Dory had it rough last season. The anti-hero of the TBS-turned-HBO Max cult hit Search Party, played by Alia Shawkat, found herself going from aimless New York City millennial to victim of a kidnapping, being held captive, tortured, and brainwashed by an evil Twink. The trailer for the show’s fifth and final season introduces to a happier, even effervescent Dory. Only problem? It looks like she’s become a cult leader.
“I believe that if people don’t awaken soon, something very bad will happen to us,” an awakened Dory cryptically tells a trio of doctors at the trailer’s start. “I have to save everyone from their pain.” What is she talking about? Even her friends don’t know, one writing her rantings off as “narcissism,” another saying, “If that’s not what crazy looks like, I don’t what is.”
But others disagree. Jeff Goldblum swings by as a character named “Tunnel Quinn,” breathlessly claiming that Dory’s ideas — which seem to be a bit of New Age crossed with hippie crap, with more than few notes of something sinister — “could change the course of human history.”
And so Dory — whose selfish, foolish actions have gotten people killed — may become more dangerous than ever. Which is to say she becomes popular. (And, surely, profitable.) On top of that, a show that’s already inspired countless spilled ink about what it says about millennials will add more fuel to an already raging fire. And it’ll do so while giving what looks like a plum role to no less than John Waters as well.
Search Party’s final season begins streaming on Jan. 7 on HBO Max. You can watch the trailer above.