thoughts on Party Down (spoilers)

First of all, the way I was introduced to this series (which originally ran on Starz from 2009-2010) is pretty funny.  I posted this article about why you should be watching the show Masters of Sex to Facebook; the article included a clip from Party Down that was funny and included some familiar faces.  I asked my Facebook friends what this show was and why I had never heard of it, and immediately received several responses about how great and funny it was.  Since I got the discs from Netflix and started watching the series, I've found myself bringing the show up in in-person conversations quite a bit, and inevitably someone will say, "Oh, I love Party Down!" The best is when someone specifically mentions the Steve Guttenberg episode, because that one's my favorite.  Anyway, I love that it's a show that apparently many people besides me have already heard of, yet I'm just finding out about it now thanks to the wonders that are Masters of Sex and Facebook.

Anyway, Adam Scott stars as Henry Pollard, a failed actor whose claim to fame is that he once starred in a beer commercial in which he uttered the line, "Are we having fun yet?!" People constantly recognize him from this; initially, they can't quite place where they know him from, and he always tries to say that he just has "one of those faces." Inevitably, they figure it out, and talk him into saying the line.  He worked at Party Down Catering years ago and finds himself back there after he decides to give up acting for good.  He is the most down-to-earth and likable person on the catering crew while also, in some ways, the saddest.  He's given up on his acting career even though there are hints that he is probably actually a very good actor.  He considers moving back in with his parents at one point.  At the end of the first season, he is promoted to Team Leader of the catering crew, but winds up giving it up several episodes into the second season because he doesn't want even the small amount of responsibility the job involves.  He winds up getting more heartbreak than joy from his "casual hook-up thing" with fellow caterer Casey (Lizzy Caplan), then falls into a relationship with rival caterer Uda Bengt (Kristen Bell).  He seems to have given up all hope and ambition...but there are hints, toward the end of the series, that maybe he's getting those things back.  He "rolls the dice" in a late episode by deciding to end things with Uda (though she breaks up with him before he gets the chance to actually do so) and turn down a corporate job with Party Down (though again, that opportunity disappears before he gets to actually reject it) in favor of trying again with Casey.  At the very end of the last episode, we see him going on an audition for a part he really wants.  We're meeting this character at a weird transitional time in his life, but it seems like things are going to be okay for him.

That's one thing that's fairly brilliant about this show. Many of the members of the Party Down crew are trying to break into show business, but because we mostly see them at their "day job," we don't often get to see a lot of the particulars of what they actually do; we see them catering, where they seem to spend a lot of their time goofing off, drinking, hooking up, and occasionally doing drugs.  There are moments, though, where we're allowed to see that some of these people probably actually have a shot at making it.  Casey gets a small part in a Judd Apatow movie; though the part is ultimately cut, we sense that it's probably not the end for her.  Kyle (Ryan Hansen) is good-looking, charming, and really sweet; we sense that he could have a future as an actor even though his "base jumping movie" goes straight to video and he spends most of his time at work hitting on women and feuding with fellow caterer Roman (Martin Starr).  Roman, a would-be sci-fi screenwriter ("I'm a writer! I write books! And screenplays! I have a blog!"), is a very particular combination of nerd and dick that can't get laid even when he's fully disguised as a famous rock star, and that just can't stop himself from explaining in detail to a woman why dragons are fantasy, not sci-fi, even though she might be into him if he could stop being a know-it-all for five seconds.  Yet there is a moment in the aforementioned Steve Guttenberg episode where we see that he might actually have a chance as a sci-fi screenwriter if he could find the right writing partner and/or mentor to rein him in.  These people haven't made it yet, and they're not as smooth and polished as the caterers from rival Valhalla Catering (nor do they care enough about their jobs to be), but they're not hopeless, either.  We also see genuine moments of camaraderie between them, such as when they square off in kickball against Valhalla at a company picnic, or when Henry and Casey try to stop Constance (Jane Lynch) from signing an outrageous pre-nup at her series finale wedding.

One of the most interesting characters is Ron (Ken Marino), the only Party Down crewmember to not even be tangentially involved in the entertainment industry, as well as the only one to really take his job seriously.  He is a recovering alcoholic and drug user; in a late Season One episode, he is thrilled when Party Down is hired to cater his own twenty-year high school reunion.  He can't wait to show everyone that he (who ruined his class's senior trip by chugging a bottle of whiskey and getting sent to the emergency room) is clean and sober and has a leadership position with the catering crew.  Once there, though, he winds up finding out that everyone is making fun of him for being so proud of his catering job, and he winds up pulling a repeat performance with the whiskey and emergency room.  His dream is to own a Soup or Crackers franchise, and he does for awhile...only the whole company goes bankrupt within a year.  The end of the series, though, finds him clean and sober again, and looking like he is heading towards running Party Down.  He has his own demons and failures to contend with...but still he's optimistic and hopeful and actually seems to have a chance at achieving his goals, small though those goals might seem to some.  It's pretty sweet.

I thought it was brilliant, really.  The catering premise meant that every episode found the crew in a new setting (an ill-attended Sweet Sixteen party...an NFL draft party for a closeted gay quarterback...an after party for porn industry awards) with plenty of fun guest stars (one of the producers is Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas, which means that we wind up seeing a lot of Veronica Mars alum, including the aforementioned Bell, Hansen, and Marino, as well as Enrico Colantoni and Jason Dohring, among others; we also, at different times in the series, see the aforementioned Guttenberg, in addition to J.K. Simmons, Joey Lauren Adams, and Ken Jeong, just to name a few).  You also, along the way, got a fair amount of character development, as well as good chemistry among the cast.  It seems like it could have lasted awhile; Jane Lynch's exit at the end of the first season and subsequent replacement by Megan Mullally indicated that there was room for the cast to change if or when actors wanted to leave or it became realistic for the characters to move on from Party Down.  I wish that it would have lasted longer, but am glad I found what there was of it.  Thanks to all who recommended it.