By the time the cult sitcom “Party Down” began airing on Starz in 2009, after a six-year search for a network home, it had become a Great Recession comedy. Set at a different gathering or celebration each week, the show followed Los Angeles’s worst catering crew—a ragbag of struggling actors, writers, and comedians glued to their flip phones, who approach basic hospitality like an exotic custom. Naturally, their clients are even less sympathetic. In the second episode of the series, the servers attend to a group of college Republicans. With then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger playing the part of Godot, the workers are forced to make chitchat with the conservatives while they wait for the guest of honor to arrive. Henry (Adam Scott), a bartender whose brief stint as the star of a ubiquitous beer commercial effectively killed his former acting career, rolls his eyes at the overconfident twerps preaching hard work and perseverance. But the students find an acolyte in Henry’s dopey boss, Ron (Ken Marino), who dreams not of fame or fortune but of rise-and-grinding his way to managing a franchise of a soup-centric chain restaurant. With the exception of Henry, each member of the Party Down waitstaff is hopeful (or delusional) enough to think that meritocracy will work out in their favor. But only Ron is naïve enough to believe in capitalism.
This story is from the March 06, 2023 edition of The New Yorker.
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This story is from the March 06, 2023 edition of The New Yorker.
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NO WAY BACK
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