by Adam Ritchie, Contributing Writer
Created and directed by Christopher Miller (of Lord and Miller fame) The Afterparty boasts an enticing cast of modern, freshly established comedic actors, and some fresh faces also. Tiffany Haddish, Sam Richardson, Ike Barinholtz, Ben Schwartz, Ilana Glazer, Dave Franco, John Early and plenty more star in this fun and engaging murder mystery. The genre is really taking off again after Rian Johnson’s 2019 masterwork, Knives Out.
The premise is that a group of people attend the afterpartyof their 15-year high school reunion. The hook is that the party is at Xavier’s (Franco) house. Xavier is an ex-band dweeb who has become a world famous pop star and actor. The series opens with Xavier falling to his death onto the rocky shoreline beneath his ocean front mansion.
In the Rashomon style ofstory telling where everyone is a suspect, each episode focuses on recounting the evenings activities from the perspective of one of the key players. I won’t give a rundown of each episode, rather I will give you an overview of the key characters and plot drivers.
Aniq (Richardson) had a crush on Zoë (Zoe Chao) all through high school, and goes to the reunion with hopes of advancing the long lost relationship that never was. Zoë is now a teacher at the same high school, and has also recently divorced Brett (Barinholtz), who had agreed to look after their daughter Maggie (Everly Carganilla) for the night. But Brett is a bit of a jerk, hires a babysitter, and shows up the reunion anyway, creating tension as you’d expect.
Yasper (Schwartz) is Xavier’s ex-best-friend. They were a Ska band duo in high school, but now Yasper has in own AV installation business. Chelsea (Ilana Glazer) appears unhinged and was a bit of an outcast, as the rest of the class think she is crazy. She also receives threatening texts from a mysterious number.
Detective Danner (Haddish) is instructed to keep all the suspects together until another (better) detective arrives to interrogate the group. Obviously ignoring these orders, she begins a series of interviews with each suspect, giving us our Rashomon style telling of the night.
I’m not sure I want to give any more away here, as there is a lot more I think viewers should discover themselves. I highly recommend going into this knowing as little as possible, so hopefully the above is enough to entice you into watching The After Party. It is a super fun murder mystery with what I think is a pretty satisfying conclusion.
The negative, if you can call it that is that every actor (other than Franco) is playing an extended version of themselves, with variations on characters we may have seen them play before. No one seems stretched dramatically here, but for me, that is a strength of the series. Miller has empowered and trusted each performer to be their best selves, and it shows in the final product. I just know there is a lot of great material left on the cutting room floor, and I hope we get to see some of the ad libbing that didn’t make the cut. For me, there are two clear standouts, the first being Haddish; she is wonderful in a more subdued role, but with still enough Haddish in there to know who we are watching. Secondly, Richardson is fantastic. He is quickly climbing the list of must-see actors regardless of the roles he chooses, and he really steals the show for me.
This is definitely a recommend from me, especially if you already have Apple TV+.
Rating: 8/10
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