Freaking AMPTP! I feel like there has been absolutely no hype for the second season of the insanely creative mystery-comedy, The Afterparty, and that’s because none of the major studios can decide to pay people a living wage! There were a small handful of interviews that squeaked out in time, but I would have loved to have seen some of the amazing stars this season get the chance to market the show.
Oh well, you just get to rely on me instead. After being so surprised by the format of this show’s first season, I did go into this new one expecting to be let down a little bit. And to be fair, I was. That’s not to take away at all from the amazing cast and totally different genres explored in each episode this time around. Those were still a terrific surprise each and every week. As I saw one reviewer say, the plot this time around wasn’t as finely tuned as the first season, but it still produced a murderer that I wasn’t expecting. I think I didn’t do myself any favors by watching this week to week because I myself never nailed down a solid suspect. It really could have been any one of them, so I’ll be curious if anyone in my family can figure it out before the finale.
Anyway, this time around Zoe is still dating Anique, and the two are headed to her sister, Grace’s wedding. She’s marrying an uber-rich, and uber-weird businessman, Edgar, who’s recently got his hands in the cryptocurrency world. The wedding goes off with some oddities, like Grace’s ex, Travis in attendance, her and Zoe’s uncle, Ulysses, riding in on a horse, and then a whole host of other strange characters much closer to our bride and groom. There’s also all sorts of relationship that get unearthed as each episode airs, so it makes it that much more tangled as to who could have been responsible for Edgar’s deceased form in the bed beside Grace the next morning.
Grace is the obvious suspect, as most spouses are, and there are definitely lots of reasons why it could be her, but that just felt way too obvious for me. But I can’t be the judge for you. You make your own assumptions as you continue to watch. What remains really fun about this show is the different genres each episode takes on. Anique gets his rom-com sequel, there’s a period piece, a noir crime drama, an erotic thriller, and an epic romance, among many other. My absolute favorites come in the form of a Wes Anderson – apparently called twee – themed episode, and an 80s soap opera. They were both perfection and had me cackling a lot in both reverence and embarrassment.
If you enjoyed the first season, or just want another new and interesting mystery comedy to watch, then you must give the second season of The Afterparty a try. I was happy they had some main characters return from the first season, but I wonder if potential future seasons will be treated more strictly as an anthology. I think they’d do just fine in starting over with a new cast of characters and it’s very possibly set up to do so. We shall see!