Binge-worthy: The Afterparty 2 is genre-surfing murder-mystery fun
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(From left) John Cho, Zoe Chao, Paul Walter Hauser, Ken Jeong, Poppy Liu and Vivian Wu in The Afterparty 2.
PHOTO: APPLE TV+
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The Afterparty 2
Apple TV+
3 stars
Season 2 of the comedy whodunnit anthology The Afterparty (2022 to present) sees John Cho and Ken Jeong join returning cast members Sam Richardson, Zoe Chao and Tiffany Haddish, this time to solve a murder at a wedding.
Here are three reasons to watch the campy series, in which each episode depicts events from a different person’s perspective and in a different cinematic genre.
1. A contemporary whodunnit
Zoe (Chao) and Aniq (Richardson) – who got together after Season 1, which was about a murder at their high-school reunion’s afterparty – are attending the wedding of Zoe’s sister Grace (Poppy Liu) and eccentric technology mogul Edgar (Zach Woods).
The event is thick with familial, financial and romantic complications. Things come to a head when Edgar is found dead in his bed the morning after the nuptials, prompting Aniq to call Detective Danner (Haddish) to help solve the case.
2. Genre-bending fun
The series is fantastically funny when it comes to throwaway one-liners and rapid-fire satire, poking fun at everything from crypto bros to the insufferably well-travelled.
PHOTO: APPLE TV+
This is all set up so fast that the show begins fairly abruptly, but that is because this is really just an excuse to have fun with transposing the whodunnit onto different genres and eras.
The second episode is told in the style of a Bridgerton-esque period drama, while other chapters are homages to the whimsical films of American director Wes Anderson, Ocean’s Eleven-style heists and 1940s film noir.
3. Hilariously low stakes and brilliant one-liners
The murder mystery is nothing to shout about. There are a couple of dud episodes and the cast’s talents are distributed rather unevenly.
But the series is fantastically funny when it comes to throwaway one-liners and rapid-fire satire, poking fun at everything from crypto bros to the insufferably well-travelled. And, despite the writers nerding out over all the cinematic references, the show never takes itself too seriously.
No one seems that bothered by the murder, and the use of low-stakes methods to solve high-stakes problems makes for good, silly fun.
