What I’m Watching: Party Down

Party Down: Season 2, Episode 4 “James Ellison Funeral” (B+)

Taking a very serious affair like a funeral and turning it upside down by having the crew cater it is a fun idea and it works very well here. I like how all of the team members interacted with people in their own different way. Lydia’s fear of dead bodies sparked an entertaining chain of events, and the best part of it was the attendees’ reactions. The daughter was fantastically angry and on edge, but the widow was even better. Her blasé assumption that the mistress would be an Asian lady was funny, and I love how it was followed by an Asian woman showing up with another illegitimate kid right after that. The first mistress was funny enough, and having a second was even more hilarious. Kyle trying to understand the blues experience by listening to everything the dentist told him was great. Roman arguing with the guests about the semantics of jungle fever and then attributing a quote by Jesus to Martin Luther King was very funny, and his subsequent effort to convince people that Jesus was black was amusing. The widow’s comparison of a positive partnership to a crock-pot was an entertaining scene which enabled much mockery of Henry from Casey. While it’s still fun to see angry, annoyed Casey vent about how much she hates everyone and everything, it’s even more of a treat to see her delight in making Henry feel as uncomfortable as possible by constantly giving him a hard time and refusing to give him a break.