Party Down Season Three Review: A Sharp Revival That Reckons with the Wear of Time

In the 2009 premiere episode of Party Down, once-aspiring actor Henry (Adam Scott) returns to his old job as a bartender at a catering company. He’s welcomed back by his former co-worker, the oafish and earnest Ron (Ken Marino), who’s climbed the proverbial ladder to team leader. “A lot can happen in eight years,” Ron says. The scene winks at the elusiveness of change—a driving theme of Party Down’s sharp and much-belated third season, which arrives more than a decade after the show’s second season wrapped up.

In the first two seasons, each of the Party Down staffers suggest a modern Sisyphus, damned to roll not one but two boulders up a hill. They grit their teeth through the drudgery of underpaid service work, as well as their fruitless quests for fame, cultural relevance, and autonomy. But the revival’s time jump appears to have relieved some crew members of their curses. Constance (Jane Lynch) has fallen into quite a bit of money and Lydia (Megan Mullally) is effectively managing her daughter’s burgeoning acting career. Even the wonderfully airheaded Kyle (Ryan Hansen) seems to have caught his big break with a lead role in a superhero movie.

Recent real-world events, however, have done little to dull the cynical, pessimistic outlook with which co-creator John Enbom and his fellow writers infuse the show’s third season. Success proves rare and fleeting for the characters, and it isn’t long before those who escape the black hole that is Party Down are drawn back into its void. It’s there that they reunite with the old-timers, who haven’t grown so much as adapted to the times, like sci-fi writer Roman (Martin Starr), who’s put his “opus” on the backburner in favor of his vlog.

Party Down smartly uses the gap between its seasons and the introduction of a new generation of characters—including Lucy (Zoë Chao), an experimental chef stuck making pigs in a blanket, and would-be influencer Sackson (Tyrel Jackson Williams), whose “craft” is making “content”—to explore the difficulty of achieving not just personal evolution, but social and political progress. Where the show’s first season included a gathering hosted by twerpish college Republicans, season three features a conference organized by smug alt-righters, succinctly charting the course of contemporary American conservatism.

In this and other instances, the series deftly tackles timely issues with breezy reckonings, interrogating them—and laughing at them—but avoiding ham-fisted didacticism. “Can we just hold our noses and work for the nazis?” Ron asks at one point in response to his team’s displeasure with their clients. “Nazis or not, I mean, I’d like to snag some referrals.”

Ron, the standout of a perfect ensemble, is as unwavering as ever in his determination to thrive as a small business owner. He experiences but one crisis of faith in season three: While catering a publicity event hosted by Lydia, he mistakes a sudden sickness for stress, and worries that he’s not rising to the occasion of his work. This leads to one of the most hilarious sequences of the entire series, in which Ron suffers from gastrointestinal trauma while his employees look on in wide-eyed horror, as though they’re watching Ron convulse on his deathbed.

Though life in Party Down offers more downs than ups, glimmers of hope dot the tragic existences of its characters. They find a measure of success or unexpected love, and feel, at last, fulfillment. It’s in these moments that the series betrays its own humanistic kindness. Because however funny it is to watch ridiculous people get crushed by boulders, you can’t help but admire their tenacious insistence on heading back up the hill.