Joe and Terry discuss season five of HBO Max’s Search Party, alternating between our respective sites.

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Season 4: Eps 1 - 3 / Eps 4 - 6 / Eps 7 - 10

Spoilers for episodes 1- 9…

TERRY

My blinking cursor has been staring at me for a few minutes as I struggled to figure out how to start this recap, Joe. Search Party season four felt like such a culmination of the drama, trauma and character arcs that started with the humble search for a woman named Chantal (Clare McNulty). It gave us sympathy for Dory (Alia Shawkat) while giving her her (just?) comeupance as the narcissistic murderess we knew and loved. I screamed at her friends to go back and help her as she choked to death on the smoke. I cried watching her funeral and laughed awkwardly as her friends continued to not know the person they once loved. This was *my* group of narcissistic millennials who learned nothing in their time spent murdering and covering their tracks.

But then there was the final scene of Dory, waking up and sputtering, as she stared directly into the camera and said the prophetic words: “I was dead! I saw everything! I saw everything!” And just like that, what could have been an incredibly moving and powerful finale opened the path for another season.

And while the first five episodes of season five feel, in some ways, like a victory lap, I’m not quite on board with the direction the show has taken…at least in the first half.

When season five begins, we’re given a lot of information. A nurse tells Dory that she was dead for 37 seconds. Dory seems incredibly manic in her near death euphoria, telling her friends, “I’m so happy…it’s like a huge well of joy bubbling up from within me, you know? It’s love. It’s love. Oh and it’s infinite. But at the same time there is no time, you know?” Her friends, understandably, are concerned as she keeps going, telling Elliott (John Early), Portia (Meredith Hagner) and Drew (John Reynolds) how she saw them at her funeral and that all of her personalities combined (which we saw in the season four finale). “It was like all of my sides, the different “me”s were just…connecting things like a million miles per hour.”

Love, love, love! She screams. And is summarily committed.

Drew continues to show himself as the douchebag he is, telling Portia and Elliott that this is the chance to get her out of their lives, once and for all. And before the first episode jumps six months ahead, we see the characters backsliding into old behaviors. Elliott knocks on Marc (Jeffery Self)’s door and somehow sneaks back into his life. Portia and Drew, meanwhile, go back to Portia’s place where they bemoan the fact that they can’t get jobs, no one’s going to understand them and they are cursed. “What are we supposed to do? Fuck each other?” Drew asks.

Spoiler alert: they do.

Six months later, Dory is a burgeoning cult leader in need of disciples, Portia is drinking on the job while teaching young adults to act, Drew has somehow become more horrible and is creating an app called Seize that allows individuals to steal homes away from the disenfranchised, and Elliott and Marc are custom-buying a child. Hats off to John Waters who plays Sheffield, the baby seller who sets the two of them up with a Damien/Orphan wannabe named Aspen (Kayden Koshelev).

This is all a decent beginning and I like the setup quite well. The characters are all interacting with each other after being pulled apart and away in Season 4, and coming back to Search Party feels like checking in with old, albeit dysfunctionally narcissistic, friends. The dialogue is just as sharp and incisive as ever. In episode 1 “Genesis”, a nurse cuts down the friends’ chatter by saying, “Take it down. It’s the holidays. People are trying to die.” And when Dory tries to share her newfound love of life and how everything is beautiful, Elliott snidely says later, “I do not want to go back in there…like ‘life is beautiful’? No, it’s not. Look at how ugly everyone here is.” And typically daft Portia gives what could be her most incisively self-unaware observation, “She died and imagined her own funeral. It’s like a level of narcissism that none of us can relate to.”

But in this early part, the cult storyline feels a little undercooked and unlike previous seasons, feels divorced from the overarching storyline that progressed so smartly from the humble beginnings of a missing person’s poster. It’s nice to be back with these characters one last time, but the show’s cadence feels off in this first half.

What are your initial thoughts of this season so far, Joe? Did you like Aspen’s introduction and his subsequent Creepy Kid moments? What do you think of the big name additions this season, which includes John Waters and Jeff Goldblum? Is Dory taking her narcissism to new levels, playacting this whole hippie persona or is this a changed person? Finally, are we concerned that she seems to want to have everyone experience death and rebirth?

JOE

Oh boy, Terry, we are back on this rollercoaster and it is a wild ride! While I’ll confess that I was initially dismayed when HBO Max announced the renewal of the show for a fifth and final season for all the reasons you mentioned, I definitely saw potential in the “Dory forms a cult” vibe of these first few episodes.

And if returning for the victory lap gives us nothing else, at least we can say that Search Party continues to be an amazing outlet for the chameleon-like talents of Shawkat, who continues to find ways to reinvent Dory in new and creative ways.

You asked if this new “enlightened” Dory is playacting and I have to confess that that’s the biggest question I have at the halfway point of S5. It’s a testament to Shawkat’s talent that I legitimately can’t tell if Dory is getting high on her own kool aid, or if she is indulging in the ultimate narcissistic enterprise. But I can unequivocally say that Shawkat remains absolutely captivating in this role.

It’s particularly fun to watch Dory disarm the crew in the second episode “Exodus” with a kind of “perfect day” experience that slowly wins them over. It makes perfect sense that Dory would charm her former friends first; just as it’s unsurprising that Portia and Elliot are more trusting of her New Age philosophical bullshit than Drew. Ditto the fact that both Portia and Drew eventually escalate the relationship to a sexual level and then lie about it to the other (I love Elliot’s confused observation in episode 4 “Leviticus” when he notices that he’s the only one who doesn’t get a kiss from Dory before she takes the stage).

The issue is less about the interplay between the four friends than some of the stuff surrounding it. I actually think all of the cult stuff - about enlightenment and how easy it is to be seduced by promises of a life-altering pill - is totally on point, and the news segment in episode four when Quin sends every American a box in a plot to create maximum interest in “Lyte”, his collaboration with Dory, is quietly hilarious, up to and including the nonsense contained in the ticker at the bottom of the screen. I full-on guffawed at the announcer’s statement, “I can testify that it is quite hurtful to open that empty box.”

As for Goldblum’s capitalist tech billionaire: what inspired casting by the series! The character feels like a riff on Neil deGrasse Tyson meets Elon Musk, which should be horrible, but is made tolerable by Goldblum’s absolutely stunning wardrobe and snake-charmer smile. It’s perfect stunt casting because it implicitly acknowledges the real-life likability of the actor, who channels the narcissism of Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park while turning on the smarmy charm.

With that said, the joke to laugh ratio is only about 50% with the character. Quin crediting himself with inventing texting is pretty funny; an egregiously long “lifelike” simulation of a journey to the Earth’s core as the entryway to his boardroom, on the other hand, is insufferable. The single best joke of the first half of S5, however, has got to be the twisted homage to Willy Wonka in episode four, as the group collectively stumbles on the idea of a “patriotic” contest whose outcome is already determined while Quin guides them through a candy store. It’s “chef’s kiss” inspired.

The same goes for Waters, who (as usual) appears in an unsavoury role as a child trafficker for an organization posing as a legitimate adoption clinic. I love Waters and he’s a great fit for this kind of sleazy character, but this storyline is aggravating, Terry. There’s already an Orphan prequel coming out this year, so I definitely don’t need an uninspired take on a Bad Seed adopted child, especially when this storyline - up to this point - adds nothing to the show.

The same can be said of the social media influencers, whose numbers include a roller skating hot girl, a make-up cosplay girl, a bunko scientist, and an insipid gay. These characters don’t fully work for me, possibly because the satire is too obvious, or because in order for the critique to work, Search Party has to make the new crop of characters even more shallow and less self-aware than its OG dimwitted protagonists.

Either way the influencers immediately pass the point of comedy and descend into caricature. Portia, Elliot and Drew remark that they’re insufferable and they’re right: by the time the “disciples” take the stage in colour-coded camouflage outfits for a coordinated dance as their social media follower count flashes across the screen, it feels like the equivalent of Search Party shooting fish in a barrel. They’re terrible, especially at the mid-way point of the season when they blindly swallow Dory’s poisoned message to the point of self-mutilation.

But Terry, what are your thoughts on the remainder of the season up to the finale? Does the Drew/Portia/Dory triangle satisfy? And since we’re talking cameos, did you enjoy seeing Kathy Griffin pop up?

Season 5, Episodes 6 - 9

TERRY

Alright, we’re into the thick of things now with these final five episodes and Joe…I don’t even know where to start. Each season of Search Party has separated itself from the others by taking and rearranging genre stylings. The first season pulled from the detective noir and our obsession with true crime. The second became an almost Hitchcockian exploration of the paranoid thriller. The third became a law thriller, pitting the inarguably guilty against the court of law and public perception. The fourth descended fully into a psychological thriller, mixing brainwashing and punishment.

Which brings us to the fifth season, which throws caution to the wind and embraces multiple storylines pulled from popular fiction, all wrapped up in a candy-colored explosion.

We mentioned the Damien/Orphan plotline involving Aspen and obviously Dory established a cult around her personality and influence. But as the season continued, Search Party began injecting more and more horror and sci-fi tropes. My favorite was a throwaway moment that guest starred a ton of funny people. During the first half, Dory is slashed by a woman with a knife that says Jesper Society, leading Drew to Maine to figure out what it is and how they’re potentially embroiled in whatever’s happening with Dory.

When he pulls up to the Seaside Inn and mentions The Jesper Society to John (Lou Diamond Phillips), he’s introduced to a veritable who’s who of famous people. John takes Drew to his house and before he can explain anything, the doorbell rings and a woman named Annabelle (Illeana Douglas (!!)) shows up, followed by Wally (Michael Ian Black) and Paul (Scott Adsit…from 30 Rock). It turns out they haven’t seen each other in years, Wally has lost a lot of weight and they’ve come back together because Jesper has found a new host. Wally’s lisp comes back, John tells him to not be scared because “Fear is what it feeds on” and then Annabelle starts to tell Drew a story set in 1981, when their town (again, in Maine) was under siege by The Jesper and only five children could see them.

And throughout this extended IT homage, Drew keeps insisting that all he wants is Matilda’s last name, a detail that will eventually lead him back to the asylum that Dory was seen at. But ultimately? It (IT?) turns out they have nothing to do with the main story.

Later, Chantal becomes embroiled in a time travel conspiracy touted by Liquorice (Kathy Griffin), who has convinced Chantal that in 2024 she’ll sleep with a man named John Hallwood…who has come back from 2040 to impregnate her with a child that will bring an end to the world. So Liquorice wants Chantal (who she continues to put the emphasis on the “Chant” of the name instead of the “al”) to kill the child John Hallwood…who Chantal hilariously intercepts at a family outing and comes across as a pedophile. It’s ridiculous.

Both examples are purposeful because, aside from being slight parodies of Stephen King’s It and James Cameron’s The Terminator, each sequence suggests that we’re all making our own individual cults of personality. Where we are the stars of the world’s story and it’s our choices that will either save or destroy the world. It’s very in-line with the themes of narcissism and inflated sense of ego that Search Party has mined for five seasons. They’re little vignettes that tie directly into the story that Season Five is exploring.

Back with Dory: I wasn’t sure where the Dory/Drew/Portia love triangle would go, though the fact that the very gay Elliott feels left out and tries to weasle into having sex with Dory is peak Search Party.

To be honest, I don’t actually think Search Party knows where it’s going with all of those little moments, either. Large swathes of Season Five feel like the writers tossing in the kitchen sink while throwing darts at a board to come up with storylines that are ultimately dropped. Why does it matter that Marc and Elliott adopt the antichrist in training, considering the direction the show takes? Why does it matter that Dory is sleeping with both Drew and Portia when it gets dropped towards the end of the season?

We’ve both mentioned that Season Five feels like a victory lap and as we careen towards the finale, the show seems to have completely jumped the shark in a kind of glorious way. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the initial setup, mostly because I found the way Season Four ended Dory Sief’s story with a perfect little bow. Everything about Season Five feels divorced from that story, almost as if it’s the afterlife. And in a way it is, because everything, from the way the candy color had overtaken the production design of the more subdued color schemes from before to the almost dream-like way the story unfolds, feels unnatural. It’s almost as if we’ve gone through the meal that is Dory Sief and now the showrunners are just having fun with it.

I don’t think everyone will go along with the many turns and fantastical elements Search Party begins tossing like jellybeans, but when I finally relaxed and just let the apocalypse rush over me, I started having a blast.

What about you, Joe? Are you ready to take a euphoric jellybean and join Dory’s cult by the end of episode 9? I danced around the subject, but I’m curious at what point did you sit up and go… “are they doing zombies?” What did you think about the reappearance of Chantal’s now rich family (and is there really a market for Hot Baby, the hot sauce specifically for babies?)? And did you like Episode Nine’s recreation of the zombie story in a twenty minute span of time?

JOE

Man oh man. I basically watched episodes 6-9 in one block because I could *not* believe that we were doing zombies, Terry! In some ways it makes perfect sense because it’s a logical extension of so many of Search Party’s interests: the shifting line between personal and collective responsibility, the gullibility of people and the disastrous effects that this small foursome of idiots has had on the world. Whether this is all secretly part of Dory’s 37 seconds of death or if this is, in fact, reality, I’m both shocked that the series went full-on zombie and simultaneously completely unsurprised.

This is Search Party, after all; everything is on the table.

Now with that said, I’m still very firmly mixed on everything occurring this season. Watching Dory and the cultists sweat it out in the un-air conditioned headquarters of Lyte after kicking Tunnel out (and his subsequent very public firing) is…fine? I think we were meant to derive more belly laughs from the hostages’ inability to use the toilet (because royals, ha ha!) but most of this stuff fell flat to me until episode eight “Song of Songs” when the bus explosion was revealed to be fake and Drew takes the group back to Helen (Orange is the New Black’s Constance Shulman) and her hippie husband from episode 2.

Things really come together here because there’s nothing preventing the group from partaking in the jellybean massacre. It’s been obvious that this whole project would end in disaster, ever since the mention of the pill, but even more so in episode 7 “Book of the Wars of the Lord” when the jellybeans come to the forefront. It was never a question of whether this initiative would bring about enlightenment, but how badly it would end.

This means that some of the series’ greatest tension occurs in the seemingly innocuous scenes where Dory administers the pill to the group as they lay in a circle. Writer Starlee Kline layers in New Age speak with ominous dialogue like Dory’s words about the “transformation of the ego” is “going to feel like pain.” This is accompanied by co-directors Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers’ tight framing of jellybeans going into mouths and the great visuals of the cult members levitating off the ground as light beams out of their bodies. Are they ascending…or merely preparing to die?

Of course, we have some sense of what’s to come because Dr. Benny Balthazar (Aparna Nancherla) - who previously died by suicide throwing herself out the window of Lyte headquarters - has actually reanimated in the Women’s Morgue. But it’s still wild to see episode nine come down to a concentrated zombie film set in a closed Chuck E. Cheese, including an escape by Go Kart and a hilariously stupid recurring gag about the inadequacies of Tunnel’s voice operated smart cars, which get numerous people killed because they don’t speak in the proper tone.

And then there’s the Chantal stuff, which is completely off on its own and is the height of ridiculous. From the Hot Baby gag (which I definitely loved) to the name of the kindly nurse at the hospital - Dr Amanda Baby - who gives Chantal the bad news after Liquorice dies of various pest-related ailments, everything about these scenes is duuuumb (in a mostly good way).

I would be able to appreciate it more if Chantal wasn’t her own independent satellite orbiting the A plot (thinking back to her standalone episode in S4 makes me wonder if a concentrated dose would have worked better). Here’s hoping that Chantal’s deluded search for purpose intersects with Dory and the others now that the action has returned to New York and the zombie horde is about to be unleashed!

We’ll see how it all wraps up in a few days when we return to QueerHorrorMovies to discuss the finale, “Revelation” and our thoughts on Search Party as a whole.