Loaded up with famous faces before they were famous – as well as half the cast of Veronica Mars – the cult classic Party Down is the ultimate underdog story. Part raunchy sitcom and part existential drama, it’s aged remarkably well thanks to smart writing and weary, lived-in performances. The Starz series is making a comeback from premature cancelation, so it’s time to catch up on where we left Hollywood’s worst catering team.
We’re first introduced to Ron Donald (or Ronald Donald), played with sweaty mania by Ken Marino, as he’s explaining the guaranteed quality of service to a suburban mom, this first of many audiences who couldn’t care less. Ron would seem to be the very portrait of a model employee, though he does manage to slip in a note about his dream to one day leave it all behind and manage his own Soup R’ Crackers franchise. Rounding out the team, we have Roman DeBeers (Martin Starr), a misanthropic (more specifically misogynist) sci-fi writer, and Kyle Bradway, the character that Ryan Hansen was born to play – a handsome, absentminded actor. Constance Carmell (Jane Lynch) is an ever-smiling former actress with decades’ worth of bizarre stories and a penchant for oversharing. Everyone wears a crisp white shirt and a pink bowtie.
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Adam Scott Reconciles his Comedic and Dramatic Sides in 'Party Down'
That is, until the arrival of Henry Pollard (Adam Scott), who drives a busted car and gives his best Adam Scott face when he realizes he’s wearing the uniform of yesteryear. He’d worked with Ron at Party Down before leaving to pursue his dream of acting, which seemed to be going places after one particularly promising job. Ron attempts to scold Henry for the mishap, but his authority as team leader is severely undercut by his own inattention, awkwardness, and proclivity for pratfalls. Finally, Casey Klein (Lizzy Caplan) shows up, stressed out and on the phone, late because of an improv class. She’s a comedian trying to be a comedian.
The job of this catering team is to prepare hors d'oeuvres and serve them at whichever social event, whether an auction or an awards show, and this leaves tremendous latitude for dealing with the psychological damage of doing that job: sneaking drinks, scoring drugs, and of course, hooking up in the bathroom. Henry and Casey would seem to be our resident will they/won’t they, hitting it off right away and kept apart by Casey’s marriage to an overbearing husband.
At this first of Henry’s new gigs, the party guests slowly recognize him. He’s the guy. From the beer commercial! You know, the one where he says, “Are we having fun yet?!” What’s this iconic actor doing serving drinks at a house party? Henry’s answer is succinct: “Well, you remember me from anything else?” He quits, and stands as a cautionary tale to the rest – however unheeded.
Inevitable Romance Complicates Career Ambition in 'Party Down'
It’s only by Episode 3 that Casey tells Henry she’s getting a divorce, and they start making out immediately. In the meantime, Ron remains out of the loop, occupied by his attempt to get the owner of Party Down, Alan Duk (a mellow Ken Jeong), to invest in a Soup R’ Crackers. He flags him down at an awards show for pornography, where he manages to deliver his business presentation, but is also smashed in the dick by an actress (Stormy Daniels).
Sometimes it’s the porn awards, sometimes it’s the sweet sixteen of a big producer’s daughter. Enter Leonard Stiltskin (J. K. Simmons), in an episode also featuring Joey Lauren Adams and Kevin Hart. Stiltskin is the kind of abusive executive we always imagined to be an exaggeration, as he yells on the phone about fucking a guy’s dog – to death – and he’s one of many illustrations of the impossibility of making it in the business. How do you even get through to this guy? His latest movie, about a vampire-slaying Edgar Allen Poe, stars an old friend of Henry’s, who tries to convince Stiltskin to cast Henry as “young Lincoln.” No takers.
Perhaps Party Down’s strangest catering gig is a party celebrating the acquittal of a gangster for murder, though it turns out that our lovable gang of third-string Hollywood failures are all well-known in Russia. Constance, in fact, is swept away by one of the gangsters, who promises to make her a star back home. In reality, Jane Lynch was cast in Glee, and traded her goofy smile for a permanent frown that made her a true star. Replacing her is none other than Jennifer Coolidge, playing an even spacier Bobbie St. Brown.
The Ever-Shifting Cast of 'Party Down' Makes for Surprise Appearances
After failing to get a job outside of catering, Henry decides to move back in with his parents, which was earlier identified as a personal rock bottom. Casey doesn’t like the idea and uses Ron’s 20th high school reunion to convince him to stay. This is an event catered by Party Down, by Ron, and it’s painful to watch him try to impress his old classmates. He’s trying to escape an alcoholic past, where he was nicknamed Bluto after the John Belushi character in Animal House. His old friend Donnie (Joe Lo Truglio) lives with his parents and paints a horrifying portrait of Henry’s future.
Instead, Henry stays on with Party Down, which soon presents a career opportunity after Ron, still messed up after his reunion Hail Mary – chugging a bottle of whiskey and throwing up – breaks down at the arrival of Valhalla Catering. A wedding double-booked, so Valhalla’s team leader, Uda Bengt (none other than Kristen Bell), takes charge and folds the Party Down team into hers for the event. Bell plays perfectly against type here, tightly wound and authoritative. As Ron relapses, Henry takes over as acting team leader, impressing both Uda and Alan Duk. Ron gets cleaned up in time for Duk to agree to go in on a Soup R' Crackers together, so Henry is promoted to team leader. Uda gives Henry her number, but he can barely process any of this, having just learned that Casey’s leaving for a six-month gig on a cruise ship.
In Season 2, Bobbie, who did a bunch of mushrooms at the wedding, has been replaced by Lydia Dunfree (Megan Mullally). Henry is now team leader, and he’s been dating Uda for a few months. Just about six. Casey returns to this new, awkward dynamic, as does Ron, sans bowtie. He’s now driving a sports car and dating a very young woman (his “lady friend”), and describes Soup R' Crackers ominously as a “great experience.” Turns out, the company went bankrupt, so Henry hires him back, but not as team leader.
New Henry, Same 'Party Down'
On the job, Casey gets constant phone calls about a potential part in a Judd Apatow movie. The unprofessionalism is a bother to the partygoers, prompting Henry to pull the boss card. He tells her that while they used to have fun together because they never paid him enough to give a shit, they kind of do now. Ron isn’t having that, as Henry never took him seriously as team leader, but his revenge proves predictably futile. It involved pit stains.
For Casey, auditioning is a terrible experience. It’s a room with a bunch of women who look and sound exactly like her, but getting even this one-scene part in the Apatow movie would change her life, especially as the parts she’s getting from her agents are drifting from “fuckable waitress” to “minivan mom.”
Lydia’s attempts to seduce every middle-aged man she meets turn out to be a form of escape. She’s her daughter’s talent manager, a hell child named Escapade (a young Kaitlyn Dever). Lydia is just as hopeless in romance as Ron, though that doesn’t make them the proper match. Ron’s experiment in that direction ends with mace. Casey, who’d just broken up with her boyfriend, makes a pass at Henry during a casual event, catering Steve Guttenberg’s birthday party. Everything gets so confused for the both of them, except that Henry’s actually a really good actor. Casey finds a DVD of an indie movie he made, and is impressed by his performance.
New Opportunities Make for Tough Choices in 'Party Down'
At a Party Down company picnic, catered by Valhalla, Uda tells Henry that the new CEO of Party Down (after Alan Duk was convicted of welfare fraud), Bolus Lugozshe (Michael Hitchcock), offered her a job at corporate. This puts a wrench in Henry’s plan to break up with her, she wants him to join her at the head office. Uda and Casey then become symbolic of diametric life paths: something stable or a roll of the dice. Ron finds that Bolus’s daughter Danielle (June Diane Raphael) is exactly like him, and they hit it off before he learns she’s engaged. Henry decides to break it off with Uda, but she beats him to it, having observed his rapport with Casey. Despite being intense and scary, she isn’t angry, and wishes him the best.
Henry finally gives up team leader to Ron so that he can goof around with Casey again, at a big Hollywood party thrown by a screenwriter who just landed a major deal. Turns out, this screenwriter (Paul Scheer) is Roman’s ex-writing partner, and he hired Party Down as revenge. As a counterattack, Roman tries to get the guy to drink pee. Not the best approach, but Roman’s actually been growing up a little – as a writer, at least. He realizes that a little bit of humanity won’t compromise a hard sci-fi film, and that’s its own kind of victory.
In what was once the series finale, Constance returns, hiring Party Down to cater her wedding to an aging mogul. The team is worried that the man is taking advantage of her, stirring age-old questions about true love. Ron is reunited with Danielle, and his objection to her wedding earns him a punch to the face by her fiancé. However, Danielle breaks it off with the guy, having fallen for Ron, who indelicately tells her that Bolus is losing ownership of Party Down in a divorce. Danielle didn’t know her parents were splitting. Roman, who accidentally pulls a Bobbie with a tenth of an ounce of high-grade marijuana, dictates a masterwork, Serpent in the Mirror, scrawled on many feet of toilet paper.
The Cast of 'Party Down' Leaves in a Good Place, for Now
Kyle goes to Henry for help with a script for a movie entitled Velour, which he doesn’t understand. It so intrigues Henry that even Casey’s flirtations can’t break his concentration reading it. She’s never seen him like this before, and even he admits it’s a relatively new feeling: interest. Later, Henry finds Casey alone and crying. Her scene in the Apatow movie was cut. He tries to tell her not to give up hope, but this is coming from the worst possible point of inspiration. What had always been a running joke is now a sad truth. She tells him, “If you’re not crazy enough to believe it for you, how are you gonna believe it for me?”
In the epilogue, we find that Ron and Danielle are dating, Kyle gives a freshly sober Roman his masterwork – which he found promising – and Henry doesn’t show up for work. Casey’s informed that he took the day off to do something. With a knowing smile, she realizes what we then see: Henry sitting in the waiting room to audition for Velour.
When Party Down returns for its six-episode revival, all the old favorites will be back, including both Jane Lynch and Megan Mullally – with one jaw-dropping omission. Lizzy Caplan couldn't return due to scheduling conflicts, but of course, what’s unfortunate for fans of Casey is probably good for the character Casey. That’s the terrible irony of a show about struggling actors. If Henry is gonna be back at Party Down, clearly something went wrong in his career, again. Did he blow the audition? Was he snubbed for an Emmy in 2022? We’ll find out on Friday, February 24.
