Search Party has a pretty limited gender spread. Of the entire credited series cast so far, there are 69 men and 77 women. There is only a single actor on the show that does not identify as cis-gendered male or female. That actor is Jason Greene, who identifies as genderfluid. The character they play on the show is ambiguous in gender, but is only present in a single episode. Other than Greene’s character, however, the rest of the gender spread on the show is fairly black and white, varying only between cis-gendered male or female.

The show divides the agency of males and females relatively equally. All the characters on the show are relatively bad people. They’re self-interested and misled. Our lead, Dory Sief, is so absorbed in her fixation with Chantal that she recklessly bulldozes through her friends’ lives and drags them down the rabbit-hole with her. In fact, out of the four main cast members, the only one who seems to have unselfish intentions is Portia, but her decisions are still influenced by  a deep rooted desire to feel important. The main cast is evenly split between male and female (as long as we consider Julian, Keith, and Chantal as satellite characters), so agency in the show is also split fairly evenly. Additionally, many of the supporting characters also make decisions that influence the progression of the show. Some notable endeavors are the controversial articles that Julian publishes or Lorraine’s suicide.

Race, unlike gender in the show, is represented relatively well. The show does take place in New York City, after all. Of the five main cast members, two of them are explicitly not Caucasian: Dory is Iraqi-American and Julian is African American. Other characters in the show are also non-white, including Agnes Cho, Lorraine De Coss, and Keith’s ex-wife Deb. An interesting observation to make is that most of the notable minority characters also tend to be female.

The majority of the women on the show are presented as heterosexual. The one exception is the woman Dory meets with to discuss a job offer, who is so completely upset with her wife leaving her that it scares Dory away. There are far more gay men present in the show, however, particularly because Elliot himself is gay. Through love interests for Elliot, the show introduces several gay characters, particularly Elliot’s on-and-off boyfriend Marc.

Only Elliot can manage to look this fresh in rehab.

Mental illness is explored more deeply than disability in Search Party, as there aren’t really any characters that are explicitly physically disabled. On the other hand, several of the characters on the show experience varying mental illnesses. Lorraine is the greatest example of this, as it can be inferred she may be schizophrenic. Additionally, Elliot is a “self diagnosed narcissist” and compulsive liar. He has a psychotic break following his involvement in Keith’s murder, and admits himself to a rehabilitation clinic.