‘The Afterparty’ Season 2: Another Man Murdered…and His Pet Lizard!

Secret romances! Secret betrayals! Secret conflicts! Secret conspiracies! Secret parentage! Secret secrets! All that and more are part of The Afterparty, a comedic whodunit that puts a novel twist on the Agatha Christie template. The maiden 2022 season of Christopher Miller’s Apple TV+ series was an entertainingly intriguing hit, and thankfully, it proves to be equally charming and witty in its sophomore outing, which premieres July 12. Awash in closeted skeletons and ulterior motives, it’s a playfully self-conscious caper that thrives courtesy of its uniquely diverse form as well as an excellent performance from star Sam Richardson.

In the wake of their prior brush with homicide, Aniq (Richardson) and Zoë (Zoë Chao) head to the wedding of Zoë’s younger sister Grace (Poppy Liu) and her tech-magnate fiancé Edgar (Zach Woods) at the latter’s expansive vineyard estate. There, they’re joined by a motley assortment of guests: Edgar’s sister Hannah (Anna Konkle), widowed mother Isabel (Elizabeth Perkins), and business partner Sebastian (Jack Whitehall); Grace and Zoë’s parents Feng (Ken Jeong) and Vivian (Vivian Wu), as well as their long-gone uncle Ulysses (John Cho); and Grace’s ex-boyfriend Travis (Paul Walter Hauser). There’s also Edgar’s beloved pet lizard Roxana, who perpetually sits on her master’s shoulder, doesn’t like cake, and is treated like a member of the family.

Following their inauspicious arrival at the festivities (due to Aniq’s flawed car-parking skills), the series fast-forwards to the scene of the crime: Grace and Edgar’s bedroom, where—the morning after the nuptials—Edgar is found face-down in his pillow, as dead as his scaly friend is in her nearby glass case. Beginning with haughty and rude Isabel, suspicion is immediately cast in the direction of Grace, given that she’s a quirky antiques dealer who comes from little money and had refused to sign a pre-nuptial agreement.

Yet over the course of its 10 episodes (nine of which were provided to press), everyone at this gathering turns out to be a legitimate suspect with clandestine incentives to off the groom. As designed by Miller (whose frequent partner, Phil Lord, serves as an executive producer), the show is a tangled knot of causes and effects, and one that reveals its truths slowly, the better to upend expectations.

Unwittingly thrust into detective duty, Aniq and Zoë—the latter of whom is desperate to establish her sibling’s innocence—once again enlist the aid of Danner (Tiffany Haddish), who’s now left the police force to become an author (her first book, naturally, is about last season’s case). The Afterparty’s central formal hook is that each episode revolves around Danner and Aniq interviewing a potential killer whose version of events is recounted via a different genre. Thus, Grace’s tale about meeting and falling for Edgar is imagined as a Jane Austen-esque fable, replete with absurdist period clothing and flourishes, while scheming Sebastian’s story is an Ocean’s Eleven-ish heist, Isabel’s is a suspenseful 1950s melodrama, and wannabe shaved-ice magnate Jeong’s is told through a contemporary TikTok lens.

Of these, the best is the hardboiled black-and-white detective filter used for Travis’ episode, which allows for a level of goofy affectation that generates consistent laughs. That’s also due to Hauser, who continues to be an amazingly dexterous actor, as comfortable pratfalling his way through these shenanigans as he was generating terror in last year’s Black Bird.

Jamie Demetriou, Britain’s Funniest Actor, Stages His American ‘Afterparty’

A Reddit-pilled online sleuth who’s convinced that Edgar is up to no good and that, consequently, Grace is in terrible danger, Hauser’s Travis is pure gold. His presence routinely enlivens the proceedings, whose other modes include pantomimes of ’90s erotic thrillers (Basic Instinct and Body of Evidence, in particular) and the movies of Wes Anderson, whose The Royal Tenenbaums is mimicked with an adoring authenticity that outpaces those recent, insufferable AI memes.

The Afterparty infuses its genre homages with equal parts love and ridiculousness, and its light touch is key to its zippiness. Miller and his creative cohorts introduce various random elements and asides in early episodes so that they can explain and expand upon them at a later date, and their multiple perspectives work in tandem to eventually afford a cohesive 360-degree view of the truth. Think of it as a Rashomon-style stunt, except with more meta hijinks and an ultimate answer to its preoccupying question—as well as a cast of shady types who prevent the action from ever devolving into a lethargic guessing game.

Only in Danner’s installment does this season of The Afterparty waver, and that’s because it’s the sole instance in which the show tips its hand too early, neutering any comedic shocks by telegraphing where it’s going. Otherwise, it’s a tantalizing manor-house mystery that finds novel ways to pull the rug out from under audiences’ feet, both when it comes to bombshells about Edgar’s assassination—which, everyone soon deduces, was perpetrated by poison—and with regards to its wacko jokiness, such as a solo dance in the rain by Ulysses set to an instrumental version of “Careless Whisper.”

The series is energized by the same sort of fast-paced, interaction-heavy, out-of-left-field writing that marks all of Lord and Miller’s work (be it 21 Jump Street, The Lego Movie, or Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse), and its inventiveness is amplified by droll and delirious turns from talented players like Perkins, Whitehall, Jeong, and Woods.

No matter how much screen time they’re given, everyone involved in this madcap story is funny, and Richardson is at the top of that list. The Detroiters and I Think You Should Leave veteran is the material’s bumbling straight man, desperate to impress Zoë’s parents (since he wants to ask for her hand in marriage) and yet incapable of not screwing up his every opportunity to do so, and Richardson’s exasperation is the lifeblood of many of the show’s finest mirthful moments.

At the same time, though, he’s a sneakily sharp wiseass who’s not afraid to tell it like it is—or, rather, he is afraid, but nonetheless pushes past those fears to do what needs to be done. With Haddish’s Danner imagined more as his second-banana sidekick than his equal, Richardson’s Aniq is a Hercule Poirot for a millennial age, and the undisputed life of The Afterparty.

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