In a great deal of media ― especially sitcoms ― characters succeed, they get what they want, their dreams come true, and that’s where we leave them. We rest easy believing they lived happy and fulfilling lives in the worlds created for them. Party Down is no such show. The series forces its characters and the audience to confront failure, to sit in it and stew. Success stories that end with dreams coming to fruition are comforting to the audience. Party Down knows that these hopes can be quickly dashed and spends the entirety of its two-season run pointing it out to you.
Henry Pollard (Adam Scott) gets a role in a commercial that ends up ruining his career. He can’t escape the reputation it gave him: the guy in the beer commercials who says, “Are we having fun yet?” This is how he ends up working for Party Down, a catering service in LA. The entire series is post-failure, post-Henry crashing and burning and giving up. All of the characters, in fact, are working at Party Down as a placeholder for what they really want to do: work in Hollywood. They are jaded and angry that they still have to work a job they hate while practically begging to be hired in Hollywood. The comedy comes from the characters not caring. When you don’t care much about your job and feel you can’t really get fired for your actions, you do whatever you want. This, in Party Down’s case, often means characters being on various drugs, having sex, and practicing lines for their acting jobs, all while on the job.
Party Down straddles the line between absurdly funny and heart-wrenchingly honest, and it does it with ease. The audience is introduced to Henry as he begins his downward spiral, accepting (and outright saying) that his career is over and Party Down is what he’s doing with his life now. He is faced with constant reminders of his failure throughout the show’s duration. People recognize him from the commercials and beg him to repeat his catchphrase. Every time, you can see how it hurts him to do this; he feels like he is reliving the end of his acting career over and over again. No one means any harm by it, but that makes it even more real: our own failures are monumental to us, but they are only slightly visible to other people. Others think about our failure in fleeting moments then move on with their day. We agonize over it, picking at the scab before it can heal. We take these things to heart. On a semi-regular basis, Henry refers to himself as a “fuck-up,” saying it with a quiet acceptance. He almost uses this as a cop-out: he’s a fuck-up, so he doesn’t have to try anymore.
The only character who cares about the job is the boss, Ron (Ken Marino), whose overzealous attitude feels alien amongst the nihilism of the other characters. Later on in the series, Ron falls into a state of misery due to not getting the job he wants. Ron usually takes failure in stride, but he eventually gets worn down. He even starts drinking again, which he had stopped doing years earlier because it had caused problems for him. Henry has to console him as he sits drunk in the back of the company van in a scene that is indicative of the larger themes of the show. Henry tells Ron he shouldn’t give up, consoling him so that he can get back to work and they all won’t get fired, and Ron says, “You gave up, Henry.” Henry sighs, explaining that that is why Ron shouldn’t give up. Ron points out that Henry doesn’t care about anything, almost as if Ron is envious of him. Henry explains he has nothing to be envious of: “I have no life, and I’m earning minimum wage in the foodservice industry.” Ron keeps crying, and Henry snaps, shouting that they are going to make it work any way that they can. Going from funny to heartbreaking in an instant, Ron says, “Can you look me in the eye and promise me that it all means something? And that my whole bullshit life―it’s just a bad start to an incredible Cinderella story? Can you promise me that?” Henry can’t. As much as he wants to, and wishes it could be true, he can’t make that promise. No one can.
There are actually two separate scenes where Henry is confronted like this, one with Ron and one with Casey (Lizzy Caplan). Casey is one of Henry’s coworkers whom he dates on and off throughout the show’s run. Despite Ron’s despair, his scene still has an air of levity, while Casey’s doesn’t. In the series finale, Casey learns that she has been cut from a movie she thought was going to be her big break. As Henry tries to reassure her, she points out to him, “If you’re not crazy enough to believe it for you, then how can you believe it for me?” Henry is left speechless. The series ends with Henry going into an audition, stirred by Casey’s words. For a show that only lasted two seasons before being canceled, the ending is pretty spectacular. Henry realizes he has been reassuring himself that it was over, that he didn’t have to try anymore. While the thought was comforting for him, he knew deep down that he wasn’t happier or better off for giving up on his dream. He can act like he is, pretend that a life without trying is enough, but he is unable to continue that act. He got away with telling himself that lie, but he realized he can’t tell that lie to those he cares about.
Party Down had a profound effect on me, both artistically and personally. I’m obsessed with the possibility of not achieving my dreams. It’s not so much the prospect of failing in front of other people (although that is embarrassing), it’s the fact that I don’t know what I’d do with myself. The loss of direction would make me uncomfortable; I wouldn’t be able to do anything. The characters in Party Down all seem to be in this situation. Some, like Casey, are stuck and trying to move despite it being increasingly difficult every time they try again. Others, like Henry, have given up completely. That was something I hadn’t seen much of before on television: the unflinching gaze at people not being able to achieve their dreams and accepting that. The characters have to make a conscious decision to keep trying, no matter how much it feels like their work is futile. Party Down illustrates that it doesn’t matter if you fail; it matters what you do after you fail.
