History Series / SearchParty

* CanadaEh: The search eventually takes the gang to Montréal.

* AmbiguousDisorder: Dory hallucinates the dead (or the presumed dead) speaking to her as an externalization of her own guilt, has daydreams so vivid that she mistakes them for reality, and, come season 3, [[spoiler: [[BelievingTheirOwnLies is able to seamlessly convince herself that she isn't guilty of any of the crimes she has committed]].]]

When directionless millennial Dory Sief (Creator/AliaShawkat) learns a girl she vaguely knew in college named Chantal (Claire [=McNulty=]) has gone missing, she enlists her boyfriend Drew (John Reynolds) and their friends, {{hipster}} Elliott (John Early) and wannabe actress Portia (Meredith Hagner), to help find her. The group's investigation leads them in many weird directions, and what began as an amateur missing persons case eventually [[SerialEscalation devolves into something else entirely]]. In addition to the main cast, additional recurring and guest roles are filled with the likes of Creator/RosiePerez, Creator/RonLivingston, Creator/ParkerPosey, Creator/GriffinNewman, Creator/LouieAnderson, and Creator/WallaceShawn, [[AllStarCast just to name a few]].

* DownerEnding:
** [[spoiler:Everything Dory and the rest of the group did to find Chantal was absolutely pointless and now Keith is dead for no reason at all. The first season ends with Dory looking shell-shocked into the camera.]]
** [[spoiler: The second season ends with Dory killing April by pushing her off of a ferry, and later getting arrested at an event for being connected to the murder of Keith.]]
** [[spoiler: Dory escapes justice for Keith's death in the third season, only to be captured by her obsessed fan and chained up.]]

* RichIdiotWithNoDayJob: Played with. Dory's employer at the beginning of the series Gail is introduced as such, being the estranged wife of a morally dubious businessman who doesn't work and pays Dory to do odd jobs and serve as someone for her to talk to. From what we see of her though, while perhaps a bit spacey, she's a genuinely kind and thoughtful person [[LikeASonToMe who cares about Dory as a mother would]]. Dory exploits this kindness several times, never once suggesting that she sees Gail as anything beyond her "crazy boss".

** The only mention of Dory's parents throughout the first two seasons is when she tells Senator Ferguson that they're Iraqi immigrants to explain [[AmbiguouslyBrown her ethnic background]]. Outside of that, she doesn't seem to even think of them, and goes exclusively to either her friends or Gail for support regardless of the situation. [[spoiler: We finally meet them in season 3, where it is confirmed that Dory essentially cut all contact with them after leaving home for college [[SmallTownBoredom out of defiance of their humdrum lifestyle]]. When she's forced to reconnect with them for the sake of improving her public image during her trial, she shows no interest in them beyond how they can benefit her and they admit to knowing so little about her that they don't doubt that she could be capable of murder.]]

* AmbiguouslyBrown: Dory is curly-haired and has a somewhat dark complexion, along with a non-European sounding surname. In season 2, this ethnic ambiguity earns her a job working on Senator Mary Ferguson's campaign team as a diversity hire, where she confirms that her parents are Iraqi immigrants.

* SimilarSquad: Portia befriends a group of young people that superficially resemble her three friends (an AmbiguouslyBrown girl, a CampGay guy, and a quiet white guy) after she becomes a born again Christian in season 3. The similarities stop there, however, and Portia quickly becomes bored spending time with them.

* ArtefactTitle: The show entirely moves beyond its initial premise of a search party for a missing person after the first season, with [[GenreShift the story shifting from a mystery to a murder thriller]] [[spoiler: once Chantal has been found.]] However, Season 4 sees a return to this premise with [[spoiler: the abduction of Dory and her friends forming a search party for her.]]

* ArtefactTitle: The show entirely moves past its initial premise of a search party for a missing person after the first season, with [[GenreShift the story shifting from a mystery to a murder thriller once [[spoiler: Chantal has been found.]]]] [[spoiler: Season 4 sees a return to this premise with the abduction of Dory and her friends serving as the search party for her.]]

* DawsonCasting: Invoked. [[spoiler: The film adaptation of Dory's murder case casts a middle-aged actress to play Portia. Portia is understandably displeased when she learns this, while the actress unsuccessfully attempts to claim that they're close together in age. Out of universe, the actress is played by Creator/BusyPhilipps, who is only eight years older than Portia's actress Meredith Hagner, making it ironically more of a case of PlayingGertrude.]]

* ClusterFBomb: In the {{Pilot}}, Dory screams at Drew repeatedly to "Shut the fuck up." Later on, April gives him a ReasonYouSuckSpeech [[UpToEleven that is even more vulgar.]]

* CreepyChild: [[spoiler: Aspen, Elliot and Marc's adopted son in the fifth season who starts killing people offscreen [[UpToEleven even before becoming a zombie himself.]] ]]

* AdvertisedExtra: Julian often appears in promotional images alongside the main four, and is billed as a series lead. Despite this, he's an AbsenteeActor in several episodes and, so far, is completely disconnected from the main plot. He's significant more as a {{Foil}} to the main group than he is for any actual story involvement.

* BittersweetEnding: The series finale leans so hard toward the "Bitter" half of this trope that it would likely be considered a DownerEnding were it not for it being relatively more pleasant for the protagonists than the endings of previous seasons. [[spoiler: The main four cause a zombie apocalypse that wipes out a majority of the United States' population. While they survive the ordeal and are able to mostly return to their old lives, [[IgnoredEpiphany they are completely unaffected by anything they have experienced and don't appear to hold themselves accountable for the current state of the world]], with Dory in particular seemingly having abandoned her aspirations of doing anything that goes beyond her shallow Brooklyn millennial lifestyle. Even their friendship remaining in-tact could be argued to be more bad than good, as the series goes to great lengths to show how toxic it is for each of them.]]

The insufferably arrogant Chantal unsurprisingly has "Imperfect Ten" be the title of the book about herself. As she explains: "Even though the common person might think that I am a perfect ten, I am indeed flawed. I may still be a ten, but I am not perfect".

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Conservative news icon Charlie Reeny is a clear parody of Fox News' Tomi Lahren, right down to the GenderBlenderName.

* ItsAllMyFault: Subverted in the end when a zombie apocalypse descends upon Manhattan as a result of Dory’s actions. Dory seems to have a HeelRealization but it becomes immediately clear that it’s routed in ItsAllAboutMe as she gets in a petty argument with Chantal about which one of them caused the end of the world.

* AnAesop: Narcissists are destructive to those around them. This is an exaggerated lesson since Dory’s narcissism ultimately leads to the collapse of society.

* ApocalypseHow / CosyCatastrophe: [[spoiler:The series ends with Dory accidentally causing a zombie apocalypse that obliterates most of the American population, forcing Dory and her friends to live in a new world where zombies remain a daily threat (a livable one, however, as the group and the other survivors end up returning to their lives mostly unbothered]].

* BittersweetEnding: The series finale leans so hard toward the "Bitter" half of this trope that it would likely be considered a DownerEnding were it not for it being relatively more pleasant for the protagonists than the endings of previous seasons. [[spoiler: The main four cause a zombie apocalypse that wipes out a majority of the United States' population. While they survive the ordeal and are able to return to something somewhat resembling their old lives, [[IgnoredEpiphany they are completely unaffected by anything they have experienced and don't appear to hold themselves accountable for the current state of the world]], with Dory in particular seemingly having abandoned her aspirations of doing anything that goes beyond her shallow Brooklyn millennial lifestyle. Even their friendship remaining in-tact could be argued to be more bad than good, as the series goes to great lengths to show how toxic it is for each of them.]]

** Season 5 comes full circle: [[spoiler: The series began with Dory seeing a "missing" poster and walking up to it. The final episode closes with her looking at an entire wall of "missing" posters, then walking away, complete with a reprise of "Obedear".]]

* AnAesop: Narcissism is destructive to those around you. This is an exaggerated lesson since Dory’s narcissism ultimately leads to the collapse of society.

* BiTheWay: [[spoiler:Dory and Portia spend much of the final season in a relationship. On Portia's end, at the very least, it's very serious.]]