Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Afterparty’ Season 2 On Apple TV+, Where Aniq, Danner And Zoe Investigate Another Hilarious Murder

Usually we are more in favor of actors going against their usual type of characters, but there are times where we like when an ensemble plays to their individual strengths. The first season of The Afterparty proved that when you get a cast of strong comedic actors doing just that, you get a pretty funny show. Now, the show is back with a few of the characters from Season 1 involved in a brand new mystery.

THE AFTERPARTY SEASON 2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A car approaches the entrance of a vineyard. “Wow! This is fancy!” says Aniq (Sam Richardson).

The Gist: Aniq and Zoe (Zoë Chao) are now dating, and they’re driving into the vineyard to go to the wedding of Zoe’s sister Grace (Poppy Liu). Grace is marrying Edgar (Zach Woods), the scion of the family who owns the vineyard. Aniq is nervous because he’s going to be meeting Zoe’s parents, Feng (Ken Jeong) and Vivian (Vivian Wu) for the first time, and wants to make a good impression.

Of course, nothing goes smoothly, and we see a montage of scenes that concludes with Edgar dead the morning after his wedding, with Grace finding him while she’s still wearing her wedding dress. As everyone gathers around the body, Aniq notices that Roxana, the lizard that Edgar always had on his shoulder, was also dead. He tells Zoe that he thinks they were both poisoned.

Edgar’s mother Isabel (Elizabeth Perkins) also thinks her son was murdered, and she orders everyone to stay on the property until she can get in touch with the sheriff… but not yet. Also, she thinks that Grace definitely did it, so she can inherit the business and his wealth.

Aniq knows that Isabel has the sheriff in her pocket, so he decides to call an old friend: Detective Danner (Tiffany Haddish). Well, she’s a former detective, as she left the force to write a book about the last murder she solved, though her agent notices she hasn’t written anything yet. When she gets the call from Aniq, she immediately hops in her car. But, as per her usual, she wants him to tell her the whole story from the beginning. As is his wont, Aniq makes it sound like a romantic comedy, i.e. “Aniq 2: The Sequel.”

That story consists of the terrible first impression he makes on Zoe’s parents when he leaves his car in neutral and it backs into Feng’s Taiwanese shaved ice truck. He also gets sequestered to the single people’s table at the rehearsal dinner, watching Edgar’s charming business partner and best man Sebastian (Jack Whitehall) chat up Zoe while he talks to Grace’s strange ex Travis (Paul Walter Hauser). Then Sebastian has a surprise: Zoe and Grace’s adventurous “funcle” Ulysses (John Cho) shows up; he wants the bride and groom to drink from a horn of fermented sheep’s milk for good luck and Edgar refuses. Trying to ingratiate himself, Aniq says yes and ends up spitting it all over Vivian.

On the wedding day, there are more disasters; Edgar entrusts Aniq with Roxana and he ends up losing her during the reception, and Zoe and Grace have a blowup when Zoe tells her she shouldn’t marry Edgar.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Afterparty Season 1; we love the format that carries over Danner, Aniq and Zoe but makes a completely new mystery. In that way, it feels a bit like Poker Face.

Our Take: As with the first season, creators Phil Lord and Christopher Miller lean into the comedy mystery genre, with The Afterparty‘s now well-established format of each suspect telling their side of the story as a different movie genre. Also as with the first season, the talented ensemble are doing characters we’ve seen them do many times in the past, but with the secret sauce is that these characters are all bouncing off each other.

Let’s be honest: Haven’t we all seen Ken Jeong play someone who barely represses his “short guy rage” all the time, or Woods play an emotionless weirdo, or Perkins play an officious matriarch? It doesn’t matter; having all of these actors’ archetypes playing off each other and give their own version of the events surrounding the murder is a formula that pays dividends on a regular basis.

The difference with Season 2 is now we have anchors in Aniq, Zoe and Danner. We know what all three of them are like. Aniq is persistently uncomfortable, like tons of Richardson’s past characters; Zoe is Chao’s usual combination of bubbly and sweet with a hint of cynicism; Haddish is outlandish and encouraging, as we’ve seen her play many times.

We don’t know for sure Aniq and Zoe had nothing to do with Edgar’s murder, but we’re pretty sure they didn’t; having them as the observers of all this craziness is a good spot for them. And of course Danner’s need to have stories told to her in movie genre form is funny because she knows those genres so well and directs people to tell parts of the story that fill in the plot the way she likes, even if it doesn’t have anything to do with the murder itself.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: To Aniq’s surprise, Danner walks into the house, which Danner guesses has at least six bathrooms. “We’ve got a dead body and lots of people to talk to. Let’s have some fun!” she yells to the group, then throws Aniq a bag of chicken nuggets she got on the way over.

Sleeper Star: We didn’t mention Anna Konkle as Edgar’s sister Hannah. The first words out of her mouth when she’s introduced to Aniq is, “Well… adopted.”

Most Pilot-y Line: “What do you know about cryptocurrency?” Travis asks Aniq at the rehearsal dinner. Is “cryptocurrency” now shorthand for “clueless doofus?”

Our Call: STREAM IT. Once again, The Afterparty has a funny ensemble that plays to their strengths in a solid format.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.