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First Airdate: May 15, 2009
Written by Russell Smith
Directed by Fred Savage
Two episodes before its season 1 finale, Party Down was rocked by a major upset. Jane Lynch got a gig on a little Ryan Murphy show called Glee, in which she would play the vicious cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester on 121 episodes until the series ended in 2015. It's the role that would put her on the map for a whole new generation, and it would have been a huge mistake not to take it. I don't know how much advance notice the Party Down folks had about her departure, because the way they write her off (having her run away with a member of Ricky Sargulesh's crime family from last episode) wasn't quite implied by the way that episode ended.
Losing Constance, who lived up to her name as one of the most consistent and appealing characters in the series, should have been a death blow to Party Down. OK, it technically kind of was, because the series collapsed in season 2 after Adam Scott's Parks and Recreation gig became the second part of the one-two punch that would bring the show to its knees. However, the show didn't experience an immediate dip in quality, because somehow the casting department pulled a Hail Mary and brought in a brand new performer to fill in as Constance's roommate Bobbi St. Brown: one Jennifer Coolidge.
Coolidge would only end up stopping by for the two final episodes of Party Down season 1, but you would be hard-pressed to find a funnier two-episode appearance in television history. She is a little hampered by the way this particular episode tries to retrofit her into Constance's backstory, but once the script relaxes and lets her work her bizarre comic alchemy, she instantly delivers some of the most memorable line readings in... you know what? Let's just say of all time, why the hell not? Just one example: Anybody probably could have delivered the line "This is where you tell Ron to shove it up his big asshole, cuz you got to go look at a mug," and extracted a chuckle from the audience, but when Coolidge puts her spin on it, it becomes transcendent. In her hands, mere words become sledgehammers that crumble your funny bone into powder.
I suppose there are other things in this episode beside Coolidge, like a plot and characters. This is a Ron-centric episode as he attempts to keep the wheels on his operation in order to impress the folks at his 20th high school reunion, which Party Down is catering. He also clearly wants to woo the type A class president Melinda Weintraub (Molly Parker) and remind everyone that he's no longer the drunken idiot he was in high school, a desire that is not aided by the arrival of Don (Joe Lo Truglio), his former party buddy and current layabout who still lives with his parents.
His appearance is also the catalyst for the other main plotline, in which Casey attempts to convince Henry not to leave Party Down and go back to living with his parents, without becoming vulnerable enough to admit that she would miss him. With such a tight, clearly laid out pair of plots, this episode doesn't provide as many opportunities for the cast to pinball into one another as the very best episodes do. However, with the exception of Roman and Kyle, who definitely fall to the sidelines, everybody is given a whole hell of a lot to do.
This is where the chain of humiliation that has been this season really starts to get to Ron, and the episode knows exactly when to take a breath and let him wallow in it, providing an emotional pathos for the character that we've never really gotten before. In true penultimate episode fashion, the arc of the season for Casey and Henry also comes to a head, but for once it does this without sacrificing comedy. Lizzy Caplan's droll deliveries of witty barbs serve to highlight the way she uses sarcasm to protect herself from any deeper feelings, but they're still hilarious and plentiful.
All in all, this is an episode that is a little formless (possibly because of some quick touch-up work following Lynch's departure) but still a sterling example of everything that makes the series such a distinct pleasure to watch.
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 15, 2009
Written by Russell Smith
Directed by Fred Savage
Two episodes before its season 1 finale, Party Down was rocked by a major upset. Jane Lynch got a gig on a little Ryan Murphy show called Glee, in which she would play the vicious cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester on 121 episodes until the series ended in 2015. It's the role that would put her on the map for a whole new generation, and it would have been a huge mistake not to take it. I don't know how much advance notice the Party Down folks had about her departure, because the way they write her off (having her run away with a member of Ricky Sargulesh's crime family from last episode) wasn't quite implied by the way that episode ended.
Losing Constance, who lived up to her name as one of the most consistent and appealing characters in the series, should have been a death blow to Party Down. OK, it technically kind of was, because the series collapsed in season 2 after Adam Scott's Parks and Recreation gig became the second part of the one-two punch that would bring the show to its knees. However, the show didn't experience an immediate dip in quality, because somehow the casting department pulled a Hail Mary and brought in a brand new performer to fill in as Constance's roommate Bobbi St. Brown: one Jennifer Coolidge.
Coolidge would only end up stopping by for the two final episodes of Party Down season 1, but you would be hard-pressed to find a funnier two-episode appearance in television history. She is a little hampered by the way this particular episode tries to retrofit her into Constance's backstory, but once the script relaxes and lets her work her bizarre comic alchemy, she instantly delivers some of the most memorable line readings in... you know what? Let's just say of all time, why the hell not? Just one example: Anybody probably could have delivered the line "This is where you tell Ron to shove it up his big asshole, cuz you got to go look at a mug," and extracted a chuckle from the audience, but when Coolidge puts her spin on it, it becomes transcendent. In her hands, mere words become sledgehammers that crumble your funny bone into powder.
I suppose there are other things in this episode beside Coolidge, like a plot and characters. This is a Ron-centric episode as he attempts to keep the wheels on his operation in order to impress the folks at his 20th high school reunion, which Party Down is catering. He also clearly wants to woo the type A class president Melinda Weintraub (Molly Parker) and remind everyone that he's no longer the drunken idiot he was in high school, a desire that is not aided by the arrival of Don (Joe Lo Truglio), his former party buddy and current layabout who still lives with his parents.
His appearance is also the catalyst for the other main plotline, in which Casey attempts to convince Henry not to leave Party Down and go back to living with his parents, without becoming vulnerable enough to admit that she would miss him. With such a tight, clearly laid out pair of plots, this episode doesn't provide as many opportunities for the cast to pinball into one another as the very best episodes do. However, with the exception of Roman and Kyle, who definitely fall to the sidelines, everybody is given a whole hell of a lot to do.
This is where the chain of humiliation that has been this season really starts to get to Ron, and the episode knows exactly when to take a breath and let him wallow in it, providing an emotional pathos for the character that we've never really gotten before. In true penultimate episode fashion, the arc of the season for Casey and Henry also comes to a head, but for once it does this without sacrificing comedy. Lizzy Caplan's droll deliveries of witty barbs serve to highlight the way she uses sarcasm to protect herself from any deeper feelings, but they're still hilarious and plentiful.
All in all, this is an episode that is a little formless (possibly because of some quick touch-up work following Lynch's departure) but still a sterling example of everything that makes the series such a distinct pleasure to watch.
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.
Categories: television
