Review: Party Down, “Kyle Bradway is Nitromancer” | Season 3, Episode 1

The revival dozens—DOZENS—of us demanded has finally arrived

Photo: Starz

There are primarily two reasons to revive—rather than reboot or remake—a television show. The first is because the show was in some way unresolved, creating built-up audience demand for a proper conclusion. The second is because there is so much general goodwill toward a given show and its characters that the idea of them returning is enough to cut through the clutter of Peak TV.

You will note that these are both business logics, because revivals are often best understood through this lens. Outside of an example like Twin Peaks, it’s hard to think of an example of a revival that actually felt like it was driven by a creative impulse rather than the increasing dependence on existing intellectual property within Hollywood.

Which brings us to Party Down. On a creative level, “Kyle Bradway is Nitromancer” actually makes a pretty comprehensive argument that there was creative justification for a revival of the short-lived Starz comedy series. The general premise of the show is a solid starting point—a group of struggling cater-waiters in Los Angeles fight against the inertia of their depressing lives to try to make something of themselves lends itself to checking back in on those characters a decade later. Who got out? Who made it big? Who’s still wearing the pink bowtie?

But the episode also goes to great lengths to have the events at the end of the second season’s finale, “Constance Carmell Wedding,” feed into the events in the present(-ish) day. Whether in Constance’s new status as a widowed patron of the arts, references to Ron’s affair with the owner’s daughter, Roman recalling his magnum opus written on toilet paper, and most centrally Karma Rocket’s accidental anti-semitism, the episode treats that finale as an unfinished sentence. We thought the finale had a period at the end, but it was actually a semi-colon, waiting for the next chapter in the story.

Which is certifiably insane, when you consider that absolutely no one watched Party Down.

Okay, that’s hyperbole: critics watched Party Down when it aired, Starz’s distribution deal with Netflix expanded its audience in the immediate aftermath of its cancellation, and certainly some number of people have stumbled onto the show in the thirteen years it’s been off the air. But at the time, it was among the lowest-rated shows tracked by Nielsen, as the premium cable network’s attempt to break into original content struggled to get anything approximating viewership. Even if you argue the show became a “cult classic,” there is absolutely no good economic argument for reuniting the show’s cast, compiling a new assortment of famous guest stars, and investing in a continuation of a story that at best hundreds of thousands of people were ever invested in.

But as one of those people, I found “Kyle Bradway is Nitromancer” to be a suitably funny and narratively compelling re-entry into this world. There’s a little too much going on plot-wise for the show’s comedy to really let loose—the best Party Down episodes are when the party spins out of control in ways that pull in all the individual character beats swirling within it, but this is actually a low-key affair, as far as parties go. Most of the people at the party probably don’t even realize any of the episode’s drama was unfolding, which means the focus is really on how each former or current member of the Party Down team is processing this period in their lives.

For me, it was hard to focus on anything other than the fact that circumstances require all of these people to be back in a pink bowtie sooner than later. The episode doesn’t rush this process—it’s obvious how Kyle getting booted from his Nitromancer role in favor of his friend who shares the same agent (Quinta Brunson) is his pathway back to Party Down, and Constance’s investment in the business is obviously a way for her to eventually suit back up. But Henry is a more interesting case, because when we meet him he’s settled into what sounds like a living: a job teaching high school English! A wife and kids! He even bought a house! In Los Angeles! And while Lydia and Constance wistfully think about what could have been if Casey wasn’t busy shooting in New York and had returned for the party, Henry’s life isn’t as pervasively sad as it was a decade earlier, even if the context means we’re naturally reading his somewhat tense calls with his wife or his chemistry with Eevie Adler (Jennifer Garner) through that lens.

There’s no resolution to his story, though. He works with new employee Saxon and it;Roman to figure out that it was Karma Rocket’s guitarist (Fran Kranz) who posted the video as revenge for Kyle quitting the band for his acting career, but other than clearly staying at the party longer than his wife expected, it’s not like this party changed his life in the way it changed Kyle’s, or even Ron’s for that matter. And as far as we know, he’s no closer to the pink bowtie than he was when the episode began, despite the fact—spoiler alert—he’s in the crew photo on the website that the URL on Ron’s truck directs to.

This is, one supposes, where the pandemic comes into play. Similar to The Other Two’s second season finale, this premiere uses COVID-19 as a stinger of sorts, disrupting Ron’s opportunity to finally own something after all these years. Whereas Henry’s life might not be as sad as it once was, Ron’s is just as tragic. Even though the salt-and-pepper look was fake to mask his boyish qualities, he is showing his age in terms of the impact of events like the legal setbacks—his own fault, mind—in acquiring the business. It’s funny to see Ron f(l)ail as he tries to hold it all together, but there’s nothing but darkness in his destruction of Kyle’s phone, and what light he finds in Constance’s money will be snuffed out by the pandemic given the “Fourteen Months Later” coda that suggests things are very much not well at the newly Dylan Maxwelled Party Down.

Because of all this catchup work to do, the reunion elements of the premiere obscure the work the show needs to do updating the show’s world building. Saxon’s the only new recruit we spend much time with, but choosing the influencer is both a good foil for Kyle’s story (with lots of advice on apology videos, a true genre of our modern age) and a nice contrast from the failed actor/writer/comedian motif so dominant in the original cast. And although the primary narrative engines here surround the original cast (especially the absent Casey, who you have to think needs to appear at some point), it’s actually the new dynamic within the team itself that will be most critical to the show reconnecting with its strengths.

Which is to say that while there’s plenty of evidence in “Kyle Bradway is Nitromancer” to support the idea of bringing this show back, the ultimate value of this project will come from how it finds a new rhythm now that the “revival” work has begun. And for the dozens of us invested, it’s an exciting time to have watched a show no one else cared about in 2009.

Stray observations

• I can’t tell if Martin Starr is the member of the cast who’s aged the most or if the white shirt/pink bow tie look just naturally highlights how the characters have aged (except for Ron with his boyish looks). I do think it was critical one of the characters stayed, and he was definitely the right choice.

• “Weren’t you management?”—Ron’s character is always trapped between his desperate desire to fit in and his need to succeed in ways that move him beyond his employees, so this dig from Constance was a good reminder of how he’ll never resolve this, no matter how hard he tries.

• I have to say that the sheer volume of celebrities in the episode with none of them playing themselves was kind of distracting, weirdly? James Marsden and Garner certainly seem like they’ve got a chance to recur, whereas it seems unlikely Brunson returns after what amounts to a quick cameo.

• “A grand means a thousand.” That does explain a lot.

• Of the fake superheroes Adler runs through as she tries to place Henry, I’m definitely most interested in Guyote.

• Welcome to Episodic Medium’s ongoing coverage of Party Down season three. While I have no idea what the overall demand will be for the show as a whole, I certainly feel like its core audience is very much the type of person who’s nostalgic for episodic television criticism, and so I’m hopeful we’ll be able to reunite ourselves in the comment sections in the weeks to come. Starz is hoping that one of their regular “$20 for 6 months” deals will get you into their ecosystem, and at least based on this premiere, it’s definitely a worthwhile investment.