When it comes to dark comedies, it doesn't get much darker than Search Party. Because unlike this homemade hat from the husband's last birthday, it's no balloons and cake walk. It's more creepy clown car. The kind that kills people.
Search Party first stepped out in 2016 on TBS. Then in 2020, it moved on to the cool kids of HBO Max. Which tracks. Not just because HBO is hipper, but because it's a more fittingly dysfunctional home for a show about a self-destructive anti-hero. In this case, that hero -- or rather, heroine -- is Dory Sief (Alia Shawkat), a twentysomething New Yorker stuck in the molasses of millennial malaise. Half-heartedly working as a personal assistant for bored socialite Gail (Christine Taylor), she's going through the motions of life with her equally navel-gazing boyfriend Drew (John Reynolds) and best buds Portia (Meredith Hagner) and Elliot (John Early). So when she finds out that their mutual college acquaintance Chantal Witherbottom (Clare McNulty) is missing, she makes it her mission to find her. What begins as a diversion spirals into obsession, and as I watched, I couldn't help but (sort of snarkily) think: How far would you go for a friend (er, acquaintance)? How well do you know your friends? And, finally, that eternal head-scratcher: How well do you know yourself?
As Dory, Drew, Elliot, and Portia become more deeply entrenched in what began as the Chantal mystery, their friendship -- and sanity -- are tested. Just when you think the plot can't get any more twisted, it contorts itself into a whole new pretzel.
Search Party reveals secrets of the human heart and mind, taking us on a psychological roller coaster that's made marginally easier to ride because it's in a theme park swathed in style and satire. Danger lurks around every corner -- but it's funny! Mind control runs amuck -- but check out that faux fur capelet! It's this tempering of very scary stuff that makes the show not only palatable but, to me, fascinating. Because even as Search Party tongue-in-cheekily mocks youth and privilege, it shows just how much it means to be seen.
So, if you're looking for something weird to watch and don't mind hanging out in the shadows, then your search is over.
Search Party returns to HBO Max in January for what promises to be a superbly strange final season.