Entertainment

5 Clues From TBS' "The Guilty Party" On What We…

by Suzanne McKenzie

As a recent Search Party convert who binged all 10 episodes of Season One in a recent weekend-long bender, I didn’t have to think twice about signing on to cover the Season Two premiere party.

The charmingly punny “The Guilty Party” was touted as an interactive theater experience co-produced by the company behind the legendary New York City production of Sleep No More. Other than this high-profile association, very few details were revealed about the event.

The most telling clue about what to expect from this mysterious affair was delivered in the form of a dude exiting the ~experience~ as I waited in line to enter. He stumbled out looking dazed and announced to no one in particular, “Wow, that was…a lot.”

And with that, I was ushered through the doors and into the world of “The Guilty Party.”

What happened next is difficult to describe, so I’ll start by echoing that random dude when I say, it was … a lot.

An Instagrammer with dark motives, quiet accusations of guilt, an unlit (and slightly menacing) dance party, and a smear of fake (?) blood later, I emerged from the experience into the actual premiere party. Still reeling from what I had just lived through, I grabbed a cocktail (a “murder-ita,” it should be noted) and tried to make sense of it all.

One thing was for sure: I was more intrigued than ever about what's to come on Season Two of Search Party.

Here are five clues from my “Guilty Party” experience that may shed some light on what we can expect from Season Two of Search Party, which returns 11.19 on TBS.

1. There are eyes everywhere.

After being hurried through the doors of the event, my first stop was a bar filled with unfamiliar people acting remarkably familiar. The bartender poured me a drink (telling me, “You’ll need it”) and a mustached patron who looked like every guy at every bar in Brooklyn assured me that yeah, we totally met at a rooftop party a few weeks back. Did we?

The takeaway? Just because you’ve never seen some people before in your life doesn’t mean they don’t know *exactly* who you are — a fact that I suspect the Search Party crew may learn the hard way in Season Two.

2. Achieving social media fame comes at a price.

The next stop in the experience was a plush-walled hallway, where a smartphone-wielding guy begged me to stand up against the wall so he could take my photo. My eyes, he promised me, were going to make him (…us?) Instagram famous.

While becoming an artist's muse has always been a personal goal of mine, the fun stopped when my photographer friend ended our whirlwind session by pulling me close and whispering in my ear, “I know what you did.”

I took this as a sign that someone in Search Party may just find instant stardom in Season Two…for all the wrong reasons.

3. Even the “innocent” have blood on their hands.

At (what appeared to be) the close of the interactive experience, a well-dressed gentleman guided me to a spiral staircase at the bottom of which waited the actual premiere party.

But before I could escape down the stairs, he grabbed my hands, pulled me close, and told me that, even though I may appear innocent, he knew I had blood on my hands. I made it a few steps down the stairs before I noticed the ACTUAL smear of blood that had somehow been transferred to my left palm. (Full disclosure: It was fake blood. No health department laws were violated in the making of this stunt.)

The whole exchange made me speculate that the crew in Search Party are ALL guilty — even if only by association.

4. Video surveillance never lies.

The sleuthing didn’t end once I walked down the spiral staircase and joined the party. Around the bar were larger-than-life boxes containing individual actors engaged in different scenes. One housed a guy in a dimly lit stockroom, viewing a loop of surveillance video on his computer.

Thinking back to the sense of voyeurism that permeated Season One of Search Party, it only makes sense to assume that so many of those damning moments may have been caught on tape — and are probably coming back to haunt the cast in Season Two.

5. Something (or someone…) gets disposed of in the woods.

Another “box” featured a man wearing a police jacket searching with a flashlight in the woods. Considering the bombshell ending of season one, I have a feeling that what he’s looking for will turn out to be a lot more sinister than Chantal Witherbottom's bloody blouse.

But alas, all of this is nothing more than well-informed speculation. For actual answers, we’ll have to tune in to Season Two of Search Party when it premieres on 11.19.

And in the meantime? I'll be bingeing Season One — available commercial-free — on the TBS app (yes, again).

This article is sponsored by TBS' Search Party, which returns 11.19.