Review: Party Dowm, "Jack Botty's (Delayed Post-Pandemic) Surprise Party" | Season 3, Episode 2
Some unsurprising returns to the team shape the revival's second episode (and no, that's not a typo)
The episodic dynamic of Party Down means that there’s always some necessary exposition up front—even in previous seasons, character dynamics would shift between episodes, and yet the only space we’d be able to see them is in the “workplace of the week.” And so while we got a brief glimpse in the mid-credits scene last week of how the pandemic had treated Ron as Party Down catering’s new owner, “Jack Botty’s (Delayed Post-Pandemic) Surprise Party” has a lot of catching up to do with the rest of the team.
This starts immediately with Henry, of course, who—as the key art spoiled—is back moonlighting with Party Down after his divorce. And while we never met his wife, and the tension we heard over the phone wasn’t marriage-ending in its own right, this did seem like a pretty predictable development once the premiere went out of its way to create some sparks with Jennifer Garner’s Evie, and once they did the necessary setup for this party to be her surprise party for boyfriend Jack Botty. The show never tried to invest us in Henry’s new life, which sort of made it inevitable that he would slide back into his old one, because there wouldn’t be a show with him at the center if he didn’t.