Search Party: Little-known TV series to binge this weekend

If this clever and compulsive TV show flew past you before, we don’t blame you. But don’t be surprised if you gorge 12 hours of it this weekend.

Since the little-known Search Party first premiered in late-2016, the fizzy and satirical comedy-drama has morphed into an entirely different kind of show.

Anyone who predicted a mystery series fuelled by four self-absorbed twenty-somethings out to find a missing former classmate would become this dark, occasionally paranoid thriller must have had a direct line to the writer’s room.

And it’s absolutely a credit to those writers that Search Party has managed to tonally shift with such ease – and remain, in its third season, a compulsive series that begs to be binged.

If you’re not familiar with Search Party – the first two seasons were available on SBS On Demand for a spell in 2017 – here’s a quick, spoiler-free rundown (a review of season three follows further down).

Search Party begins as a sunny mystery comedy, led by Alia Shawkat’s ( Arrested Development) Dory, a university graduate without any direction.

When she spies a missing person poster with the face of a former uni mate, Chantal, she makes it her mission to find her, convinced that Chantal is in peril and that Dory is the one to save her.

When Search Party first started it was a very different kind of show.

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She recruits her boyfriend Drew (John Reynolds) and friends Portia (Meredith Hagner) and Elliott (John Early), despite their protestation and obvious disinterest.

Dory is originally presented as symbolic of so many young people in their 20s — unmoored by the unfulfilled promise of those early post-school years and looking for purpose. The quest to find Chantal gives her that purpose, but Dory’s interest in the case quickly shifts from idle hands to next-level obsession.

And really, those should have been the early signs of something more uncontrollable and menacing in Dory’s personality, something which the series plays with in season two and which it really leans into in the new, third season.

Much of the show’s charm comes from the sharp and quick-witted writing of the supporting characters and the millennial milieu of young privileged New Yorkers, which helps to offset Dory’s more disturbing aspects.

John Reynolds as the generally well-meaning Drew

RELATED: Search Party season one review

RELATED: Search Party season two interview with Meredith Hagner

Elliott and Portia, in particular, are emblematic of a certain stereotype about millennials as being clueless, entitled and completely self-everything. But Search Party, created by young filmmakers Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rodgers with the more experienced Michael Showalter, doesn’t just condemn a whole generation.

The worst parts of Elliot and Portia are always contextualised, an explanation for why they are the way they are. Yes, they’re usually to blame, but they’re not the only ones. Their most ludicrous moments are a reflection on all of us.

But it’s also sometimes so ridiculous that you feel removed from it enough to laugh your arse off, sometimes with them but often at them – and that subset of New York cool kids culture is very specific.

A femme fatale

SPOILERS FOLLOW FOR SEASONS ONE AND TWO

It’s been almost three years between the second and third seasons, long delayed in part because of a network change in the US from TBS to HBO Max (these new episodes were filmed in 2018).

But the strength and stickiness of Search Party makes it feel as if it’s barely been off-air.

Where the second season really exploited Dory’s paranoia about being caught for the killing of private eye Keith (Ron Livingston), dialling up the Brian De Palma-ness of it all, the third season settles somewhere between the breezy first season and the anxiety of the second.

The writers have said they were inspired by courtroom dramas such as those adapted from John Grisham novels.

The season premiere picks up moments after Dory is arrested for Keith’s death with most of the season concerned with the media circus from her new-found notoriety – the press dubs her “Gory Dory”, and the story of two privileged millennials on trial for murder is too irresistible.

Elliott and Portia are swept up in the scandal, but their paths diverge – as usual, with great comedic effect.

A new character is introduced in Dory’s 30-year-old inexperienced but rich and savvy lawyer Cassidy (Shalita Grant), a vibrant personality who gives the most unexpectedly physical but persuasive opening statement to the jury.

Elliott and Portia making yet another bad decision

Dory’s character evolution is fascinating (and unsettling) to chart, now to this person whose jeopardy was created initially by circumstance but has long become one built on choices, lies and some shockingly bad instincts.

Shawkat is genuinely scary at times.

All four characters tend to make the worst decision at every given opportunity – bad for them, great fun for us. Search Party’s acid-laced humour relies on that tension from Dory, Drew, Elliott and Portia choosing the wrong path.

There are some subplots which are too quickly dropped, and Brandon Micheal Hall’s Julian is only a fleeting presence.

But these new episodes are still incredibly pacy and more-ish – each episode’s 22 minutes fly by too quickly and before you know it, you’re almost done.

Thankfully, season four has already been filmed and, with any luck, we won’t have to wait another three years to see it.

Search Party seasons one to three is available to stream on Stan

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