Funny / Search Party

The series itself it quite hilarious, despite (or maybe because of) its nearly unrelenting tension. While there are honestly too many moments to count, here is an introduction. Spoilers ahead. You have been warned.

Season 1

• At Chantal's wake, the gang watches her college a cappella group, The Choral Fixation, perform an altered version of Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone", with the lyrics changed to "Since you been gone, Chantal". None of the gang can contain their disdain, especially Elliot.

• At Chantal's wake, Drew strikes up a casual conversation with her creepy and super-serious ex-boyfriend, Gavin, who mentions that he has been so busy talking to the cops and press that he hasn't had a moment to himself to "rub one out".
  Drew: (Uncomfortably) "Cool... Well, hang in there pal."

• Portia is cast as a Latina detective on a cop show. She claims it's because she's Ambiguously Brown, even though there is no way she could be mistaken for anything other than white. One of her cast mates questions the producer about this problematic choice, and he responds that someone did originally bring up during casting, but then dropped it because they "didn't want to be confrontational".

• Drew tries to follow a suspect in Chantal's disappearance to his place of work, but is stopped by the receptionist. Seeing a random piece of mail on her desk, he lies that he is there to see the recipient, and is sent to see her. He discovers that she is a distressed bureaucrat in payroll who becomes terrified of him because he is a stranger who cannot adequately explain why he is there, as he ineffectually tries to convince her to let him stay and tail the suspect. She becomes increasingly distressed when security shows up to remove Drew, thinking they are there for her, and has a freakout and smashes her computer on the floor.

Season 2

• Dory tries to come up with an alibi for everyone for the murder, and tries to gently guide Chantal into lying about where they found her hiding. Chantal comes up with a motel in New Hampshire, and suggests they lie that they realized she was there based on a poem she had previously written, and was very proud of. Dory latches on so quickly that she never asks to hear the poem, so when the gang tells Chantal's family their story, they hear it for the first time, while having to pretend that it deeply moved all four of them. It is only then that they learn the poem in question is called "Dirty Old Motel", is hilariously awful, and the ability to find clues to Chantal's supposed location is virtually impossible.

• The face on the tree. While the gang are burying Keith's body, Elliot spots a tree that has a woman's face crudely painted on it, and is creeped out. A few nights later, Keith's body is discovered because a man is masturbating while looking at the face. When Detective Hartman goes to interview him, he claims in all seriousness that he and his "wife" were making love in the woods when they stumbled upon it. Already thrown by this, Hartman asks to meet his wife, and is introduced to the tree after being warned that "she's not much of a talker". She's utterly flummoxed.

• Portia at one point freaks out about going to jail, fearing that she will die in jail.
  Portia: They'll resent my bone structure and sparkling personality, and kill me!

• Detective Hartman's Establishing Character Moment of closing a car door and spooking herself from the sound.

• Elliot's mental breakdown, while harrowing, is also hysterical. First, his hair starts falling out and he develops a painful rash on most of his body. This forces him to wear ridiculous clothes to cover his body, in the full heat of the summer, when the gang receives the Key to the City of Chappaqua. He stubbornly insists it's a fashion choice and he is not at all hot. Then comes the moment when Dory reveals to the gang that Keith's body has been found, that Dory spoke to Keith's ex-wife, and that she sent a fake email from Keith's computer, which the police now know occurred after Keith died. Elliot completely snaps, stripping down to his socks and boxers, then screams at the others that this is completely normal, and that he just needs "two-to-six bags of fresh ice, okay? And it must be fresh!!!" Yes, even in his mania, Elliot maintains his high standards. He runs out the door, still under-dressed, screaming to the heavens that he needs ice. Then, to add icing on the cake, the gang doesn't just not help him, but also wordlessly moves to ogle him through the window, as Elliot stumbles away down the street and into the Brooklyn night.

• In the following episode, Elliot gets even worse, and starts writing his memoir on paper towels with sharpies. When Portia tries to gently suggest he see a doctor for the rash, he rationalizes that he will be perfectly fine as long as he is "never exposed to the sun ever again".

• When questioned by Detective Hartman, Drew is caught in a lie and tries to verbally backspace, but overdoes it, claiming he's not good at remembering dates, or names, or faces, or actors, or movies. In fact he doesn't even know what movies these days are. Realizing the corner he's backed himself into, he tries one last desperate lie to save himself.
  Drew: "Aw, man I'm just not good at stuff. I'm not good at remembering..."

• Portia and Elliot try to follow "April" into a clothing store, but are distracted by two mannequins that look like them, only hotter, and insist on taking selfies with them.

Season 3

• Portia and Elliot flee to the Hamptons to escape police scrutiny, and hide out in Elliot's friend's timeshare. However, it's not as deserted as they thought, and they are accosted while trying to dye their hair black (poorly). The woman who finds them thinks they are the babysitters she hired online, and Elliot and Portia roll with it and actually take the kids out for the day.

• When the trial begins, the judge announces that he was recently diagnosed with a serious illness and requires frequent snacks in order to survive. This leads to the sight gag of every episode him having a progressively larger stack of tupperware containers at his bench.

• Drew runs into one of the jurors while at a laundromat, and questions if it is ethical for her to meet him. She responds casually that they can't stop a "goblin" like her from doing what she wants. They hit it off and end up sleeping together, during which time she tells him she thinks he's innocent. During the next day of the trial, she disappears from the jury pool, and Drew questions his lawyer Bob Lunch about why.
  Bob: (whispering) She had to be replaced with an alternate. She was crazy. She told everyone she was a goblin, and that she slept with the judge, the second chair prosecutor...and you.
  • It then gets doubly funny when the second chair prosecutor is seen asking the same question.

• What seems to be damning evidence, a tape recording of Drew and Dory admitting to killing Keith, turns farcical after being presented to the court when everyone hears the word "murdered" as either "murdered" or "pancaked", including the upset court stenographer who can't be sure what to write. The judge even asks the audience to vote on what they heard, one audience member insists that is was clearly "pancaked" and that she has never been more sure of anything in her life. When the prosecutor objects that to be "pancaked" is not a real thing, Bob Lunch offers a ridiculous counter objection after quickly looking up "pancaking" on the equivalent of Urban Dictionary.
  Bob: (Reading) "Pancaking: A sexual act in which a pancake is wiped across the person’s asshole and then slapped against their titties until one or both partners comes..." You're honor, my clients are not on trial for having sex with food!"

• Bob Lunch at one point casually reveals that he may be dying, but then explains it's because he used to eat lead paint chips as a child, and now he's paying for it. The nonchalance with which he reveals is what clinches it.

Season 4

• Drew's new girlfriend, Cindy, reveals her darkest secret: as a teenager she was assigned to babysit the mayor's infant child. On a whim, she went rollerskating to get popsicles, while holding the baby. She tripped and accidentally through the baby down a storm drain, where it drowned. Horrifying on paper, but Drew's increasingly shocked expression during the whole story is what brings it back over to hilarious.

• Portia auditions to play herself in what amounts to the unauthorized Lifetime biopic of Dory. The casting directors instead cast her as Dory, despite the fact that she's not Iraqi-American. She's then horrified to see that the actress portraying herself is in fact ten years older than her, and Chantal is being played by a Statuesque Stunner.

• The surreal car chase, wherein both parties are chasing each other without realizing it, and getting increasingly frustrated with the perceived idiocy of the other.

• Cindy's proposal to Drew. It includes having his family pop up out of nowhere, along with Grandfather Rooster (a mascot from Merry Merry Land where she works), then finally herself, singing a song who's lyrics basically consist of "When you know, you know, you know, you know." Drew is horrified.

• Chip admits to Dory that he has no idea how his brainwashing technique worked, and couldn't replicate it if he tried, because he read half of one book and a few articles on the subject, and then injected her with a cocktail made of drugs that had been sitting in his aunt Lyla's house for 30 years.

Season 5