Party Down’s Search for Meaning

Party Down is one of those secret shows that is truly impressive but can’t seem to find a real audience. The arc of the first season was very strongly about knowing when to give up your dream, and why that’s not necessarily the worst thing in the world. The second season, based on the most recent episode, Steve Guttenberg’s Birthday, seems to be exploring the idea that dreams never die, and why that’s probably the best thing in the world.

Henry, played by Adam Scott, is an actor who gave up on his career after giving it his all for as long as he thought he could last. Each episode centers around a party or event being catered by Henry’s new employer, a catering company whose employees are mostly people struggling for their first big break in Hollywood.

Along with Henry1 are: Casey, a potential up-and-coming comic; Roman, a hard science fiction writer who feels above anyone and everyone; and Kyle, a pretty-boy actor. In the first season Henry is portrayed as the end result of Hollywood, someone who’s given up on their dreams. But despite this seemingly grim theme, season one is about Henry finding a place for himself without that all-encompassing passion. He finds someone to care for with Casey and finds himself more and more comfortable with being a caterer for the rest of his life, so long as there’s someone there to share it with.

But season one ended with Casey leaving him to follow her dream, to look for that big break somewhere else, him being promoted to manager of a team of caterers, and essentially no passion left in him. It was funny to see, but also tragic. We all look for some meaning in our life, and just as Henry had adjusted to a new meaning, it left to be a stand-up comic on a six-month long Alaskan cruise.

Season two brings us back around six months later and Henry is still recovering from the hurt Casey gave him and the sadness of his humdrum existence. In this episode, Steve “The Gute” Guttenberg happens to have a movie in his DVD collection that Henry had a small role in, which perks Casey’s curiosity. At the same time, The Gute encourages the crew to perform a reading of Roman’s recently rejected script, in the hopes of giving Roman ideas for improvement. These two plots manage to pack in a lot of really great themes and character growth into a few short scenes.

By Casey sneaking off to see Henry’s early work as an actor she realizes that he’s actually a really great actor, one who probably shouldn’t have given up on his dream. Casey’s desire to see Henry follow that dream is probably related to her recent success via a small role in an Apatow movie, but it nonetheless points to that larger idea.

And when Henry performs the improved version of Roman’s script — earnestly performing the material due to Casey goading him into it in order to, in my opinion, see if he can still act as well as he once did — we also learn that he’s actually a great actor. More than that, we see that he obviously misses it.

The question you have to ask now — well, this is a half-hour comedy so I guess you don’t have to do any of this analysis but this is what I live for — is what it is that gives us meaning. In the first season, Henry was looking for it in the people around him, and in love. Now, it’s not so clear that that’s enough.

I know that Adam Scott will have, at best, a limited role in any potential third season of the show, which has probably driven some of my thoughts and speculation about the direction of the season, but it seems to me that a really smart way to end this season would be to have Henry reaffirm his desire to be an actor and go off to pursue that dream. Or if they push that earlier in the season, maybe ending the season with his new big break, the one that will catapult him to real fame (and maybe next season he’ll host a few parties so he can hang with his old catering buddies). But whatever they do, I hope the show continues to explore these sorts of interesting themes in a new season, even without Henry there — though, at the moment, I can’t imagine the show being anywhere near as compelling without him there.

Party Down is a light-comedy centred around real characters and that juxtaposition makes it, like Parks and Recreation, one of those subdued comedies that manages to make you laugh at the same time as they explore romance and life in really important ways.

Footnotes

  1. There are other regular cast members but these particular characters exemplify the themes I’m exploring in this post. [↩]

Glee [1x02] Showmance

This was supposed to be a brief write-up, because I’m still reading Infinite Jest and because it’s three in the morning on a work night, but I just kept writing so now it’s basically a full-length review. However, the cliff notes is: I really liked the second episode of Glee, despite the slight sophomore slump. The only complaint that I have for this episode was that there wasn’t a sense of development from the pilot, the relationships seemed to be mimicking the pilot not building off it. That’s obviously not strictly true, because the plot has moved along, and it’s not like there were drastic character shifts that happened in the pilot (seeing as we first met the characters in the pilot) so all I’m saying is the characters are consistent, but in an ineffably troubling sort of way. And it’s not that that’s a weakness of the show, as much as it’s a necessity due to the four month gap between the pilot and the second episode.

That niggle aside, I loved the second episode. The songs were mostly great — with Gold Digger being the obvious stand-out, though ‘Push It’ was hilarious and ‘Take a Bow’ was arguably the most accomplished musically of the songs this week — and the two songs I disliked I think the show wanted the audience to dislike. I mean, everyone knew the repeat of ‘Le Freak’ was a massive blunder on Mr Shue’s part, so it was supposed to suck. And the version of ‘I Say a Little Prayer’ I didn’t like, mostly because the actors lip-synced rather than mime-sang the song so their mouths seemed empty during the bombastic singing and that discontinuity was annoying for me.  Plus the singer of that song was the ‘bad guy’ of the show, so I’m not supposed to like it right? Finnchel1 FTW!

Speaking of the eponymous plotline, the Finn/Rachel ‘showmance’ was really great this episode. Rather than make it one of those inexplicably unrequited relationships that dramedies whip out faster than Paul Reubens in a movie theatre — two people who are both attractive and have numerous things in common for some reason never see each other2 In That Way for reasons unknown3 never made much sense to me — they consummated their relationship very quickly. It’s not permanent, but the relationship has been established as existing and reciprocal, which is the sensible thing. It doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll jump in the sack, though Rachel certainly seems hot to trot based on her safe sex declamations at the celibacy club and Finn’s dead postman vision is equally evocative, as relationships don’t always work out just because both people are interested.

Which brings me to the other theme of the episode, the one that played out through the Shue/Emma relationship. They’re both clearly interested in each other, and if there wasn’t a baby in between them, Shue would probably leave his wife for her. But there is a baby between them. Well the idea of a baby anyways. Some have criticised the show for too easily villainising Shue’s wife’s with her deceit regarding her hysterical pregnancy4 but I think it was a great way to a) establish more audience unease with Shue’s current relationship after the initial pregnancy announcement likely made the audience feel bad about cheering on the Shue/Emma relationship and b) bring some depth to her character. In the pilot Shue’s wife is shown as mostly a shrew, but this episode softened her and showed that she really does love her husband even if she’s a little fucked up and has trouble expressing it. It was a smart move on the show’s part.

My only remaining complaint, and this is a general critique of the show and it’s not even really one of those either, is that Jane Lynch is playing too much to her type. In recent years she’s become the go to gal for the type of character she’s playing on Glee. With good cause — she does an amazing job with it — but we’ve seen it before. That said, the character was written and then she was cast for it not the other way around, and if you want anyone in that role, it’s Jane Lynch. Really, I just wish she could still be on Party Down. But it’s not meant to be, so now I’ll have to enjoy her here5.

Lots of blogs that review TV shows like to list favourite quotations6 at the end of their reviews, so I figure I’ll list a few here in an attempt to pander.

  • Mr Shue, being very very wrong: ‘Everybody loves disco!’
  • Celibacy Club summing up their philosophy: ‘It’s all about the teasing, not about the pleasing!’
  • On the lack of a gag reflex: ‘One day when you’re older, that’ll turn out to be a gift’
  • On ‘erupting’ early: ‘Actually, it’s a big problem for me.’

Footnotes

  1. My dislike for these sorts of name portmanteaus (Finn + Rachel in this instance) is well known, but we all need to let loose and/or ironically employ annoying memes every once in a while [↩]
  2. Though they’ll often vacillate in a bout of hilariously bad timing for a few seasons on who secretly pines for who. [↩]
  3. In fact, the ongoing insults to Rachel’s appearance are slightly baffling to me. I think she’s pretty, but she’s constantly insulted for her uncomely appearance. I guess it’s just an attempt to demonize the cheerleaders et. al. but it’s a weird way to do it I think. [↩]
  4. though with the etymology of the word hysterical, arguably all pregnancies are hysterical [↩]
  5. And hope that Megan Mullally doesn’t ruin Party Down for me [↩]
  6. You quote something and the thing you quote is a quotation, though this is a pedantic nuance I normally don’t give a shit about, to be honest. [↩]