For four seasons, the TV series
Search Party has used its cast of New York millennials as a microcosm of imperfect generational behavior. Its main character, Dori Sief (Alia Shawkat), is a directionless late-twentysomething whose lack of ambition or professional qualifications have kept her life in banal stasis. Her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Drew Gardner (John Reynolds), is a prototypical Midwestern “nice guy” whose passivity and sensitivity are mercurial and fraught. Her other two college friends Elliott Goss (John Early), a queer man-about-town, and bubbly actress Portia Davenport (Meredith Hagner) are equal parts clueless and self-involved. Together they represent the well-educated, financially comfortable, self-satisfied urbanites who are the implicit subjects of myriad anti-millennial opinion pieces and Twitter threads. If avocado toast (the convenient political symbol, not the food item) could be personified, it would resemble
Search Party Renewed for Season 5 at HBO Max
Danielle Turchiano, provided by
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“We are thrilled that HBO Max has not only given the world a fifth season of ‘Search Party,’ but also shown this much faith in our partnership with them as we develop new projects for the platform,” said Bliss and Rogers. “Potential titles for upcoming shows include ‘Monkeys Love Manhattan’ and ‘The Pineapple Predicament.’ Those aren’t actual shows we would ever pitch but it exhibits that we can make up titles if we need to.”
The fourth season saw Dory be the character that needed a titular search party after Chip (Cole Escola) kidnapped her and held her captive in a painstakingly re-created but smaller scale version of her New York City apartment in the basement of his aunt Lylah’s (Susan Sarandon) house in the small town of Babyfoot. At the end of the season Chip and Lylah left Dory locked in the basement as the house burned.
Search Party, which went live Thursday on HBO Max.
Where does Dory go from here? That s the question viewers are left with after the season 4 finale of
After being found by her friends and overcoming Chip s brainwashing, Dory (Alia Shawkat) returned to Chip (
Difficult People s Cole Escola) in episode 9, the penultimate episode, and begged him to reprogram her once again because she didn t want to be herself anymore. Alas, Chip declined, and his recklessly wealthy mom-aunt, Lylah (Susan Sarandon), trapped Dory in her mansion and set it on fire to cover up everything her son-nephew did. As Dory lay in the smoke-filled room with no hope of escape, she recalled how she had an opportunity to get away from Chip way back in the premiere but decided not to