This show has always balanced humor and darkness. Season Three tends toward the latter.
Search Party (Season Three)
Likes: This season continues to walk the incredibly subtle line between comedy and dark drama. Search Party has a tone unlike any other show.
Dislikes: I still can’t tell if the show thinks any character is redeemable (especially Dory). Also, Julian and Chantal’s storylines feel like a buildup to Season four rather than fully realized.
Bottom Line: Certain plot lines don’t feel fully developed, but Search Party still finds ways to twist and turn even in its third season.
3.5 out of 5. ◆◆◆⬖◇
by Jacob Schermerhorn
(You must search further for a non-spoiler review. Also, references to seasons one and two are included here.)
When I learned that Search Party was indeed coming back for a third season, I was pleased, but surprised. It felt like, after 2017, the series went totally dark.
Season three, released through HBO Max, previously TBS, does feel like a bit of a time capsule of an earlier, simpler time. One character even intones, “I don’t think people really care about millennials anymore. I feel like that talk has died down actually.”
No one could have predicted covid times though, and Search Party still makes for good quarantine viewing.
From the first episode of the first season, Search Party brilliantly rode a delicate line between comedy and dark thriller vibes. The antics of the main four Brooklynite hipsters stumbling their way through conspiracies, blackmail and crime coverups is the strength and appeal of this show. It continues that trend in the third season.
Like season two, this season sees how the main four react to the guilt of their killing and attempted coverup of P.I. Keith (Ron Livingston). However, now the public knows their crimes and they must defend themselves against a murder charge.
Perpetual pushover Dory (Alia Shawkat) has finally found her backbone. Under this pressure, she has become a diamond. She is confident, capable and ruthless when it comes to defending herself. By the end of the season, Dory has gotten to a point that it disgusts Drew (John Reynolds) and scares Portia (Meredith Hagner) and Elliot (John Early). Dory is the assertive badass she was searching for in season one, with the “Women leading Women” job she wanted, but she has become a monster in order to do it.
The other main three are equally involved in their guilty consciousness with Dory’s boyfriend Drew desperately destroying any possible incriminating evidence. (That swan video scene got me man…)
Airhead actress Portia moves from weirdo director Elijah’s (Jay Duplass) cult to a new one as a born-again Christian. (Her “Come to Jesus” moment hilariously occurs because she was looking for an outlet to charge her phone) Her Christian friends also signify a break with the group as Portia testifies against the others because she fell for a good cop routine. (No bad cop necessary)
Finally, the silver-tongued (and best dressed) Elliot is perhaps the most competent liar. He previously created a charity water bottle company out of thin air to get back $20 from an old college acquaintance in season one. (This season’s glimpses into his life outside the group hint at a wild time – “It’s a timeshare that used to belong to this older man who I used to let spoon me for Broadway box seats. Then ironically he fell out of one the box seats and he’s been in a coma for like a year.” – and I love it.)
In any case, Elliott is throwing him self headfirst into his wedding with Marc (Jeffrey Self) as well as a possible future as a Milo Yiannopoulos type gay alt-right winger.
The season is further buoyed by outstanding guest performances including Dory and Drew’s lawyers, millennial Cassidy Diamond (Shalita Grant) and over the hill Bob Lunch (Louie Anderson), creepy investor William Badpastor (Wallace Shawn), District Attorney Polly Danzinger (Michaela Watkins), and Fox News pundit Charlie Feeny (Chloe Fineman). Each has an undeniable “I’ve seen that person on the subway or on the street” quality to them.
The developments, which play out as a slow boil, show the main four once again gradually and epically spinning out. There are some seemingly meaningless plot threads, (Storylines with Julian (Brandon Micheal Hall) and Chantal (Clare McNulty) stuck out to me in particular), but otherwise, twists and reveals are well-paced. Which makes the conclusion a strange one.
At the end of the season, Dory is kidnapped by an obsessive stalker and forced to confess her story. As the camera slowly zooms out on her chained to a chair in a concrete room, I couldn’t help feeling like something was off. Search Party has always felt grounded in a way that makes the twists believable. This imagery is something out of Criminal Minds or You, it doesn’t feel right in Search Party.
But even with that said, I still am hopeful for the fourth season simply based on the skill and charisma Search Party’s actors always bring. It reportedly has already been filmed, so no searching involved anymore, now we only have to wait.
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