Congratulations for what?
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First Airdate: May 8, 2009
Written by John Enbom
Directed by Bryan Gordon
I have good news, then bad news, then good news again. First off, this is - as promised - the best episode of season 1, perhaps of the entire series (I know I'm backtracking but I really should brush up on S2 before committing to that statement entirely). Then the bad news: Part of why this entry is excellent is that it gives Constance Carmel so goddamn much to do, because this is Jane Lynch's final episode in the main cast of the series. She packed off and headed to Glee, which was certainly the right career move, though the loss to Party Down is incalculable. The other good news is that the ringer they bring in to replace her in the final two episodes is the single best choice they could have made, but more on that next time.
So, this is Constance's farewell episode, but it's also the first episode of the series where every character is really clicking with a manic fast-paced plot that gives them all something to do. The A-plot of the entire season has lightened up considerably as well after a couple episodes of idling: Casey and Henry's relationship has finally been exposed and they're having their first real fight (after Casey flirted with Rick Fox in the previous episode), giving them a new tenor to play and revitalizing the tension between them, from which they have always mined the most comedy.
This tension has found the absolute worst environment in which to flourish: a celebration for Ricky Sargulesh (Steven Weber), a man who is inconclusively Middle Eastern/Eastern European but very definitively a mobster and murderer. The episode dances just on the right side of the line of ethnocentric humor, so it may not be to everyone's taste, but the reason the characters at the party are from a foreign culture isn't necessarily to support a thesis that foreign cultures are funny (Is this episode guilty of some punchlines based around that? Of course. But not as many as you might expect from an episode that came out over a decade ago.), it's to throw our characters into the deep end of a completely unpredictable environment filled with cartoon mobsters whose universe is governed by a completely unknown set of rules and watch them try to swim.
The rate at which the Party Down characters realize the consequences of making a misstep with this group of people might result in their body being thrown in the river varies. The highs of the night are intoxicating, as Ricky and his right-hand man Zoltan (Vic Polizos) begin to recognize all of the struggling actors in the group from their most obscure roles. However, the lows (which are mostly experienced by Roman, Ron, and Henry - whose panicked, twitching deliveries of "Are we having fun yet?" to distract the mobsters from the fact that he accidentally kissed Ricky's girlfriend are pitch perfect) have higher stakes than they've ever had before, as they race to prevent a mob hit they believe is about to be carried out, all while catering to a party that refuses to allow 4 of the 6 team members to do any work at all.
In addition to being chock full of at least a half dozen of the best one-liners the series ever had to offer, this episode excels from a dazzling guest performance. If you looked at the list of celebrities who would make appearances on the first season of this program, Weber's name might not have jumped out at you, but he gives his all to this bizarre role. He's working from beneath what is either a prosthetic or an impressive command of his facial muscles, giving the impression that Ricky has been overindulging in plastic surgery which highlights how incredibly opaque his mercurial emotional reactions to any stimulus are going to be. He emanates a palpable sense of danger while delivering some of the series' punchiest dialogue (out of context, "How was the syntax?" is a bland line, but from his lips he spins gold).
But back to Jane Lynch. While everyone is on their A-game in this remarkably balanced episode, Constance finally finds a willing audience for her D-list Hollywood stories and Lynch milks it for everything she's worth. The fact that she's so at home in this utterly strange environment makes the insipid and vacuous character's charms stand out even more in the contrast. I couldn't think of a more fitting sendoff for one of the finest comic presences of the modern day.
Rating: A+
Brennan Klein is a millennial who knows way more about 80's slasher movies than he has any right to. He's a former host of the Attack of the Queerwolf podcast and a current senior movie/TV news writer at Screen Rant. You can find his other reviews on his blog Popcorn Culture. Follow him on Twitter or Letterboxd, if you feel like it.
First Airdate: May 8, 2009
Written by John Enbom
Directed by Bryan Gordon
I have good news, then bad news, then good news again. First off, this is - as promised - the best episode of season 1, perhaps of the entire series (I know I'm backtracking but I really should brush up on S2 before committing to that statement entirely). Then the bad news: Part of why this entry is excellent is that it gives Constance Carmel so goddamn much to do, because this is Jane Lynch's final episode in the main cast of the series. She packed off and headed to Glee, which was certainly the right career move, though the loss to Party Down is incalculable. The other good news is that the ringer they bring in to replace her in the final two episodes is the single best choice they could have made, but more on that next time.
So, this is Constance's farewell episode, but it's also the first episode of the series where every character is really clicking with a manic fast-paced plot that gives them all something to do. The A-plot of the entire season has lightened up considerably as well after a couple episodes of idling: Casey and Henry's relationship has finally been exposed and they're having their first real fight (after Casey flirted with Rick Fox in the previous episode), giving them a new tenor to play and revitalizing the tension between them, from which they have always mined the most comedy.
This tension has found the absolute worst environment in which to flourish: a celebration for Ricky Sargulesh (Steven Weber), a man who is inconclusively Middle Eastern/Eastern European but very definitively a mobster and murderer. The episode dances just on the right side of the line of ethnocentric humor, so it may not be to everyone's taste, but the reason the characters at the party are from a foreign culture isn't necessarily to support a thesis that foreign cultures are funny (Is this episode guilty of some punchlines based around that? Of course. But not as many as you might expect from an episode that came out over a decade ago.), it's to throw our characters into the deep end of a completely unpredictable environment filled with cartoon mobsters whose universe is governed by a completely unknown set of rules and watch them try to swim.
The rate at which the Party Down characters realize the consequences of making a misstep with this group of people might result in their body being thrown in the river varies. The highs of the night are intoxicating, as Ricky and his right-hand man Zoltan (Vic Polizos) begin to recognize all of the struggling actors in the group from their most obscure roles. However, the lows (which are mostly experienced by Roman, Ron, and Henry - whose panicked, twitching deliveries of "Are we having fun yet?" to distract the mobsters from the fact that he accidentally kissed Ricky's girlfriend are pitch perfect) have higher stakes than they've ever had before, as they race to prevent a mob hit they believe is about to be carried out, all while catering to a party that refuses to allow 4 of the 6 team members to do any work at all.
In addition to being chock full of at least a half dozen of the best one-liners the series ever had to offer, this episode excels from a dazzling guest performance. If you looked at the list of celebrities who would make appearances on the first season of this program, Weber's name might not have jumped out at you, but he gives his all to this bizarre role. He's working from beneath what is either a prosthetic or an impressive command of his facial muscles, giving the impression that Ricky has been overindulging in plastic surgery which highlights how incredibly opaque his mercurial emotional reactions to any stimulus are going to be. He emanates a palpable sense of danger while delivering some of the series' punchiest dialogue (out of context, "How was the syntax?" is a bland line, but from his lips he spins gold).
But back to Jane Lynch. While everyone is on their A-game in this remarkably balanced episode, Constance finally finds a willing audience for her D-list Hollywood stories and Lynch milks it for everything she's worth. The fact that she's so at home in this utterly strange environment makes the insipid and vacuous character's charms stand out even more in the contrast. I couldn't think of a more fitting sendoff for one of the finest comic presences of the modern day.
Rating: A+
Brennan Klein is a millennial who knows way more about 80's slasher movies than he has any right to. He's a former host of the Attack of the Queerwolf podcast and a current senior movie/TV news writer at Screen Rant. You can find his other reviews on his blog Popcorn Culture. Follow him on Twitter or Letterboxd, if you feel like it.
