Critics Appreciation: ‘Party Down’ Star Ken Marino Holds It All Together

At this point in Peak TV, it’s almost harder to think of an old, beloved series that hasn’t come back in some fashion — and yet, even within that landscape, Starz’s long-overdue third season of Party Down stands out as the rare revival that completely and utterly works. Within the first minutes of the premiere, it’s clear this cast and crew haven’t missed a step.

There’s Ryan Hansen as Kyle, impenetrably ditzy as ever, and Martin Starr as Roman, bitter as Kyle is upbeat. Jane Lynch’s woo-woo Constance is back, and so is Megan Mullally’s high-strung Lydia. As a pair of new hires, Tyrel Jackson Williams and Zoë Chao fit so seamlessly into the gang that it seems they’ve always been there.

And of course, leading them all once again is Ronald Donald, played to pathetic perfection by Ken Marino. If Adam Scott’s Henry remains the audience surrogate character — wry, dry, able to see the absurdity around him but powerless to stop it — Ron is the absurdity. His luck clearly hasn’t improved much in the decade since we last saw him. This season, he’s left without a home or a sense of smell after coming down with COVID four times. Meanwhile, his dream of being a successful small-business owner remains forever just out of reach.

In typical Ron fashion, he takes none of this in stride. Marino plays him like flop sweat personified. When Henry admits to Ron that, yeah, he does have some minor BO, Marino crumples his face into an expression of despair more appropriate for a terminal cancer diagnosis. When Ron gets bad news from his lawyer, Marino’s eyes practically bulge out of his forehead as he frets that he’s been cursed. Not all his choices go huge — sometimes, as when Ron almost whispers a “dammit” after dropping a tray of passed apps, their smallness make his humiliation feel all the more acute. Big or small, they elevate Party Down from a clever comedy to a laugh-out-loud funny one.

The punchline and the tragedy of Ron is that no matter what befalls him, he never stops believing in the rise-and-grind mindset. He’s like Sisyphus, or Job, or Charlie Brown with the football. Maybe it’d be most accurate to compare him to one of those Looney Tunes characters who find themselves flattened by anvils only to pop back up minutes later so they can get flattened yet again. Marino does imbue Ron with a cartoon slapstick physicality.

Nowhere is his gift better showcased than in episode five. Racked with food poisoning, Ron doesn’t just stumble coming out of the bathroom — he staggers into a wall, swings himself back up, drops back down to his knees and bashes his face before collapsing completely. Once he makes it out, he doesn’t just double over with pain — he slides down on the kitchen counter amid a cacophony of farts, frantically pleading for a pot he can crap into right then and there.

All the while, Ron insists he’s all good. “You know what they say. Pressure makes diamonds!” he screeches. Roman points out that this is rarely true: “Usually, it just crushes things.” When it comes to this performance, they’re both right. Ron is absolutely buckling under the weight. And Marino’s turning his misery into an unparalleled comedy gem.

This story first appeared in a May stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.