Once in a while, you get tired of the commercials and social media suggested posts and give in to a thing you’ve been getting bombarded over. That’s actually the whole point of online target sales, but occasionally, they get it right. Which is what happened to me and TBS’s little sleeper, soon to be a cult hit: Search Party. 
I watch a LOT of TV. Some may say an unhealthy amount, but I kept getting commercials thrown at me for Search Party while just watching re-runs of South Park on Comedy Central. And then I kept seeing these cute social video posts and gifs of this stupid ass show and eventually gave in.
Right before the Season 2 premiere, I said to myself: “Fine, fuck it. You keep saying I can stream the whole damn show on TBS without commercials, then fine, I’ll watch an episode of your damn show before season 2 comes out where apparently you’re all covering up a murder.” By the by, murder is totally how they even piqued my interest. Last year if I would have seen a commercial about these self-entitled millennials looking for a missing millennial who is somehow even more self-absorbed I would have said “Hey, no thanks, there is enough media out there that tells me I’m a selfish ass hole, I don’t need a tv show to make fun of me for something I’m not.” But ohhhh, they covering up a murder? This… is much more me.
So I took a chance, I decided to stream the show over a weekend (the episodes are only 24 minutes long without commercials and one season is only 10 episodes, I was done in like a day). I’ll admit, I was skeptical. I didn’t read any reviews online, but I knew what Search Party was supposed to be. Another show about a couple of millennium New Yorkers who don’t know how real life works and that we’re all just a sad sap group of people who can’t find happiness in ordinary things and sip all day on our avocado toast that is keeping us from getting a mortgage in one of the most expensive cities in the land.
But it’s not. Well. It is, but it isn’t. It’s this parody of itself and is completely aware of the not-self absorbed millennium watching the show and saying hey, isn’t it funny how baby boomers all think we’re like this, but then we show them that we aren’t by actually showing us like this? It’s this weird little mind fuck of a show. That can’t be explained in just one review, but god I hope you read this and decide to watch it. Because it’s so much more than just a little show that takes place in New York. Would I love to star in an adoption of the EXACT same show but takes place in a more rural area (like Ohio) or a different type of city than NY? (*cough* could you imagine Portia being a Denver stoner looking to help in the city and how pot taxes do this and this and this, instead of being a stage actor? Hello sign me up).
Yes the city is tired, and yes the archetypes are the worst, and you can not relate to any of these TERRIBLE characters (not as in poorly written, as in written so damn well, you know their every flaw), but it sucks you in. And hey watching season one, okay it blew past and you eventually begin to care about where the story goes, not the characters; but season two. Holy shit. You care about these shitty beings, you want to know how or if they will be able to survive their giant cover-up about murdering an innocent dude, in a pretty innocent matter. What will happen to them? And then you get to meet these other terrible characters who are just trying to do their job, but you know what… you know what the true motif of Search Party is? It is that EVERYONE SUCKS. Everybody is out for themselves, and nobody is a good person. And you know what else? They deliver that message in the best, funniest, self-entitled way. God damn.
Anyways, the story is Grade A, the scenery is used and trite, the characters are terrible people, but homages throughout to other great mystery-murder directors/writers like Hitchcock, Agatha Christie, and even fucking Edgar Allen Poe make this TV series worth it for even the most stuck up critics. Go. Watch. Search Party.
SLEEPER HIT RATING SEASON 2: 4 out of 5 attentive eyes
SLEEPER HIT RATING SEASON 1: 2 out of 5 attentive eyes
