note for Henry, as he fails to show up to an event as he goes in for an audition on an indie film that Kyle was reading. It leaves a smile on Casey’s face, and it shows Henry, our character stuck in a rut since Episode 1, finally making a go of the career that he should have had.

And thus ended a stellar season of Party Down, one I really think rivals the other top notch comedies on TV right now. Season One was good, and it had some great moments, but for the most part, it was about establishing the characters and the atmosphere of the show. With the establishment out of way, Season Two allowed for more tinkering with these characters. We learned that Roman wasn’t an undiscovered writer, but one that focused more on his own genius. We learned Henry was actually a good actor, not just one that had his moment. And we learned that poor Ron will have everything bad happen to him, but in the end, he’s got someone in the world just like him.

I was pretty frustrated after reading Troy Patterson’s article on the show for Slate, who said the show, “would seem even funnier if it were not so heavily indebted to the funniest TV shows of recent years.” Aren’t all shows heavily indebted to something else? Wasn’t Arrested Development indebted to The Simpsons or The Office to Curb Your Enthusiasm? What Patterson seems to ignore is that television is a constantly building medium. Every great show begets another great show. I guarantee soon enough you’ll read a review of a new comedy that is viewed as indebted to Party Down.

A possible third season (the show hasn’t been picked up by Starz yet) would more than likely see big changes with Adam Scott only being able to appear in 3 episodes after moving to Parks and Rec, and Ryan Hansen getting a gig with a new show. But while I’m hesitant about this great show losing it’s more or less principle character, this season showed me just how good Party Down‘s writers are and how well this show is at adapting to a revolving cast of characters. But if this is it for Party Down, then man did it go out on one hell of a high note.

Other Notes:

- Two other great moments: Danielle using the excuse that her dress was on backwards, when it actually was on backwards, and Ron’s elated news to Danielle that her parents were getting divorced.

- Though this was the fifth episode to feature a character on a lot of drugs (Season 1 had Casey on Ecstasy and Bobbi on mushrooms, this season had Ron high in a coffin and Lydia “powdering her nose”), I thought the Roman bits were pretty funny, mostly due to Martin Starr’s hilarious facial expressions.

- Be sure to check out Alan Sepinwall’s great interview with PD co-creator John Enbom, in which he talks actor changes and what might happen in a hypothetical season 3.

- What did anyone else think? Should Party Down be used in the same sentence as shows like Parks and Rec and Modern Family?

Michael’s Score: 84
TUiW Grade: A-

Party Down Season 2 Grade: A

One of the hardest things to do in television is make an asshole a sympathetic character. Making a villain sympathetic is one thing, but an arrogant jackass that we’re supposed to care about is a hard thing to accomplish. This season, Party Down has done a good job of making their resident arrogant jackass, Roman, a character that has always been prickly to say the least. Even last season, when he had a crush on Casey, he was more a jerky hurdle to Henry’s own efforts to patch up things with her after the Rick Fox Incident (Party Down plot or awful ska band?). But this season, we’ve seen Roman torn down frequently, and though he’s still arrogant and frequently a jerk, I genuinely felt bad for him in “Joel Munt’s Big Deal Party.”

We learned from Steve Guttenberg’s party that Roman is not a very good writer, but he sees everyone else as hacks in comparison to his perceived genius. So it makes sense that he’d fire a writing partner, the titular Joel Munt (Human Giant‘s Paul Scheer), who would make it big and subsequently hire Party Down to cater a party to humiliate his former partner. Roman is obviously distraught, not only that Joel made it big, but because he’s adapting a trilogy of books by one of his favorite authors, A.F. Gordon Theodore (Freaks and Geeks‘ Dave “Gruber” Allen). Roman wants his revenge, and through the suggestion of Kyle, plans to pee in his rival’s champagne. But it keeps ending up in the wrong hands and, and despite the invocation of “The Code” to Henry and Ron, he can’t get the job done. He finally gets the best of Joel by instilling a little doubt in A.F.’s mind about he adaptation, but he gets tricked, in an actually nice moment, into giving Joel the answer to his problems, leaving poor Roman to watch his idol and rival speed away in an SUV filled with girls.

While Kyle is mostly concerned with helping Roman get his revenge, Ron is working to re-establish himself as team leader, instituting his sets of RDDs – Ron Donald Dos and Ron Donald Don’ts. Naturally, Ron has no idea that he’s using the same acronym for both, and naturally, the rest of the crew mocks him. Henry and Casey, meanwhile, are concentrating on hooking up in the van, a task that proves difficult given that the keys are inside of the locked van. To prove himself a man to Casey, who previously called him the woman in the relationship, Henry tries in vain to get the door open. This collides with Ron’s first day back as team leader, as in a desperate attempt to get into the van, smashes the window of Joel Munt’s car. In fantastic Party Down fashion, it is just then that Henry finds the keys on the ground. Lydia wasn’t too involved with the rest of the Party Downers, mostly because thanks to a bathroom misunderstanding, she was going crazy on coke, which (as pointed out by the AV Club) was a story that was used for her character predecessors, Constance and Bobbi, but no less funny.

The two guests, Scheer and Allen, were both bright spots in the episode. Scheer did a great job at turning up the jackass dial to 11 as Joel Munt, but he also had a great scene with Martin Starr in the kitchen was pretty genuine and for a while, I was convinced that Joel wouldn’t do the inevitable and steal Roman’s idea. Allen too was great, hitting all the right notes as the dorky sci-fi writer that is too smart and socially inept to navigate a Hollywood party. Martin Starr gave his best performance of the show in this episode, and as he watched Munt and A.F. drive away, I genuinely felt bad for him.

But the rest of the episode was a little flat for me. I thought the Lydia bits were funny (particularly her interaction with Bubbles from The Wire, but Casey and Henry were largely absent, and Ron’s story didn’t really go that far. The main plot with Roman was great, but without a funny secondary story, the episode stalled at a couple points. Party Down has been fantastic this season, and this episode fell short of the awesomeness of the preceding episodes. But with two more episodes to go, I’m looking for PD to bounce back, and almost assuredly leave us with a depressingly comic ending to the season.

Michael’s Score: 74
TUiW Grade: B

First things first, I’ve been seriously slacking on my Party Down coverage, and doing so in the string of the best episodes the show has ever done. I really enjoyed the first season of the show, and the first couple of episodes of this season were great too, but then, all of the sudden, with “Steve Guttenberg’s Birthday” and “Not On Your Wife Opening Night,” the show stepped up to another level. Like I said, the show was already humming along beautifully, but those two episodes were perfect half hours.

And so, that leads us to “Party Down Company Picnic,” which had me from the first line (“And this recession’s been great!”). Getting the Party Down crew away from work seems to have been a goal of the writers this season, and by first having them attend a party they were supposed to cater for Steve Guttenberg, and then getting everyone out of their white shirts and pink ties. It was a little disorienting at first to see the gang in normal clothes, but it was an effective way to focus on the characters in a different way. Yet, even without their white shirts and pink ties, the Party Down crew is still the same bunch of delusion fueled optimists, with the exception of course of Henry, who is just comfortable finding some way to tie.

The Party Down staff was looking for smaller wins at their company picnic. While Casey went hard after the all around points title, Roman and Kyle battled the Valhalla catering staff to prove they were equals, Lydia strived to become Escapade’s manager again, and poor Ron tried, in vain, to get a promotion to corporate out of the new head of the company, Bolus Lugozshe. The results were largely a mix of success and failure, or in Ron’s case both. Casey defeated Garlan Greenbush (“What are you, an unemployed wizard or something?”), the defending champ of the picnic, and Lydia took Roman’s advice on being an asshole and won back her daughter from Kyle and got her a job as a singing shoe. But Roman and Kyle were defeated by their rivals at Valhalla, who on aggregate, are better looking, and definitely more douchey. Ron had the weirdest day, being turned down for the job before he was hit in the back by a horseshoe thrown by Lugozshe’s daughter, who then helped him try to blackmail his way into the job. It almost seemed like a rare sweet episode for Ron, until the end when he discovered this perfect girl he’d just hooked up with was engaged.

Henry had issues of his own, specifically handling his newly rekindled relationship with Casey and his already in place relationship with Uda, who was catering the party. It was another great appearance by Veronica Mars herself, Kristen Bell, who was firing it all cylinders as the way too uptight rival caterer. Yet, Uda isn’t as cold as we’ve come to assume. She wants to make her and Henry work, and when she realizes that isn’t going to happen and the two break up, it almost seemed like Uda was slightly hurt by it, but more so, anxious about being alone again. It couldn’t have been pulled off without Bell, who was able to pull off great lines (“What is it about ‘more wieners’ that you do not understand?”) without overselling it. That seems to be a basic principle of comedic acting, yet there is no wink at the camera from Bell, as there was from Steve Guttenberg.

The centerpiece of episode was a kickball game between Valhalla and Party Down, that couldn’t have played out any better. Here are the Party Down crew, fueled by their deep hatred of Valhalla and ready to show them who they are, but instead, Lydia doesn’t understand the rules, Roman gets pegged in the face, Ron gets a devastating crotch shot, and his replacement, Greenbush, collapses in his own vomit after the hot dog eating contest. It’s a Party Down ending, one in which the good guys don’t win, and are left in their mediocrity. Even on this one day, when they all momentarily set aside their professional ambitions, every one got shut down by their superior rivals. There’s a reason they all work at Party Down, and at their own company picnic, they got a painful reminder as to why.

This episode did so many things well. My favorite part had to be the ultra competitive Casey, who was constantly delivering laughs. For much of the show, Casey hasn’t had much to do other than hook up with Henry and bitch about the pitfalls of trying to make it big, but Lizzie Caplan shined in this episode, adding depth to her character and showing off some really strong comedic chops. I almost wondered if her lack of emotion when Henry told her he was going to “roll the dice” with her and break up with Uda meant that she was really just showing off her competitive side, trying to win Henry.

The other two things that worked pretty well were Henry’s transition of power to Ron (minus the pay raise and benefits), and Lydia’s funny storyline. It seemed that Henry was destined to turn Team Leader back over to Ron at some point, and I think having him go back to his old, responsibility free position this close to the end of the season is going to make things really interesting. Getting Lydia finally involved in an interesting story of her own was great too. Megan Mullally is a hell of a lot funnier than I ever gave her credit for, and she finally got a chance to come out of the background, and didn’t disappoint. I think from now on, I’m going to start calling people “shit morsels.”

As Party Down hits its home stretch, it’s really proven that it belongs in the same conversation as the other great comedies on television right now. If this show was on an HBO or Showtime, or even on a cable network like FX, it would be insanely popular. At the same time though, Starz has done as good of a job as it can at promoting the show, and I think it’s slowly but surely gaining a bigger following. It seems fitting that a possible third season doesn’t seem likely, and that just like its characters, Party Down is just fighting to be noticed and respected, but with minimal returns. In the meantime though, I’m excited to see if the show can top its last three episodes with the final three of the season.

Michael’s Score: 96
TUiW Grade: A

So far on Party Down, we’ve seen the crew cater a bunch of weird parties: a porn awards show after party, a single seniors seminar, the acquittal party for an Eastern European mobster, and the after-party for a Satanist rocker. What’s great though, is that each of those sucks just as much as when they’re catering a neighborhood awards dinner or a high school reunion. There’s usually someone that’s excited about the event they’re catering, and a larger majority that isn’t so excited. So it would make sense that when the Party Down crew gets hired to cater an orgy, Roman would be ecstatic while the rest of the crew is slightly repulsed.

Most Party Down parties usually fall into two groups: the ones in which Party Down is actively involved in (the premiere, where Roman and the host switch places), and the ones in which they largely deal with their own stuff while it’s going on (last week, where they cater a preschool fundraiser). This falls in the former category, as their host, Nick Dicintio (Thomas Lennon), a recent divorcee who has this brilliant idea to throw an orgy but didn’t exactly communicate that fact clearly to his guests. You see, Nick thought he was taking a page from the Eyes Wide Shut playbook by inviting them to a “mask party,” which the guests took to be, well, a mask party. The only person that seems interested is Lydia, who tells Casey she hasn’t had sex in a long time, and figures that Nick would be the perfect person to end her drought with. Desperate, Nick turns to Roman, who has never himself been to an orgy, but has “read extensively on the subject.” Roman’s solution: get everybody really drunk and they’re get in the mood. At first, his plan seems to be working, but it’s ruined by a drunk guy who insists on doing body shots off himself, so Nick dispatches Henry and Ron to get him out of there. So then everything is back on track and looks like it’s going to happen. That is until Nick gets impatient and rips off his clothes in front of the whole party. Much to his dismay however, no one is interested, except, of course, Lydia, who tries to console the naked Nick as he sulks on his bed. Unfortunately for her, that’s about the time the party warms up and decides to go forward with the orgy, leaving Lydia trapped in the middle of it all.

While Roman and Nick are dealing with the floundering orgy, the rest of Party Down is struggling behind the scenes. Casey is outraged by the entire party, which includes topless women holding trays of food. Kyle recognizes one of the girls as someone he auditioned with, and in typical Kyle fashion, he tries to get her number so they can work on some scenes together. He’s fresh off his base jumping movie which was pushed to a straight to DVD release in China, and retitled “Jumping Boys,” so he’s looking to get back in the game. Unfortunately for him, the naked food girl has become overly cynical with the industry as a result of becoming a naked food girl, and more or less tells Kyle he’s never going to make it big. Though Roman has always been telling him this, hearing it from someone else hits Kyle hard, and in a surprisingly nice moment for Party Down, Roman reassures him that he’s going to make it, and not to listen to some burn out that’s lower on the totem pole than him. After making Roman say he’s going to make it three times, Kyle is satisfied and goes back to being his overly naive self.

Ron and Henry’s problems revolve more around their troubles with women: Uda is mad Henry for some reason and Ron is still down in the dumps over the loss of his Ladyfriend (he refuses to handle cheese because she loved cheese). The two share a couple of shots against Henry’s better judgment, and when they’re dispatched to get rid of the drunk guy for Nick, they sit on the curb and have a drunk heart to heart. Henry tells Ron that while he likes Uda, she doesn’t add any meaning to his life. Ron laments how bad Ladyfriend treated him and Henry relates, saying how Uda always asks him if he understands, as if he’s a child. This leads to a funny and (again surprisingly) sweet moment, where Uda calls, and Henry and Ron laugh drunkenly as Henry responds to her “yes, I understand.” When they return to the party, Henry goes into Nick’s bathroom for a quiet spot to call Uda. Casey finds him in there, and the two talk about their problems with their respective partners. For Casey, she just found porn on her boyfriend’s computer, a fact that Henry reassures her is normal. It’s yet another nice moment for the show, but it ends with the two discovering that on the other side of the door, the orgy is starting. That ending is pretty classic Party Down and gave me my biggest laugh of the night.

Overall, the episode was decent, but was weirdly enough was a little too sweet. It’s okay for the show to have nice moments, and I did enjoy all of them in the episode, but Party Down has always been a show about these people finding the small bits of goodness to keep them going amidst the crappy job they have. I guess it was just out of place for them to have so many nice moments. But I generally liked the episode. Megan Mullaly is proving herself to be a more than capable replacement for Jane Lynch, (see Lydia’s sound effect substitute for saying “sex”) and between this and her guest spot on Parks and Rec, I’m actually starting to forget about the years she annoyed the hell out of me on Will and Grace. The same thing was true for Thomas Lennon. I’ve never been a big fan of Reno 911, but he was consistently cracking me up through the whole episode. I guess that “Nick Dicintio’s Orgy Night” was mostly about proving that Party Down could have a little more depth to it, which isn’t such a bad thing.

Michael’s Score: 74
TUiW Grade: B

In between the time I reviewed Season One of Party Down and its Season Two premier on Friday, I rewatched several episodes, and the show grew on me even more. Party Down has all of the charm of it’s bigger budget cousins on the networks and larger cable networks, but the fact that it’s a show about the bottom rung of Hollywood on a bottom rung cable network makes it even better. It’s lower budget, but budget doesn’t matter when you have an amazing cast and perfect writing. Needless to say, I was excited to see what Party Down was going to do next.

Season Two starts nine months after Season One ended. Party Down is shaken up with the loss of Ron, who left to fulfill his dream of taking over his Soup’r Crackers franchise, and Casey, who left to do stand-up on a cruise ship. Henry has taken over crew, and has two new employees: Lydia (Megan Mullally), a mother dreaming big for her daughter Escapade, and a midget, who Henry fires at the start of the episode for drinking too much on the job. Happily, Roman and Kyle are exactly the same; Kyle is still trying to make it big, Roman still hates the world.

Having fired an employee just before the start of a backstage party for Jackal Onassis, a sort of Marilyn Manson-type figure (played delightfully by Jimmy Simpson, one of my favorite bit-part actors), Henry calls in the newly returned Casey to help. Things are immediately awkward, with Henry flustered by his new position, and Casey trying to ease the tension still there from her departure for nine months. Things are not made easier when Ron shows up in his muscle car with his drunk trophy girlfriend, who wants nothing more than to meet Jackal Onassis and get his autograph.

This wouldn’t be so bad if Jackal Onassis was himself. Disillusioned by all the fame and meaningless hook-ups with groupies, the reasl Jackal Onassis forces Roman (or rather forces Henry to let Roman) switch places with him so that he can experience a “real” existence. So Roman dons the make-up and wig of Jackal Onassis, and Jackal’s real life persona, Arnold Shearling, gets to work, smiling at insults and loving every second of his life at the bottom of the totem pole.

Roman runs into trouble, as he’s unsurprisingly over-aggressive at trying to get laid by groupies, and due to his lack of glasses, he can’t see at all. He’s also blocked by Kyle, who is recognized again for his bit parts by the girls that Roman wants. Matters are made even worse when Ron’s girlfriend, drunkenly takes off her shirt and asks who she thinks is Jackal Onassis to sign her chest. Ron finds out, but instead of seeing the name Jackal Onassis, he sees Roman’s name. Realizing what’s going on, he attacks Roman, but security goes crazy on him with a taser, thinking Roman is really Jackal. The Real Jackal then stands up, as a bartender, and takes the blame for letting Ron in, allowing Henry to fire him, and giving him the full experience of a “real” existence.

Speaking of Henry, he’s having a tough time on the other side of the team leader-goof off spectrum. Casey wants to make things less awkward, but Henry is just too busy to stop and talk about it. That’s where Lydia steps in, offering her advice about working with her ex-husband, and coming up with a secret signal to intervene and help Casey out in awkward situations.  Though she reveals at the top that she’s seeing someone, she (and Ron) are quite bothered by the revelation that Henry is dating Uda, the hilariously uptight head of a rival catering company played by Kristen Bell (who didn’t appear, but will later in the season). In the end, they finally talk a little bit, and seem to be friends again, though with more awkwardness to come for sure.

As the episode ends, Ron, who’s Soup’r Crackers adventure failed miserably, begged Henry for his old job back. Henry agrees, setting up the possibility that Ron could take over his old job. It put an end to a hilarious return for the show. I think Martin Starr (who some part of me will always think of as Bill from Freaks and Geeks) in the Jackal Onassis outfit was among one of the funnier sight-gags the show has ever done, and the delight of the real Jackal Onassis getting insulted and fired got laughs from me every time.

The addition of Megan Mullally didn’t bother me either. It makes sense that a place like Party Down would have a staff that changed frequently and with little explanation, and her new character is pretty hilarious. I’ll be interested to see where the show is headed this season, especially since stars Adam Scott, Lizzie Caplan, and Ryan Hanson have all gotten new gigs and could be leaving at the season’s end. But for now, it’s just good to haven new Party Down.

Michael’s Score: 80

TUiW Grade: B+