The art of making a mystery in the world of smartphones

Picture this: You’re out at Sunday brunch with your friends -- mimosas all around! -- and suddenly the conversation turns to something no one knows the answer to.

Perhaps it’s an obscure plot point from a childhood movie. (“I’ll Google it!”) Or a question about the girl who sat behind you in history class. (“I’ll find her on Facebook.”) Or what’s the capital of Azerbaijan, anyway? (“It’s Baku! I looked it up.”)

There aren’t many questions that go unanswered these days. Thanks to the smartphone you carry around in your pocket, any shred of uncertainty is quickly solved.

There is an art to creating a mystery series in this modern age of 24/7 information, smartphones and social media. It’s something that Search Party co-creators Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers know all too well.

Inspired by classic mystery themes culled from books, television and popular culture, Bliss and Rogers looked to the “missing girl” motif as a way to weave in their storyline about a group of friends seeking to also find themselves.

“When we were creating the story, I don’t think we really wanted social media to be at the forefront of the plot because we wanted it to feel like a classic in a lot of ways,” says Rogers.

“But the tools in which they get through the plot sometimes end up being through social media.”

Search Party, which airs Mondays at 11/10c on TBS, is a wryly dark comedy-meets-mystery series, set in the millennial New York hipster scene. It’s like Nancy Drew and the gang from Scooby-Doo were transformed into a group of five self-absorbed 20-somethings who are just trying to figure it all out.

Led by Dory (Alia Shawkat), the friends become entangled in an ominous mystery when former college acquaintance Chantal (Clare McNulty) suddenly disappears.

But Chantal isn’t the only one who’s lost.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

“To make it a millennial show, and to make it satirical, we wanted to use the quest to find a missing girl to be like Dory’s pathway to finding herself,” says Rogers.

“So it was like using the genre to say something a little bit more about feeling lost and wanting to have a meaningful existence and feeling like you are the main character of your own life. We used the trope of the missing girl to dive into deeper territory with our characters.”

Finding yourself can be a daunting task though -- especially with the constant reminders (thanks Instagram!) about all the fabulous things everyone else appears to be doing. But things are not always what they seem. And the smiling selfie you see online might be hiding something darker.

Developing a mystery show about millennials requires an exploration of some of the finer complexities this digital age presents.

“The way people perform grief in earnestness online is always cringey,” says Rogers.

“It kind of brings into question people’s actual motivations -- if you just want to be seen as an earnest person having a profound moment publicly or not.”

And in a city as big as New York, it’s not uncommon to be in close contact with friends over text or social media, but never quite find the time to see them in person.

“Even when you’re living in the same city as some of your best friends, then you literally won’t see them for six months,” says Bliss.

“It’s like you’re interacting with them still, even if you’re not physically in the same space.”

While developing the show and brainstorming in the writers’ room, the presence of smartphones in these characters’ lives was always something simmering under the surface. It’s a tool to help them -- but also something that could potentially hinder the plot.

Co-creator Sarah-Violet Bliss says that for plot development, our text-happy culture makes it easier to move things along. Rather than showing characters communicating key information to each other, viewers understand that they’ve already been filled in off-camera.

“When you jump to the next scene, you can assume that everyone knows what the situation is because in the world we live in we all text each other,” says Bliss.

“But when you want someone to be in a pickle, you have to somehow figure out why they couldn’t use their phone.”

Bliss says she remembers having moments in the writers’ room when they would ask each other, “Well why wouldn’t she just call?”

Though you can Google whatever pops into your head and sleuth your way through hundreds of social media profiles, not everything is just a click away. There are still mysteries in this world that can’t be solved online with a click of a button.

Sometimes discovering the answer takes a bit of detective work leading you down a breadcrumb trail of clues and a good, old-fashioned Search Party.

Want to learn more about how to hone your sleuthing skills? Watch the first episode of Search Party below and tune in on 11/21 on TBS to see the rest of the story unfold.