Search Party (season 5)

"Search Party Season 5 sees Dory (Shawkat) enter a very public business partnership with charismatic tech billionaire Tunnel Quinn, played by guest star Jeff Goldblum, on the other side of her near death experience. Dory folds her old friends Portia (Hagner), Elliott (Early) and Drew (Reynolds) into the venture as they embark on an altruistic but terrifying journey."[2]

Season five of Search Party received positive critical reception. It holds a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes with an average rating of 8.1/10 based on ten critics' reviews.[1] Naveen Kumar of them. hailed the series: "Among a swelling array of TV shows that lampoon navel-gazing Millennials, Search Party has stood out for its mordant humor, razor-sharp wit, and pitch-black plot."[14] The A.V. Club's Saloni Gajjar rated the season a B+ and described it positively: "The HBO Max comedy dials up the absurdity in the last few episodes of season five, mostly pulling off a whiplash-inducing third act pivot like no other TV show can, thanks to a virtuoso but vastly underrated cast."[3]

The performance of the main cast was praised by several critics.[14][9][3] Series co-creator Sarah-Violet Bliss commended Alia Shawkat's performance as lead character Dory Sief throughout the five seasons: "The comedy was on the page, but when I had imagined the character, she was a little bit less self-possessed. What Alia brought was intelligence and maturity — she made her grounded and real."[13]

Critics noted that the series continued to bend genres, as it has taken on the style of true crime, legal drama, noir, horror, and psychological thriller across the first four seasons.[15][3][16] Time writer Judy Berman characterized season five as "surreal sci-fi", fantasy, and a "strange existential comedy."[17] The unusual tone was described as "frankly, bananas" in Thrillist.[18]

Slash writer Valerie Ettenhofer stated that the season's satirical focus is consistent with the overall series: "No matter how pie-in-the-sky it gets, "Search Party' is still, at its core, a biting satire about the rich and soulless...In the season premiere, Elliott makes plain the type of hollowness the series loves to poke at, saying gleefully, "We're adults, and adults don't care about making a difference!""[19] Esther Zuckerman of Thrillist described the characters as those who "want fulfillment by cutting corners. They don't want to do the work. They want an easy fix—something outside of themselves that will cure their unending melancholy."[18]

Brian Tallerico of The Playlist described the season as "inconsistent as the show has ever been in terms of plotting and theme" but praised the show's humor, "insane structure", and twist ending.[9] Multiple critics connected the off-the-wall tone and plotting to the destabilizing and unprecedented events that took place in the United States between Search Party's 2016 debut and 2022 finale.[17][19][20] Daniel Kurland rated the season 5/5 stars in a review for Den of Geek, and further praised the ending: "I’m still a little speechless for the direction that Search Party ultimately takes and where it ends. The story reaches a ridiculous place, but the world has become so destabilizing that Search Party’s bold choices actually work and come across as smart satire."[20]

• List of episodes at IMDb