The duo formed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller It has not stopped giving us joy for years with jewels like ‘Spider-Man: A new universe’ among other things. Now it’s Miller who “splits up” (but not much since Lord is among the writers and producers) to create and write ‘The Afterparty’, a stupendous mystery comedy for Apple TV+.
Composed of eight episodes, the series begins with the tragic death of Xavier, musical star played by Dave Franco, in the middle of the victim’s post-high school reunion/birthday party. Interrogated by gossipy Detective Danner (Tiffany Hadish, ‘Girl Plan’), the suspects will count what exactly happened on this fateful night.
With a bit of structure rashomonian, we are seeing the suspects tell their version of the events without losing sight of the comedy genre we are navigating. We have a humor, at times absurd and often hilarious, that permeates this mystery that comes to cover the gap that has left us (although they are big words) ‘Only murders in the building’.
A secondary comedy
One of the things that stands out is the cast, which is populated by “that funny sidekick.” It’s a little a who’s who of actors we’ve seen a thousand times and that, without being the protagonists, manage to steal the scene. This isn’t to say they haven’t starred in anything — Jamie Demetriou with the brilliant ‘Stath Lets Flats,’ Ilana Glazer with ‘Broad City,’ for example — but we generally find the series riddled with regular supporting cast.
This casting choice is not trivial and we could even say that there is a game of metafiction as we move by a group of people trying to take off once, whose life projects have stalled and feel secondary to their own lives and aspirations. All of these will have a common point in Xavier, some of them for being humiliated by him.
Within this choir, if we had to talk about protagonists, these would be Aniq (Sam Richardson, whom we have seen in ‘Veep’), one of the main suspects who will investigate what has happened to clear his name and Danner, from whom we know she’s self-assigning the case even though the captain doesn’t want her there.
A gender party
‘The Afterparty’ becomes aware that it is, indeed, a series and its script is organically structured as the different stories of those who were at the party unfold. Thus, each episode has a different writer, has a main character with your own version (mental movie) of the facts and, in addition, navigate through a different genre.
A genre that is the one that identifies each character. For example, for Aniq it is a romantic comedy, Yasper (Ben Schwartz) recounts his events as the protagonist of a musical, Zoe (Zoë Chao) stars in one of animation, for her ex Ben (Ike Barinholtz) life is a movie of action… and so on.
But despite the fact that with these elements the series could be twisted in its own ambition, Christopher Miller and his team of writers they manage to stay the course and not lose an overflowing sense of humor, which includes a certain self-awareness (literally the proposal is verbalized in the trailer).
This adds a dollop of absurdity (and pounds of fun) to a comedy that knows how to use the tropes they navigate with precision and brilliance. Some tropes and clichés that instead of corseting, unleash both the script and the talented cast. This finesse makes even non-stop gags like no one remembers Walt (Demetriou) exists work, every time.
In short, ‘The Afterparty’ is a highly intelligent comedy that commands humor to navigate through this mystery that, why do we want to deceive ourselves, matters less than enjoying the testimonies of its protagonists. A laugh-out-loud ride that will take us by the hand through eight fun-filled episodes that makes for a good double feature with ‘Only Murders in the Building’.