'The Afterparty' Season 2 review: Genre-bending murder mystery is still a total delight
If The Afterparty Season 1 taught us anything, it's that "we all get one shot twice."
Originally part of Aniq (Sam Richardson) and Yasper's (Ben Schwartz) rap banger "Two Shots," the phrase speaks to The Afterparty itself. If you're like me, you might wonder how the show would approach its second shot — sorry, season. Could The Afterparty's high-concept premise of "murder mystery meets every movie genre under the sun meets the Rashomon effect" sustain itself further? How would it build on the magic of its first season's puzzle box?
Luckily, The Afterparty Season 2 destroyed any concerns I may have had about the potential longevity of the series. A new murder, new cast, and new slate of film genres certainly keep the show fresh and funny — but it's the season's bigger stylistic swings that truly elevate it.
Who dies on Season 2 of The Afterparty?
Following the formula of its first season, The Afterparty Season 2 once again presents us with the murder of a public figure at an emotionally intense event. This time around, the murder victim is Silicon Valley tech genius Edgar Minnows (Zach Woods), who is found dead the morning after his wedding to antiques enthusiast Grace (Poppy Liu).
Grace also happens to be the younger sister of Season 1's Zoë (Zoë Chao), who attends the wedding with her boyfriend Aniq (Sam Richardson). The two have been dating for a year following the events of Season 1, and Aniq desperately wants to impress Zoë's parents Feng (Ken Jeong) and Vivian (Vivian Wu). So when Grace becomes the prime suspect in Edgar's murder, he calls in Detective Danner (Tiffany Haddish) to help solve Edgar's murder, prove that Grace is innocent, and gain Feng and Vivian's approval along the way.
From here, The Afterparty uses the same basic structure as Season 1, with each episode centering on one of Danner and Aniq's suspect interviews. The wedding guests' stories play out in extended flashbacks, or "mind movies," that are styled after whichever film genre most fits the character's point of view. Season 1 brought us episodes based on romantic comedies, thrillers, and high-octane action flicks. This time around, we're in for a Jane Austen Regency-era romance, a heist, and much, much more.
The Afterparty dials its mind movies up a notch in Season 2.
While The Afterparty's mind movies, with their careful emulation of each genre's tropes and styles, were already delightful in Season 1, Season 2 takes these narrative devices to an entirely new level.
On top of playing with elements like cinematography, music, and sound, The Afterparty Season 2 also immerses us further in each character's mindset with more exaggerated costuming, hair and makeup, and production design choices. Season 1's characters wore the same costumes in every mind movie, and the sets and props remained constant as well. Here, they switch depending on whose point of view we're watching. An especially hilarious film noir episode dresses characters in sleek suits and fedoras, while the Jane Austen episode sees characters exchanging lavish, handwritten letters while wearing elaborate gowns. Elsewhere, an inspired Wes Anderson-themed installment takes painstaking efforts to evoke the filmmaker's signature style across the board.
The Afterparty also takes bigger risks with its storytelling this season. Instead of just focusing on the events of the wedding, its characters delve into their backstories so we understand their emotions going into the wedding. The approach certainly deepens our understanding of how each guest thinks of the others, but the larger narrative scope does lack a bit of the focus of the mostly reunion-centric Season 1, meaning some of the details of the case fall to the wayside. The Afterparty does manage to balance these flaws somewhat as Zoë takes on a larger role in the present and carries out her own high-stakes investigation.
Still, with a stacked cast of actors playing a wacky rogue's gallery of suspects, it's a joy to spend more time in each character's world. On top of the aforementioned guests, we have Edgar's strange inner circle: his paranoid mother Isabel (Elizabeth Perkins), his quirky sister Hannah (Anna Konkle), and his suave business partner Sebastian (Jack Whitehall). More of Grace's guests include her world traveling "funcle" Ulysses (John Cho) and her ex boyfriend-turned-Reddit detective Travis (Paul Walter Hauser).
Everyone in the cast gets several standout moments, especially as their characters are warped through the lens of other genres. Perhaps more pressingly, anyone could be the killer. Once again, The Afterparty presents a series of valid motives and compelling evidence, paired with twists and turns that will leave you adjusting your murderer theories with each episode.
With this new mystery and an escalation in creativity, there's no doubt about it: This season is proof that The Afterparty's still got it, and that you can definitely nail your one shot twice. (Now if we're lucky, maybe we'll even get that one shot... thrice?)
The first two episodes of The Afterparty premiere July 12 on Apple TV+, with new episodes weekly.