‘Party Down’ Is a Perfect Jennifer Garner Showcase. Finally!

Some Oscar snubs linger long after the winner has been announced. It has been 15 years since Juno received four Academy Award nominations, with Diablo Cody taking home the Best Original Screenplay accolade. It has also been 15 years since Jennifer Garner should have been duking it out alongside eventual winner Tilda Swinton for the supporting actress statue. Her performance as hopeful adoptive mother Vanessa is an understated triumph.

Last year, Garner joined Juno co-stars Elliot Page and J.K. Simmons to present at the Academy Awards, serving as another reminder of this oversight. Garner’s Oscars have been memorable, including slipping on stage at her first telecast in 2006 (“I do my own stunts,” she quipped), becoming an instant meme 13 years later when she paused mid-applause as if she had just remembered something important. Not to mention the time then-husband Ben Affleck thanked her for “working on our marriage for 10 Christmases” when Argo won Best Picture in 2013. Garner has made plenty of award season headlines; it stings that it isn’t for her work.

Or, there is the year she was overlooked for an empathetic turn as Dr. Eve Saks in The Dallas Buyers Club, and her two co-stars both won Oscars? In a twist of fate, playing the supportive figure had become Garner’s on- and off-screen designated title (the latter was thanks to the tabloid frenzy swirling around her marriage at the time and the role she played after the divorce from Affleck). However, with Bennifer the revival in full swing, Garner is cultivating a return of sorts. Not that she ever truly went away.

In Garner’s post-Alias years, she has struggled to find a project that utilizes her expressive warmth, charm, and ability to cut to the emotional core as powerfully as Juno did. That is until now, with a part in a long-awaited TV revival.

“Are we having fun yet?” is a phrase instantly separating those who have seen Starz workplace comedy Party Down, on which the line is iconic, from those who missed the boat the first time it aired. The sitcom from creators Rob Thomas, John Enbom, Paul Rudd, and Dan Etheridge follows a group of cater-waiters working various events across Los Angeles.

Nearly every team member has aspirations for breaking into showbiz—or in the case of Adam Scott’s Henry Pollard, has quit the fickle movie industry. In the revival, Henry supplements his teaching income with bartending to pay his unseen ex-wife's alimony. (Lizzy Caplan, who played the wonderfully sardonic Casey Klein, comedian and on-again-off-again love interest for Henry, is sadly not involved in the revival because of a scheduling conflict.).

(Warning: Some spoilers ahead for the new season of Party Down.)

As a self-proclaimed Henry-Casey shipper, it feels blasphemous to say this, but Garner more than rises to the occasion to fill the hole left by Caplan as Evie. Instead of making this character a Casey clone, who has experienced similar heartbreak on the edge of stardom, she is a successful movie producer who mostly has her shit together.

Garner is also aware of fan-favorite Caplan, thanks to how vocal her kids were after they watched the show together. “They’re mostly horrified that I’m doing it, because they love Lizzy Caplan so much that they feel like I’m going to be run out of town,” the actress recently told Rolling Stone.

There is no need to worry about that happening, as Evie offers a different dynamic that is in no way trying to eclipse the fiery chemistry of the original Party Down romance. She is a newcomer to the never-ending chaos this cater-waiting team finds themselves in, but is quickly brought up to speed, whether it’s reacting to Ron dislocating his finger in the season premiere or witnessing the antics at a Nazi-adjacent event that takes place in a later episode..

In this week’s new episode, she hires the team for a pandemic-delayed surprise party for her movie star boyfriend, Jack (James Marsden), which goes tits up as the character is another one of Marsden’s reliably great douchebag charmers. Even before the party calamity, there is a noticeable flirtatious spark between Evie and the recently divorced Henry. She wants “no fairy-tale shit,” an ask Henry is the ideal candidate to deliver, considering everything that unfolds in the subsequent episodes.

The ‘Party Down’ Gang Is Back and as (Mostly) Funny as Ever

Whether not knowing how to talk to teens or embracing the Party Down team tradition of getting high while on the job (Evie tags along to a laidback luau and brings a “comically large” bag of mushrooms as party favors), Garner slots into the ensemble. Setbacks are an expectation in this environment, but there is a danger it could slip into full-on bummer territory with Henry’s penchant for apathy and cynicism. Thankfully, Evie offers a much-needed ray of optimism. This side mirrors Garner’s inherent likability, tapping into her goofy persona that instantly suggests warmth.

Like most actors with multiple rom-coms on their resumé, Garner’s history of projects in the genre range from the sublime (13 Going on 30) to painful (sorry, Valentine’s Day). Party Down taps into her ability to be playful with an emotionally vulnerable undertone that made her turn as a teenager trapped in an older woman’s body so memorable as 13 Going on 30’s Jenna Rink. After settling into recent Netflix family titles like Yes Day and The Adam Project, this also showcases Garner’s impressive comedic chops in an adult setting.

Only five years have passed since Garner’s headline role in the divisive Camping, which was Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner’s follow-up to Girls—and last project together. Here, unlikability as a character trait couldn’t repeat the success of Hannah Horvath. “I was trying to develop something with my friend Judy Greer, because I think she is the funniest of all time, and she is so fun to be with, so we were trying to come up with something to do together,” Garner told Rolling Stone in 2018 about why she ended up choosing Camping (“And then we both got offers [for] different things and said, “OK, I should probably do this and you should do that.”)

Perhaps now is a chance for TV executives to snap up the IRL BFFS as the brilliant Reboot has sadly been canceled, and Garner has dipped her toe back into television with great success.

Garner’s career trajectory has been crying out for the kind of limited-series vehicle that has turned television into a playground for a host of talented women over 40. Ever since Big Little Lies blasted onto screens in 2017, it has become shorthand for the kind of series attracting actresses of a certain age. Amy Adams had Sharp Objects, Mare of Eastown lured Kate Winslet, and Nicole Kidman can’t get enough of TV shows adapted from popular novels (see: The Undoing and Nine Perfect Strangers).

Ken Marino, King of Cult Hit Comedy, on the Triumphant Return of ‘Party Down’

Reese Witherspoon’s production company Hello Sunshine continues to expand its roster of best-seller book adaptations, including Garner’s forthcoming Apple TV+ thriller The Last Thing He Told Me (premiering Apr. 14). Headlining a thriller on a streamer that continues to draw big names is the kind of move expected by an actor of Garner’s caliber. Jaime Lannister himself, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, plays her missing husband, with Mare of Easttown’s Angourie Rice as Garner’s stepdaughter. Hopefully, this limited series will scratch that Big Little Lies itch, but if it doesn’t, there is always Party Down.

Of course, anyone who watched Alias when it debuted 20 years ago is more than aware of Garner's diverse skill set. From playing a college student who also was a secret double agent to dressing in every shade of cyberpunk (this was the early ’00s), Garner made even the most ridiculous set-up sing—sometimes quite literally. Romance is a big part of Sydney’s arc; however, it is Garner’s dynamic with Victor Garber playing her stoic on-screen father, Jack (aka Spy Daddy), that encapsulates the brilliance of a performance that is equally powerful and vulnerable. A fight sequence here, chin quiver there, and all eyes are on Garner.

Sydney Bristow would snag her four Emmy nominations in a row (Edie Falco and Allison Janney won two a piece for those years). Her casting in Alias points to J.J. Abrams's strong track record for picking female leads—Garner had previously guest starred on Felicity as a love triangle roadblock. Duality is vital to Sydney’s ability to infiltrate various dangerous scenarios undetected. While Juno is a million miles away from an espionage backdrop, it is a masterclass in how deceptive a first appearance can be.

Similarly, a single string of pearls and references to reading all the books on parenting could indicate Vanessa’s pushiness and tendency to steamroll a situation in Juno. Her cool guy husband Mark (Jason Bateman) is later revealed to be the fraud in the family, and Oscar-winner Cody flips the script on expectations. It is in the mall that Garner delivers the award-season stealing clip when, at first, the baby doesn’t kick (“I can’t feel anything. It’s not moving for me”). “Hello, baby,” she tentatively whispers to Juno’s stomach. Resigned sadness transforms into a smitten beam when she feels a physical response.

Movie award seasons come and go, but Garner’s performance stands the test of time. We are definitely having fun now that TV has also remembered how to utilize Garner’s many sides.

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