Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Party Down’ Season 3 On Starz, Where Most Of The Cast Is Back, Older And Not Wiser

Party Down was one of those shows that not a lot of people saw when it first aired on Starz in 2009-10 — we seem to recall audience estimates at the time being in the very low six-figure range — but it was one of those shows that was not only popular with critics but in the industry. Almost everyone who was on it, even already-established actors like Jane Lynch or Megan Mullally, went on to bigger (if not necessarily better) things, and the drumbeat for a reunion movie or series grew stronger every year. Finally, thirteen years after the original run was cancelled, the folks in the pink bow ties are back for a third season.

PARTY DOWN SEASON 3: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A poster for the new Nitromancer movie starring Kyle Bradway (Ryan Hansen). Party Down’s owner, Ron Donald (Ken Marino), tells his servers to always be circulating.

The Gist: Why would Ryan hire Party Down, where he used to work, to cater a party celebrating his new role? “He hired Party Down to taunt us with his success, and I will not play along,” says Roman DeBeers (Martin Starr), one of Ryan’s former colleagues, who’s been working for Party Down for over a decade.

The party is basically a Party Down reunion: Henry Pollard (Adam Scott), now a teacher, is postponing an important dinner with his wife to attend. Both Constance Carmell (Jane Lynch) and Lydia Dunfree (Megan Mullally) are there; Constance is spending her late husband’s money, and Lydia is busy being the momager to her very successful now-adult actor daughter Escapade (Liv Hewson).

Not there is Casey Klein (Lizzy Caplan, who was busy with Fleishman Is In Trouble), who is now an even more successful actress than Ryan. Two new members of the crew are Sackson (Tyrel Jackson Williams), who is a TikTok expert, and Lucy Dang (Zoe Chao), a new chef who has some, um, creative ideas for hors d’oeuvres.

Ron tells Henry about his plan to expand Party Down now that he’s thisclose to taking over the whole thing, including a fleet of grey-and-pink vans. One problem: A $10,000 invoice he incurred when he was warehouse chief has never been paid, and it’ll scuttle the sale.

Desperate, Ron looks to see who can invest; luckily, earlier in the party, Henry met Evie Adler (Jennifer Garner), who is a producer of the franchise film universe Ryan is now a part of. Her boyfriend Jack Botty (James Marsden), star of one of the biggest franchises in that universe, loves talking about food businesses. Of course, Ron literally falls on his face when meeting Jack, but Evie — who recognized Henry from the “Are we having fun yet?” ads his did 20 years ago — might hire Party Down for Jack’s birthday party. Needing the money by midnight, he reluctantly asks Constance, who gives it to him and declares them partners.

A video of Ryan singing a song called “My Struggle” with his band a decade ago starts going viral, and his agent Jaff (Quinta Brunson) is eager for him to get ahead of this. Henry figures out who leaked it, and Sackson tries to help Ryan make a proper apology video where he says “liking Nazis wasn’t cool then, it’s not cool now,” but Ron destroys the phone before the video can go out. Ryan ends up being cancelled before his party is even over.

But the night ends well for Ronald; he won the bid to buy Party Down, and Evie will have them cater Jack’s party. Too bad it’s March of 2020.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Party Down Seasons 1 and 2, of course. It’s certainly a workplace comedy along the lines of The Office and Parks and Rec (which Scott joined after the original run of Party Down was cancelled), but the workplace changes from episode to episode.

Our Take: As unabashed fans of Party Down‘s original 2009-10 run, we were ecstatic to see the show come back 13 years later, with producers John Enbom, Rob Thomas, Dan Etheridge, and Paul Rudd all coming back as active participants and most of the stars returning. We were a little concerned that Caplan wasn’t coming back, as Casey’s on-again, off-again with Henry was the backbone of the original run, but not enough to think that Enbom and Thomas couldn’t make up for it.

But as we watched the first two of the five episodes Starz provided (there will be six in total), we were bewildered as to why things seemed off with the ensemble, and even more crucially, the episodes weren’t all that funny.

There were a few factors that seemed to contribute to this. For one, the show had to work Ryan and Henry back into the fold of working for Party Down; when that happens in the second episode, it becomes less about young-ish actors who are pushing the rock up the hill in an unforgiving business, but middle-aged people coming back to a gig they thought they left behind. The ennui of the original run gave way to desperation in the first few Season 3 episodes, and that desperation wasn’t funny.

Then we noticed that Mullally and Lynch aren’t in the classic white shirts and pink bowties — don’t let the show’s key art fool you — and we didn’t love the dynamic of them being on the outside looking in. The newcomers started as a mixed bag: Williams, whom we loved in Brockmire, seemed to integrate well as a “next generation” Party Downer, but Chao and Garner felt like interlopers. It isn’t until the third episode, when Chao is given a bit more space to be quirky and a relationship between Garner’s Evie and Henry has been established, that the two of them come into their own.

In fact, the third, fourth and fifth episodes are much better than the first two, coming close to the rhythms that the series established in its first run over a decade ago. Caplan and her sardonic Casey are sorely missed, but by the time we got to the fifth episode, a fake prom Lydia throws for Escapade in an effort to make up for her missing it in high school, we really started feeling at home again with this group. The fourth episode, where everyone but Ron works an event while on magic mushrooms, is especially funny.

Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first five episodes. Some stuff is discussed, of course, but nothing is on camera.

Parting Shot: “FOURTEEN MONTHS LATER.” The pandemic is raging, and Ron is basically living in the van; he busts out the back, his crew cut now an overgrown floppy do, fielding calls about underground bar mitzvahs in order to keep the company going.

Sleeper Star: As it was during the first run, the show’s guest stars add a lot to each episode. We especially enjoyed Nick Offerman in episode 3; he plays a Nazi who seems to have an appreciation of fine food, and is the only one who connects with the messages Lucy is trying to communicate with her dishes.

Most Pilot-y Line: An extended bit about Henry being on the party list as “Henny Palarb” wasn’t any funnier in minute 2 than it was when it started.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Fans of Party Down, whether you watched it in the pre-Instagram days or caught up on it just recently, will eventually enjoy the show’s third season, but they may have to wade through a few disappointing episodes first.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.