‘Search Party’ Stars Alia Shawkat and John Early Tease Trouble Ahead For Dory & Elliott In Season 2

Search Party debuted late last November and soon wooed audiences with its wit and heart, becoming one of the most delectable hits of the 2016. The series followed Dory Sief (Alia Shawkat), a frustrated millennial who finds new meaning when she embarks on a quest to find her missing college friend Chantal Winterbottom. Dory drags her friends along with her on this journey, including the narcissistic Elliott (John Early).

Spoiler Alert for Season One of Search Party!

In the end, Dory, Elliott, and their pals discover that they were fussing over nothing, as Chantal was safe the whole time, but they accidentally wind up killing someone else. Decider caught up with stars Alia Shawkat and John Early in between panels during TBS’s Summer TCA presentation. For context, that means we chatted in a hotel bar steps away from a massive buffet, though you’ll see John Early was loyal to his steadfast protein box. Shawkat and Early gave us a peek at where we’ll find Dory and Elliott’s friendship in the aftermath of Season One’s shocker of a finale and how Search Party managed to nail the art of satire without falling into parody. (Interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.)

Decider: So you guys are in the middle of shooting Season Two still?

John Early: Well, we’re almost done. We have a few days still.

So where do we find the characters next season?

JE: Literally the moment after. Like the–seconds, not even seconds. It’s just, it’s right where we left off. So, like, it’s intense. It’s really, really intense. And it would’ve been a real disservice — it would’ve been really cheap if they would’ve jumped ahead in time or something. They instead gave themselves the challenge of, like how would one realistically go about this? How would these people deal with this? It’s such a shitty situation to be in. It’s so stressful. It’s like, when we read the scripts, I was like, “This is definitely stressful and disturbing.” It’s still going to be extremely funny, but I was like–it really got under my skin in a way that season one didn’t.

Interesting. Because having to confront that —

JE: Yeah. I think it’s probably a lot of our biggest fears, to kill someone. Like, literally, I think it’s my biggest fear is to be responsible for the death of someone else. It’s so deeply horrifying, and so–and then they’re also, it’s not just that they killed someone, it’s not just about that. They also have to face the fact that, do we turn ourselves in, or–you know, what do we do?

What is the state of Dory and Elliot’s friendship going into season two?

JE: Oh my god, I love this question. Because we never talk about —we never get to talk about like, specifically, our relationship.

Alia Shawkat: We had that one day. I think that when it first starts in the season, we’re —well Elliot’s definitely the most matter of fact. Like, “Dory, we need information and we’re going to handle this,” right?

JE: Right.

AS: You know, and I’m kind of leaning on you, and you kind of have it together. Um, I don’t know, what do you think?

JE: Well, I think it’s so interesting that season, which you, Alia did a very beautiful job of bringing up very early on, and we had a discussion before shooting the new thing…we pick up literally right where we left off. There’s no jump in time.

AS: Yeah, which is great.

JE: But, like, we are all so — because we were just all sitting around that counter at Chantal’s during the finale, and she’s telling us that really this was all for nothing, but once Season 2 starts, the other people are like, “It’s all for nothing,” and Dory is the one that got us there. And now it’s like, we suddenly don’t trust her. And it’s devastating. It’s really sad.

AS: And it’s kind of like, obviously it was the most extreme, like life and death, but in a way, that kind of makes it more relatable. When something–when your friend in a group does something kind of, inappropriate or really shady or just makes you question, all the sudden, their morals and character, and how everyone starts to be like, “Well, we’re friends, so we’ll stick around,” but then suddenly being like, “I’m slowly going to phase this person out.” Or when you are older and you talk about friends when you were younger, it’s like, “Oh, I used to have a terrible best friend.” That’s such a thing in human nature, where you have these friends who are like your “best friends” — I do the quotations in the air — and how it slowly like…so the whole second season is really about how their friendships are starting to disappear in these very strange, passive aggressive, sometimes aggressive, ways. It’s just like, “No we’re not here for you any more. Even though you dragged us into this, no, we’re not your friend.”

One of the things I love about the show is that it’s somehow simultaneously really honest and truthful about being in young and New York, but it’s also satirical. Did that line come naturally to you guys with the scripts or do you find yourself challenged to balance the sincerity and the satire?

JE: I think what’s good about, and I think this is probably true in both the writing and the performance, is that we don’t think about it too much. We know that both of those qualities exist, but they can and should exist simultaneously. Like, I think if you were like, “Well this chunk is satire,” whereas “This chunk is nuanced,” then you’re going to give a weird, chunky performance. Versus like understanding that people are constantly walking parodies of themselves–like, I’m a parody of myself every day. I say things where I’m like, “Wow, did you just hear yourself?” So it’s like, it’s not–it would be dangerous to think of it as commentary versus just, like foolish things people do.

AS: I think it is true. The thing that I feel like SV [Sarah Violet Bliss] and Charles [Rogers] do so well, though, is the way that they make fun of millennials. Like in the first season or in their film, Fort Tilden, that they do it in a different way where it’s not like, “Hah hah,” it’s like the characters are the ones doing it. So you get to see the realness of them and get to laugh at them and be like, “They’re ridiculous.” But the perspective is from them, so it makes it–personally, I’m able to relate to it a lot more. And now, Jon is eating… You know there’s a whole buffet in there.

JE: Yeah, there’s tons of free food, but I love my protein box. I really feel loyal to the protein box.

AS: It’s healthy.

You gotta live your life.

JE: Also, this protein box had two eggs.

AS: You look whiter already… But I was going to say, in this season, it’s still kind of doing that, but it’s almost twice as much in a way. With the way things have been changing so much in this last year, these characters are responding to it, but still just as embarrassing. You know what I mean? It’s almost like mocking the way people are righteous now. And the way people are like, “I know the truth now.” And like mocking the way that people want to be represented and heard more now, and that they’re taking action now. So it’s still mocking that, but at the same time showing that everyone’s struggling with how to do it, to see that they’re actually making a difference now.

I feel like last year when it came out, it sort of suddenly came out of nowhere and became this big thing at the end of November, like this big, interesting fun hit. When did you first realize that it had this sort of impact?

JE: I mean, it’s definitely kind of a slow burn. I mean, people definitely really do like it, like it was really written up: people wrote a lot about it, which was really surprising to me. Not surprising, but just, you know, it’s on TBS, they’re new in this kind of new era. So I just thought, oh, people will be so slow to get into it. But then people watched it. I feel that, like —when young people tweet at me, I’m like, oh, that’s cool. Like when teenagers love me, it’s just really nice. That’s when I feel that this is actually having its little moment. It’s great.

AS: Um, Michael Showalter sent me a text that said, “Do you know that everybody loves the show? It’s a big deal.” And I was like, “Yeah, I guess that’s cool!” It’s, um, I’m so glad that people like it. People on the street recognize me from Search Party, and that’s exciting.

JE: Same.

AS: But at the same time, I’ve been doing this for a long time, and it’s really helpful to not get— like, it’s the second season, let’s do this, but it’s got to be as good or better. Because there’s always pressure on any next job, any next thing, especially continuing the story. But I was just happy — it’s nice to go back to the show and be like, “Hey, I think people are going to be watching it now.” Like, people actually know — you make something for the first time and you have absolutely no idea if anyone is going to see it or if it’s going to disappear. And I’m really proud of it.

JE: What’s also good for the show, too, is just because of the way it’s built, they just truly —because the first season put something huge in motion, that’s all they can respond to writing-wise. They can’t sit back and be like, “Why did people love the first season? Let’s do that again,” or like, “What did people say in reviews? Let’s amp that up and pull something else back that they didn’t like.”

AS: Yeah, if anything they just kept going faster. And like not referencing anything. It kind of has become — I mean it’s the same idea, but it feels like a very different show, in a way.

Season Two of Search Party premiers on November 19th at 10 PM on TBS.

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