Search Party: Final Season
January 10, 2022 5:21 PM - Season 5 (Full Season) - Subscribe

Dory and the gang seek enlightenment, funded by a Tech Dude played by Jeff Goldblum. As expected, things go haywire. In this final season they don't even try to make it believable, instead opting for metaphor, simile, parable, or something symbolic. Still not sure. That may have been the point.

Clever or too clever by half. I give them credit for taking the risk.
posted by Stanczyk (9 comments total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
i binged the whole thing in 2 days. i didn't think it possible, but this final season is so, utterly BONKERS it makes the previous ones seem... out-bonkered, hahaha.
loved it.
posted by lapolla at 6:22 AM on January 11, 2022 [6 favorites]


Goddamn they stuck the landing.

What a fun, fun, fun way to go out.
posted by rorgy at 6:04 PM on January 11, 2022 [3 favorites]


I don’t know if this is the case, but it seems like the creators thought they’d finished the show on a high point last season; and then were forced to make a new season after that, so they went for broke on a batshit crazy season about being alive when you shouldn’t be, but in the end it all worked out very well. This is not the ending I would have envisioned for the show, but I’m down.

One thing that makes this show work so well is that the casting department ensures every single person, from the main cast to the special guests to the tertiary cast to the extras who have 0-3 lines, are all comic geniuses.
posted by ejs at 10:36 PM on January 11, 2022 [3 favorites]


They really packed in so much great stuff into the final season. I was trying to explain to my wife and son just how crazy it all got in the end. In no particular order:
1. The (almost) completely pointless side-quest with the Steven King IT society." Aw, man, do I HAVE to go to Maine?" "JUST tell me her last name!". Zero percent interest in any of that Gen-X bullshit.
2. All the callbacks with old friends, even the old apartment set gets a callback. I barked out loud when Griffin Newman showed up for like 3 seconds as Gavin, Chantal's ex.
3. Jeff Goldblum's outfits were incredible. I'm not a fashion guy by any means, but there were some seriously way, way over the top suits that still looked amazing. Maybe you can only pull those off if you're Jeff Goldblum, though.
4. Probably my favorite evil disturbed child plot ever. The super creepy photos of the other kids for adoption in John Waters' office...the "no fuss" return policy...the "I have something to show you father" sequence. So great.
5. Chantal's absolute certain CONVICTION that, no, SHE's the one who ended the world.
6. That final shot.

Very happy that they released this all at once. I found it way more fun to binge through the whole thing in a couple of days.
posted by ssmith at 9:18 PM on January 12, 2022 [4 favorites]


Yeah, I loved it. I'm always in for a creative team just going for it and throwing whatever they want at the wall. ssmith pretty much covered the same high points as I did; the Jesper Club was definitely my absolute high point of the season as well -- I was genuinely thinking they might be going for some sort of ancient supernatural evil thing, and then Drew just fucked right off out of Maine and it was never heard from again. Plus I really like the idea of Illeana Douglas, Scott Adsit, Michael Ian Black and Lou Diamond Philips fighting ancient supernatural evil.

Other high points, not covered above: Aparna Nancherla! Aparna Nancherla! Aparna Nancherla!

Liquorice Montague, and the death of Liquorice Montague.

John Waters in the most-John-Waters role that ever John Watersed.

Search Party was overall great in general. Among my friends I'm the only one who watched it, and I can't quite convince anyone else to stick it out -- we're mostly GenX, and I think the cringe-comedy-at-self-absorbed-Millennials vibe is just too high a hill to climb for most of my peers. But I really liked it. I'm looking forward to whatever Bliss/Rogers/Showalter get up to next.
posted by Shepherd at 2:10 AM on January 17, 2022 [2 favorites]


This was incredible. I loved every part of this so much.

My favorites:
- I love it when a show that is trying to be grounded in the real world will also feel free to explore magical realism and really goes for it. I Love it.
-when John Early was like "There's no other way off this ISLAND" and did that amazing frustration dance, as someone raised on Long Island I guess I felt that in my soul.
-I also enjoyed the unexpectedly poignant moment when he was like "I'm looking at my beautiful life partner!" I hope we get to see him again. The whole cast was wonderful.
- at the end when they were like "This is about me!" it back around to the original conflict of the first season, which was about was Dory obsessing about Chantal for her own good or for Chantal's.
-the nonstop cavalcade of comedy all stars
-how the last shot at the end lined up with the first shot of the first season with Dory looking at Chantal's poster. I went back & watched the first episode right after the last one & I liked how that lined up. At first I thought it meant that the significance was that Dory hasn't really changed or learned anything after all of this. But when I watched the first episode it made me think about it differently. For one thing I didn't realize back in 2016 that Dory shares certain neurotype characteristics with me that would mean her making a face that would mean what I wanted it to mean would be really out of step with her character.

Another thing the first episode reminded me of was that her original motivation was that she was having a hard time trying to figure out what she could do that would meaningfully help people - which is why her time as a guru felt so satisfying & intoxicating, and eventually blinding. I really liked how they connected all of this at the end, I think it would have been a different & less good story otherwise.

A question that I have is, do you guys think people still talk like this? Or is this era over basically? It made me feel a little wistful for some reason even though I have never talked like this or knew anyone who did it just felt so familiar.

Also by the way in case this helps anyone, I watched season 5 ep 1 & 2 and decided it was too upsetting for me so I skipped it. So before starting season 6 I just watched the last episode of 5. You get the jist of what happens without having to actually sit through it.
posted by bleep at 2:06 PM on January 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


I enjoy Search Party, but do consistently find it very upsetting. To me, the consistent message of the show has been that it really matters that the protagonists are bad people. I'm used to seeing silly, shallow characters dismissed in media as comic relief whose mistakes don't have important consequences (which is reassuring and false). To put it more succinctly, this show feels like it's about global warming and fascism in the most uncomfortable way.
posted by prefpara at 7:08 AM on February 1, 2022 [4 favorites]


Dory's got a lot of baggage, but I totally buy Alia Shawkat as an enlightened master with actual cosmic wisdom.
posted by whuppy at 9:55 AM on February 13, 2022


This whole show was a wild ride and I loved every turn.
I was unsure about Dory as guru and found her lot less compelling than the preceding seasons when Dory wasn’t sure of who she was, but the bonkers payoff was well worth it.

What a delight to pick any actor, no matter how small a part they play, and revel in their own comedic output.

I also loved the callback to my favorite scene of the whole series, one of Dory’s acolytes wearing a t-shirt with the word: PANCAKE
posted by inkytea at 7:21 PM on February 10, 2023


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