Phil Lord and Christopher Miller creating another television show isn't something that happens every day, so I figured I'd take a look at this one. It's a comedic murder mystery that runs eight episodes, stars a nice collection of funny actors - including Tiffany Haddish, Dave Franco, and Ben Schwarz - and has one of the more ambitious gimmicks I've seen in a while. Every episode, except the final one, is produced like it's from a different genre, to reflect the different POVs of the different suspects as they're being interviewed. One remembers everything as a rom-com, another as a thriller, another as a musical, and so on. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't.
The murder takes place at the afterparty of the characters' high school reunion. A pop star named Xavier (Dave Franco) is the victim, and possible suspects include the lovelorn Aniq (Sam Richardson), his unrequited crush Zoe (Zoe Chao), her touchy ex-husband Brett (Barinholtz), Xavier's old bandmate Yasper (Schwartz), the attention-seeking Walt (Jamie Demetriou), and Chelsea (Ilana Glazer), whose reputation was ruined by Xavier in high school. Detective Danner (Haddish) puzzles through a mansion full of clues and everyone's different recollections of what went on that fateful night, and invites the audience to figure out the mystery too. The show's creators designed "The Afterparty" to be a solvable mystery, with secret puzzles and coded messages everywhere. Poke around one of the show's Reddit groups if you want all the answers. I figured out who the murderer was about halfway through on my own, based on the screenwriting tropes involved, which honestly feels like cheating.
Because, "The Afterparty" is a show that wants you to notice that two characters swap drink glasses, and wonder who's locked in the bathroom during a crucial moment, not to think about which character has enough actual connections to Xavier to be a satisfying answer to the mystery. It wants you to pay attention to the little side puzzles and red herrings that pop up over the course of the investigation, and maybe get invested in the cutesy romance that is set up between Aniq and Zoe, not to wonder exactly how much alcohol everyone has been downing all night. I think it's important to keep in mind that "The Afterparty" remains a light comedy throughout, even when it's modeling itself after a scary thriller in one episode, or an action adventure in another. There's a heightened, sitcom quality to all the characters' behaviors that emphasizes that the show is a stylized whodunnit exercise, not meant to resemble reality at all. The suspects are all super broad and eccentric, easily categorized as types. The nerd, the jock, and the weirdo from high school grew up to be… the nerd, the jock, and the weirdo.
Most of my complaints are really with the execution. The series is around two episodes too long (did we really need more than one flashback episode?) and the genre switching gimmick quickly runs out of steam. The first three installments are pretty good at sticking to their assigned tropes, while the subsequent ones are more half-hearted. Zoe's isn't even really a genre, but a style - she gets an animated story where different aspects of her personality battle for dominance during the reunion. This is one of the episodes that doesn't really work, because the tone of it is so out of sync with all of the others. All the stories are very cartoonish, but are generally better about keeping one foot in a shared reality.
At least the performances are fun. I like Tiffany Haddish as the no-nonsense detective in this, along with Sam Richardson and Jamie Demetriou. There's really not enough time, and this isn't the kind of show where anybody gets to do anything too interesting, but I appreciate that everyone is clearly trying. However, it's not a coincidence that one of the characters designs escape rooms, because that's exactly how the creators want you to think of this show. You're not here for a story. You're here for a puzzle, and specifically the type of puzzle that requires watching the show in a certain way to collect clues and follow a carefully laid out path.
I had trouble doing that, so ultimately I don't think this is a show for me. However, I'm sure it's a great watch for somebody else.
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