‘Party Down’ Season 3 finale finally brought back this beloved character – here’s how it happened

Christopher Rosen
·5 min read
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This post contains spoilers for the Season 3 finale of “Party Down”

It took almost the entire season, but “Party Down” fans finally got a long-awaited reunion between Henry (Adam Scott) and Casey (Lizzy Caplan). In the Season 3 finale episode tag, a disillusioned Casey returns to Los Angeles to promote her latest project and finally reconnects with Henry during the press junket. The brief interaction, where Casey reveals she hasn’t found happiness even in success and might seek to explode her current life and return to the city and presumably Henry, sets up another season of the cult comedy that would presumably feature Caplan in a starring role. Or, if “Party Down” never returns to Starz, it serves as an unresolved finish reminiscent of “The Graduate.”

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Caplan missed the reunion season because of her busy 2022 production schedule. The actress shot FX’s “Fleishman Is In Trouble” and the Paramount+ series “Fatal Attraction” last year and was unable to carve out time to return to “Party Down” while “Fleishman” was in production. 

“It was impossible to put that in the deal because of COVID. There was no popping on planes back and forth,” Caplan told The Hollywood Reporter in a piece published after the “Party Down” finale on Friday. “We were still very much under COVID’s thumb and for good reason. Plenty of people got COVID on both ‘Fatal Attraction’ and ‘Fleishman,’ and it derailed production. I would have worn seven masks, but they couldn’t legally wrap their heads around it. It was devastating. Had I been less enthusiastic about the notion of getting to do ‘Fleishman,’ the decision wouldn’t have been as agonizing.”

She added, “I will officially say I didn’t regret the decision when we get picked up for a season four, and I can be in ‘Party Down’ Season 4. But if I take my emotions completely out of it, narratively it probably benefited the show for Casey to only pop in at the end — as much as that kills me to say.”

Created by John Enbom, Rob Thomas, Dan Etheridge, and Paul Rudd, “Party Down” first aired in 2009 and ran for only two short seasons. But the show was beloved by its fans and critics, and even Starz CEO Jeffrey Hirsch, who took over the network in 2019 and said he missed “Party Down.” With that door open again following its 2010 cancelation, the difficulty for Enbom and the producers became reuniting the cast: Scott, Caplan, Jane Lynch, Martin Starr, Ken Marino, Megan Mullally, and Ryan Hansen.

“Getting everyone interested was easy,” Enbom said to Variety before the premiere of Season 3. “Getting everyone in the same place at the same time proved to be a challenge.”

For no one was that more true of than Caplan. The actress said to The Hollywood Reporter that when they figured out how to shoot her brief appearance it was an “instant yes.” A small production team came to New York and shot her reunion with Scott. After that, it was decided that Caplan’s cameo would be kept secret. In preview interviews, Enbom and the cast said it was unfortunate Caplan wasn’t able to appear in Season 3 and Starz didn’t send out the finale for critics and journalists until last week – long after the Season 3 screeners had been shared.

“We have been rabid — Adam Scott, I think, as much as anyone — about wanting to keep this a secret,” Enbom told Variety in an interview published Friday. “In every office memo, Adam is adding, ‘Let’s not let this get out.” Trying to keep this a secret has been the subject of dozens of emails, I’d say.”

Season 3 picked up more than a decade after the final episode of “Party Down,” with Henry married to an unseen woman. Their relationship fractures by the second episode – which takes place months after the Season 3 premiere – and the former actor begins a new romance with a producer named Evie, played by Jennifer Garner. But despite good chemistry and shared interests, they ended their relationship on amicable terms in the finale. So Caplan’s return to “Party Down” does set up a possible fourth season – or potentially another stab at what Enbom had hoped would be an arc in the third season.

“Before we knew Lizzy wasn’t available, the first impulse we had was the idea of Casey and Henry meeting again for the first time at Kyle’s party [in Episode 1 of Season 3]. That was going to be a starting point for the season, and once that went away, we were still craving that moment: what it might be like for them to run back into each other,” Enbom said to Variety. “That’s what excited us from the very beginning, and we remain excited about it. So if anyone is listening out there… Starz…”

Added Thomas, “Henry and Casey is probably what we would hang a Season 4 on. It’s one of the better comedy romances on TV. We would love to get back to that.”

All episodes of “Party Down” are available on Starz and its associated apps.

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