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First Airdate: April 3, 2009
Written by John Enbom
Directed by Bryan Gordon
Three episodes deep into Party Down season 1, maybe it was about time to show audiences what a resolutely average episode of the series looked like? A mediocre episode of Party Down is still an episode of Party Down, so there is only so far it can sink. However, after the sharp farce of the previous episode that saw the theme, the setting, and the plot of the episode firing on all cylinders to deliver a hilarious, holistic gem, it’s hard not to be a little disappointed by the follow-up.
“Pepper McMasters Singles Seminar” doesn’t do itself any favors by essentially being a reversal of the previous episode’s setting. Whereas S1E2 saw the catering crew clash against a group of young people with bright futures, S1E3 throws them into a single seniors mixer, which shows them a not-so-bright future and consider what trajectory they are currently on. At least, it does this in theory. The script (John Enbom’s first time writing without any of his co-creators) is far less coherent, and struggles to find enough for each character to do. The episode makes feints toward the theme I just mentioned, but its eyes are bigger than its stomach and it also tries to tackle the characters’ relationships with sex and substances, which weighs down the whole affair something fierce.
Roman and Kyle have yet to become established enough to become reliable one-note presences quite yet, and they are shunted off to the side together in a hermetically sealed plotline that is mildly funny (Kyle is trying to get revenge on Roman’s prank in episode 1 by slipping him a boner pill), or at least tricks you into thinking it is with a solid sight gag payoff. However, they fail to meaningfully interact with any of the other plotlines, which is something these still-blossoming characters desperately need to not be the case. Usually every character gets at least one standout line, and these characters have zilch this time around.
Luckily, Ron gets not only a standout line, but a standout scene, as he desperately tries to make heads or tails of an emergency situation involving guest star Ed Begley Jr. However, if I had to pick one particular bit of dialogue, I’d like to point everyone to Ken Marino’s impeccable skill in delivering the boilerplate line “What’s happening?” so well that he spins it into comic gold, though his description of CPR as “smushing” the heart is a close second. However, for the rest of the time before that climactic sequence, Ron flails around the rest of the episode like a wet noodle, trying and failing to find any scene he can stick to.
The only person to get through this episode completely unscathed is Jane Lynch, who manages the Herculean feat of giving her best Constance performance yet in a trio of impressive performances. As the oldest character in the cast, Constance has the most to reckon with when faced with a room full of depressing seniors, especially when one of the said depressing seniors turns out to be a former flame. Lynch nails the tightrope act of blending internal struggle and effervescent comedy, bravely staring Constance’s pathetic nature in the face and making a meal of every moment she’s onscreen. She also elevates “on company pond” recurring gag from a weird throwaway bit into the best moment of the episode. This is an episode without a lot of contenders for best moment, but it’s worth praising nonetheless.
Lynch even nearly manages to land the horrendous “and twins!” reference, which is one of two moments that date this episode something fierce. I actually get a kick out of material being dated, because that makes things into a time capsule, so I don’t necessarily view it as a liability. But the humor has to work, and Henry and Casey’s scene deciphering her soon-to-be-ex-husband’s “text speak” on her flip phone is painfully unfunny, as well as actively undermining the character drama at the core of their scenes.
Both Henry and Casey are given a lot of character ground to cover here, as this episode leads up to their first time hooking up. This imprisons them in the land of drama so neither of them get very much funny business to perform, though Scott does nail a perfectly subtle moment of physical comedy when he attempts to pass a joint back to Constance and Begley Jr.’s character Bruce and is completely ignored.
Unfortunately, the episode’s way of pushing the lovebirds past their horniness breaking point was to have both of them use substances (Henry smokes pot and Casey gets drunk on vodka), and weed plotlines in sitcoms – even tremendously funny sitcoms – tend to be a drag, because sitcoms already exist in a universe of heightened human behavior. Other than that small moment of physical performance I already mentioned, there’s not one thing that’s funny about the drug use in the excruciatingly long “smoking in the boys’ room” scene. The only scripted gags that land are 1) performed by Jane Lynch (obviously), and 2) ones that could have been delivered just as easily by a sober character.
There are still a lot of fun moments in this episode, but they never cohere into a whole that feels particularly worth it. Remember, this is only a “bad” episode as compared to other episodes of this very show, so it’s still better than most of what you’d find on network television in any given primetime sitcom block. But it’s a big stumble for a show so young, and positioned at an incredibly inopportune moment where they really should be building steam.
Rating: B-
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.