The Afterparty, the new star-studded murder mystery comedy from the vaunted production team of Phil Lord and Chris Miller, is the first piece of AppleTV+ content that has this reviewer about to pull the trigger on subscribing to the near three-year-old streaming service.
Many readers might be wondering how this series and not AppleTV+’s flagship series Ted Lasso has yours truly on the precipice of plopping down a subscription fee. Well, there are two reasons.
First, AppleTV+ was smart and decided to drop the first episode of the series for free on YouTube to allow for mass consumption. Simply put, convenience is king. Instead of having to drop a monthly fee to see if this show was even worth checking out, AppleTV+ gave the world a taste of what this series could be.
That taste was the brilliance of Lord and Miller’s formula. It’s one they’ve employed in their forays into television (The Last Man on Earth) and film (The LEGO Movie). They gather a cast of tried and true actors who have both comedic and dramatic chops and allow them to run wild in a story that both pays homage to and subverts traditional stories. In this case, it’s the all-star murder mystery (take your pick of anything from Knives Out to Murder on the Orient Express) and instead of it being the classic “the detective will smoke out the murderer,” they allow the detective to be the conductor of a silly symphony of individual stories. It shouldn’t work, but in classic Lord and Miller fashion, it does on comedic, dramatic, and emotional levels.
The premiere episode “Aniq” sets the table for the series. A celebrity named Xavier (Dave Franco, Now You See Me 2) is murdered at the afterparty of his high school reunion. The suspects are his classmates who all appear to have motive to want the Bieber-esque celeb dead. It’s up to Detective Danner (Tiffany Haddish, Girls Trip) to solve the crime before the feds come and take over the investigation. Her method of interrogation is having each suspect tell their story so she can imagine the movie in their mind in order to determine who the killer is.
The premiere focuses on Aniq (Sam Richardson, Office Christmas Party) an escape room designer who attends his high school reunion in hopes of finally getting the girl of his dreams Zoe (Zoë Chao, Strangers). The episode is told in the form of a rom-com, with Aniq and Zoe having multiple meet-cutes, different men (Franco and Ike Barinholtz) interrupting their romantic moments, and Aniq’s best bud Yasper (Ben Schwartz, Parks & Recreation) giving him advice. Of course, the story leads Danner and the audience to suspect that maybe, just maybe, this “nice guy” could actually be our murderer, a plot device that is recycled throughout the subsequent episodes.
The rom-com formula is played to perfection by the team of Richardson, Chao, and Schwartz. Richardson assumes the charmingly befuddled role Hugh Grant made famous for years and plays it to absolute adorable perfection. Chao is wonderful in her role as Aniq’s manic pixie dream girl (who also is still rooted in reality) while Ben Schwartz just Ben Schwartzes it in a way only he can, and that is meant as the highest of compliments. The implementation of the rom-com genre works perfectly as a possible foundation for the murder as Franco’s Xavier interrupts all of the tender moments between Zoe and Aniq. Couple that with Aniq being embarrassed by other party members when he blacks out, and one can deduce he has every motive to kill someone.
The MVP of the episode, however, goes to Tiffany Haddish. She plays a much more reserved role in the premiere. Her character is more of a point guard than the star player. She serves up the comedy for her co-stars to run with, she’s a plot mover, and ultimately, she’s the center of all the suspense in the premiere. It’s a role Haddish embodies effortlessly, and it leaves you wanting more with every line.
The Afterparty’s only real issue is that this probably works better as a binge-watch as opposed to the episodic format it employs. Outside of that, The Afterparty is easily one of the most creative comedies to hit any platform in a long, long time. It’s so good that it might just convince you (like it did me) to subscribe to AppleTV+.
