'Party Down' review: Back after 13 years, hilarious as ever

WHAT IT'S ABOUT This short-lived Starz comedy (2009-10) was about a Los Angeles-based party catering company, Party Down, managed by Ron Donald (West Islip native Ken Marino), whose staff members had dreams of the big time — none of those consummated. Henry Pollard (Adam Scott, "Severance") who tended bar, was almost-famous for a beer commercial where he uttered just five words ("Are we having fun yet?"). Server Roman DeBeers (Martin Starr) was an embittered scriptwriter, and Kyle Bradway (Ryan Hansen) a lightly talented actor-wannabe. In this third season, they are — surprise! — still status quo while there are two new members of the Party Down crew — Sackson (Tyrel Jackson Williams) and Lucy Dang (Zoe Chao).

By the way, there is someone from the original gang missing — Lizzy Caplan's Casey Klein. (Might a cameo be in the offing?) 

John Enbom, the veteran TV writer and producer who co-created the show, has returned for this six-episode run.

MY SAY The original "Party Down" was a truly funny, sharply drawn comedy about life in L.A., where anyone who didn't have a showbiz job was looking for a showbiz job, or at least while they were working at the only real job they actually had — Party Down. 

With this third season, pretty much the same. Ron remains the only true believer, and (in Marino) the show's true anchor. The other staffers have a "life," or at least the life they dream of outside of Party Down. But not Ron: This is his life, and within that narrow focus of limited career options and canapes-on-a-tray lies the heart of "Party Down" or at least its best running joke.

Marino remains brilliant in the role — a little pathos, a lot of physical comedy, and perfect timing. Ron still has that fervent desire to get every detail absolutely right, and never (absolutely) ever does. 

    This isn't billed as a "reboot," but as a third season where storylines from the second continue, and new ones converge. The long hiatus is almost its own punchline because other than COVID, so little has changed over the years. Still a portrait of thwarted ambition and doomed romance, world-weary Henry is currently a high school English teacher, although the old dreams are rekindled when he meets studio production exec Evie Adler (Jennifer Garner, who's flat-out terrific here). Kyle is still awaiting that one big break and Roman is (as usual) just one perfect twist away from completing his "hard sci-fi" masterpiece.

Meanwhile, the new additions fit right in. Williams' Sackson is a Tik-Tok "content generator" with a fixation on "views," while Chao's Chef Lucy Dang has grandiose visions of culinary superstardom but has to slum it here in the meantime.

Also more-or-less back is former Party Downer Constance Carmell (Jane Lynch), who is now so rich (her aging wealthy new husband expired rather suddenly) that she doesn't know the difference between a thousand bucks or a million, or much care either. Megan Mullally's Lydia Dunfree is in a couple of episodes too, as manager to her grown-up actor/daughter Escapade (Liv Hewson, “Yellowjackets”).

Speaking of cameos, the original "Party Down" once seemed to hand those out to every unemployed or underemployed actor in Hollywood — another running meta-joke — and the tradition continues. As impressive as the list from the first two seasons was, this one easily matches — Quinta Brunson, James Marsden, Dan Bakkedahl, Judy Reyes, Bobby Moynihan and Nick Offerman, to mention just a few. There's not a wasted performance among them. 

As Starz once did, it'd be easy to write off "Party Down" as just another insidery Hollywood satire with limited appeal. But what it's really about is the stuff that dreams are made of. As this third season will remind true-blue fans, that stuff can be very funny indeed. 

BOTTOM LINE Hilarious