History Series / SearchParty

''Search Party'' premiered on Creator/{{TBS}} in 2016 and ran for two seasons there. Though never hitting big ratings, it was consistently acclaimed and fostered a cult following its unique blend of off-the-wall humor and heart-pounding drama. The series eventually moved to Creator/HBOMax starting with season three, following a longer-than-usual {{series hiatus}} of three years. The fifth and final season will air in 2022.

* BittersweetEnding: The series finale leans so hard toward the "Bitter" half of this trope that it would likely be considered a DownerEnding were it not for it being relatively more pleasant for the protagonists than the endings of previous seasons. [[spoiler: The main four cause a zombie apocalypse that wipes out a majority of the United States' population. While they survive the ordeal and are able to return to something somewhat resembling their old lives, [[IgnoredEpiphany they are completely unaffected by anything they have experienced and don't appear to hold themselves accountable for the current state of the world]], with Dory in particular seemingly having abandoned her aspirations of doing anything that goes beyond her shallow Brooklyn millennia lifestyle. Even their friendship remaining in-tact could be argued to be more bad than good, as the series goes to great lengths to show how toxic it is for each of them.]]

* BittersweetEnding: The series finale leans so hard toward the "Bitter" half of this trope that it verges on being a DownerEnding were it not for it being relatively more pleasant for the protagonists than the endings of previous seasons. [[spoiler: The main four cause a zombie apocalypse that wipes out a majority of the United States' population. While they survive the ordeal and are able to return to something somewhat resembling their old lives, [[IgnoredEpiphany they are completely unaffected by anything they have experienced and don't appear to hold themselves accountable for the current state of the world]], with Dory in particular seemingly having abandoned her aspirations of doing anything that goes beyond her shallow Brooklyn millennia lifestyle. Even their friendship remaining in-tact could be argued to be more bad than good, as the series goes to great lengths to show how toxic it is for each of them.]]

** Similarly, [[spoiler: Elliot's boyfriend Marc is finally able to recognize himself as the victim of an abusive relationship on the day of his wedding, and seemingly breaks things off with Elliott for good.]]

** [[spoiler: Season 3 opens and closes with a recording of an imprisoned Dory performing a video confessional; the season opens with the beginning of the confession and closes with her ending it. The confession itself is not heard until the first episode of season 4.]]

* ApocalypseHow/CosyCatastrophe: [[spoiler:The series ends with Dory accidentally causing a zombie apocalypse that obliterates most of the American population, forcing Dory and her friends to live in a new world where zombies remain a daily threat (a livable one, however, as the group and the other survivors end up returning to their lives mostly unbothered]].

* ApocalypseHow / CosyCatastrophe :[[spoiler:The series ends with Dory accidentally causing a zombie apocalypse that obliterates most of the American population, forcing Dory and her friends to live in a new world where zombies remain a daily threat (a livable one, however, as the group and the other survivors end up returning to their lives mostly unbothered]].

* ApocalypseHow / CosyCatastrophe : [[spoiler:The series ends with Dory accidentally causing a zombie apocalypse that obliterates most of the American population, forcing Dory and her friends to live in a new world where zombies remain a daily threat (a livable one, however, the group and the other survivors end up returning to their lives mostly unbothered]].

* GenreShift: The series is consistently a ''{{Series/Girls}}''-style dramedy about twenty-something hipsters in New York, but has an undercurrent of a noir thriller as Dory unravels the mystery of Chantal's disappearance. By season 2, [[spoiler:while still arguably in the style of a noir, the series becomes about the leads trying to ''cover up'' the crime they committed rather than solving one.]] Season 3 [[spoiler: becomes a courtroom drama after Dory and Drew are arrested and put on trial for Keith's murder]]. Then season 4 shifts into [[spoiler: a psychological thriller in the style of {{Film/Room}} or {{Literature/Misery}} after Dory is kidnapped by her psychotic super-fan Chip]].

* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: [[spoiler: Chantal running off to Canada without telling anyone was just intended to be a way for her to decompress and "find herself", but, as the catalyst to the entire series inadvertently leads to the deaths of several people and the destruction of the lives of many more.]]

* ApocalypseHow / CosyCatastrophe : [[spoiler:The series ends with Dory accidentally causing a zombie apocalypse that obliterates most of the global population, forcing its survivors to live in a post-apocalyptic world where zombies remain a daily threat, but a livable one that allows Dory and the group to mostly return to their lives unbothered]].

* AudienceSurrogate: [[DeconstructedCharacterArchetype Deconstructed]] with Dory. She's introduced with essentially no discernible character traits beyond being a young person DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife, which makes her very easy for the viewer to project themselves onto. As the series progresses, though, it becomes clear that Dory's complete lack of any kind of sense of self is actually a sign of something much more unbalanced within her, as she repeatedly ruins the lives of numerous others for the sake of her own sense of fulfillment, growing increasingly less guilty about her actions each time. [[spoiler: By season 3, it's hard to describe her as anything other than a callous, calculating borderline sociopath. When she is put on trial for her crimes in the same season, her surface level image as an attractive, blank slate young person manages to win her enormous support from the American public and eventually get acquitted for her crimes, entirely because they perceive her to be "just like" them. It also earns her an extremely unhinged stalker who becomes obsessed with her because she's allegedly "just like" him.]]

* BackForTheFinale: [[spoiler: Several long-absent characters return in the season 4 finale, including Julian, Gail, Dory's parents, Portia's mom, and [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg the psychic cultist Dory briefly interacted with in season 1]].]]

* ProtagonistJourneyToVillain: As the series progresses, [[spoiler: we see Dory evolve from a directionless twenty-something to someone so detached from her own conscience that she is able to kill two people and successfully lie about her innocence in their murders in court. Scarily, she seems much more comfortable and confident with herself throughout season 3 than she ever did in season 1, implying that this was within her all along.]]

* GenreShift: The series is consistently a ''{{Series/Girls}}''-style dramedy about twenty-something hipsters in New York, but has an undercurrent of a noir thriller as Dory unravels the mystery of Chantal's disappearance. [[spoiler: By season 2, while still arguably in the style of a noir, the series becomes about the leads trying to ''cover up'' the crime they committed rather than solving one.]]

* BaldWoman: [[spoiler: Dory's head is shaved by Chip after he kidnaps her so that he can use her hair to make a doll in her likeness as accurate as possible.]]

* SeriesFauxnale: [[spoiler: Season 4's finale plays out like a StockSeriesFinale, commemorating all 4 seasons of the show, bringing characters like Julian and Gail and Dory's parents BackForTheFinale, and providing closure on several character arcs. In the final seconds of the episode, after cutting to black on a BookEnds shot of the season 1 opening in the afterlife, a very brief scene plays revealing Dory survived the fire and that all of previous events of the finale were a hallucination.]]

''Search Party'' premiered on Creator/{{TBS}} in 2016 and ran for two seasons there. Though never hitting big ratings, it was consistently acclaimed and fostered a cult following its unique blend of off-the-wall humor and heart-pounding drama. The series eventually moved to Creator/HBOMax starting with season three, following a longer-than-usual {{series hiatus}} of three years.

* BeneathTheMask: [[spoiler: Elliott maintains his usual narcissistic confidence even after Keith's murder, and seemingly handles it all with much less guilt than his friends do. As the second season continues, though, we see his subconscious guilt steadily consume him as he mutters Keith's name incessantly in his sleep, breaks out in a full body rash and starts losing his hair from stress, and finally has a full psychotic episode that pushes his publicist into sending him to a mental institution. During his first day in the institution, he admits that he felt the need to maintain a veneer of ambivalence about the murder in order to seem strong for his friends, and later has a sudden sobbing breakdown where he admits how horrible he feels about not only his involvement in the murder but also all the numerous other times he's lied throughout his life. Admitting this cheers him up enough to allow him to [[CompletelyMissingThePoint promptly put his mask back on and return to his usual selfish and unflappable self.]]]]

* RealityEnsues: Drew spends a significant chunk of season 2 attempting to convince his rival for a job overseas that his wife is cheating on him with their boss to sabotage his chances of getting it. [[spoiler: When the rival confronts his boss over it, they realize that Drew was trying to pit them against each other and promptly have him fired.]]

* {{Foil}}: Dory's defense attorney in season 3, Cassidy Diamond, and the prosecutor of her trial, Polly Danzinger, serve as this to each other. Both of them are driven career women who view the case as an opportunity to earn fame for themselves, but while Cassidy is a stereotypical millennial barely any older than Dory who leans hard on her glamorous "girl boss" image to compensate for her youth and inexperience and interacts with Dory closer to how a manager would interact with a celebrity, Polly is a pushy Gen Xer who looks down on millennials, developed her career during a time when, in Cassidy's words, you had to act like a man to get by, and is such a severe {{Workaholic}} that she considers someone simply wishing her a happy birthday to be a distraction. At their cores they're both women putting on airs to get by in a patriarchal business, but the generational gap between them has caused them to develop into near total opposites.

The series regularly [[GenreBusting defies genre]], always remaining firmly in dark comedy territory but with added elements of {{noir}}, {{psychological thriller}}, and [[CourtroomEpisode legal drama]] depending on the season. As such, it's difficult to discuss the series beyond season one without spoiling later developments that alter the status quo significantly. Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned!

* SeriesFauxnale: [[spoiler: Season 4's finale plays out like a StockSeriesFinale, commemorating all 4 seasons of the show, bringing characters like Julian and Gail and Dory's parents BackForTheFinale, and providing closure on several character arcs. In the final seconds of the episode, after cutting to black on a BookEnds shot of the season 1 opening in the afterlife, a very brief scene plays revealing Dory survived the fire and the finale was a near death experience.]]

* WellDoneDaughterGirl: Portia's mother is rather distant, and acts unsupportive and belittling about her acting career; all of which clearly bothers her. [[spoiler: This gets exploited in season 2, where Elijah convinces her to cut off all ties with her mom as a means of seizing control over her life under the guise of trying to help her remove herself from a toxic relationship.]]

** Both Cassidy Diamond and Polly Danzinger are ridiculously eccentric individuals, but they each prove to be cunning lawyers when they do battle in court.

* WrongGenreSavvy: A central aspect of the series is that [[DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife Dory]] tries to filter her life through the lens of a genre narrative in order to find meaning where there isn't any. While this is most clearly seen in the first season, [[spoiler: where her attempts at being an AmateurSleuth end in her killing a person while trying to solve a mystery that didn't exist to begin with]], it continues to be present even after the series undergoes a GenreShift between seasons. [[spoiler: It causes her to [[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope become outright villainous]] in season 3 when she decides to embrace the media's own narrative about her being a calculating FemmeFatale.]]

* {{Workaholic}}: Polly Danzinger takes this trope to its logical extreme. She casually expresses her relief at the weekend being over in the same way that a normal person would about it starting, and takes the time to chew out her colleagues for getting her a cake on her birthday due to her disgust at being rewarded for anything other than what she has earned through her own merits.