The Afterparty serves up a buffet of stars and genres to mixed effect
The new Apple TV+ comedy/musical/action thriller will be revisiting the same high school reunion a few more times.
TV Reviews The Afterparty
The Afterparty, by its nature, is going to be a little hit or miss. In concept and execution, it’s impressively ambitious, with each episode taking place inside a different genre, whether rom com or action thriller, each starring a murderer’s row (zing!) of current comedy stars, all recounting the events of the same 15 year high school reunion and afterparty. But given the big swings, it’s inevitable that some episodes are going to land a little better than others.
In the early going, the first episode is unfortunately the weakest, taking two deeply charming actors in Sam Richardson and Zoe Chao and sticking them into a sort of blah romantic comedy. This may be because the premiere has the burden of setting up a premise both simple (the whodunnit, among a group of people who have secret motivations to love or hate each other, is a classic) and complicated (at least one of these people thinks they’re in a Fast and the Furious movie). It also initiates a problem that the rest of the series has not quite untangled so far, which is that when every episode is told in a different genre, from different perspectives, it’s a little hard to tell who these people are.
Richardson’s Aniq fares the best, even if he’s in the most hot water during the subsequent investigation into the death of the widely loathed Xavier (Dave Franco), thanks to the fact that everyone thinks he was the last person to see the victim alive, and he was spotted alone in Xavier’s room. But he’s a little bit of a cipher—even as John Early’s Detective Culp tries to categorize everyone at the reunion as a high school type, he labels Aniq “adorkable,” which doesn’t tell us that much about him. He has a truly bizarre career (escape room designer?), but is still positioned as the everyman character among this batch of genre characters personified. But in later episodes, as he scrambles to solve the mystery before Culp and Tiffany Haddish’s Detective Danner arrest him, he settles into just being the weird desperate guy making outlandish remarks in an effort to gather enough clues to pinpoint the killer, and it works better than lovestruck nice guy.
Chao is stuck in the unenviable position of playing the dream girl to at least three different men so far. There’s no reason to think she won’t get an episode told from her perspective further down the line, but it’s frustrating to watch her get saddled with reacting to various scenery chewing men episode after episode. Even Aniq gets to be funny episode to episode, whereas Zoe is mostly just charmed or annoyed by turns at whatever hijinks the men are getting up to.
Of the first three, Ben Schwartz’s Crazy Ex Girlfriend-esque musical riff is the most polished start to finish, possibly because conceptually it holds together the most as a mini arc. Yasper went to the reunion hoping to get Xavier to “bless” one of his songs, Xavier gives him at least some hope it’ll happen, and then he has those hopes dashed when Xavier is killed. It doesn’t hurt that the songs they give him are pretty funny—”We All Get One Shot, Twice” is somehow a spoof of both the Eminem song and the Hamilton one. Plus, the groundwork has already been laid that Yasper is kind of an oddball, guessing in an earlier episode that definitely-not-a-murderer-Walt is named “Slamps” and asking Aniq if he’s ever heard of pilates. Brett’s Fast and the Furious spoof doesn’t land quite as well, though we will all probably be haunted by that disturbingly long literal pissing contest. It’s funny that this guy imagines himself in an action movie even when he’s trying to find his daughter’s misplaced toy, but there isn’t a whole lot more to the bit than that, and the resolution to his arc, where he abruptly learns to be a better person, is a pat ending to everything we’ve learned about him so far.
The other downside to all of this? All of these funny people are mostly only funny in their own episodes. Haddish gets to do some endearingly odd work in the premiere, and then gets stuck playing it straight as she questions Brett and Yasper. She’s Tiffany Haddish! Why is she so muted here? Ilana Glazer’s Chelsea may be up next, but has otherwise been drifting around in the background, as has Tiya Sircar, who made the absolute most of it every time she popped up on The Good Place. Is it a little noticeable that the women don’t get as much to do in the first three episodes? In fact, it is.
Still, we’re only three episodes in, and there’s plenty more opportunities for the women to have their moments in whatever genres fall to them. Here’s hoping they get a first shot, again, to strut their stuff.
Stray observations
- Really hoping that the bizarre, diarrhea-themed game Aniq is putting more and more thought into continues to be a running bit. The single line that made me laugh the most so far on the show is him saying “Thinking about calling it ‘Spooky Dookies.’” Even typing it out right now made me laugh.
- Richardson may get the lion’s share of the funny lines so far—I cracked up at him whispering “A person is here” to attract Jennifer 1’s attention while she’s meditating.
- I spotted Will Forte’s name in the credits but missed that he was Xavier’s co-star in the apparently very popular Hungry Hungry Hippos movie. Hoping we get to see more of this and the Hall and Oates biopic co-starring Channing Tatum.
- “What if a human butt could wear a jacket?”
- Before Haddish got stuck doing yet another variation on “cop who’s seen it all,” I really enjoyed Aniq’s dawning horror as he realized the detective he was depending on to clear his name couldn’t solve an escape room called Santa Claustrophobia.
- Speaking of Tiya Sircar, I’m choosing to interpret her excitedly telling Aniq that her child was conceived in Australia to his total indifference as a callback to her excitedly telling Ted Danson she worked on an Australian accent for one of his Bad Place efforts. Why won’t anyone let Tiya Sircar show her appreciation for the great country of Australia?
- OK, what even was that hat? Is that a real hat style or did their costume department just craft a bizarre half-beanie, shiny…thing?
- Just going to politely say that some of these people look like they could be 33 and some assuredly do not, to the point that I almost wish the show would just acknowledge it already. Also, are 15 year high school reunions a thing? I thought we did 10 and then waited it out until 20 or 25.
32 Comments
“Just going to politely say that some of these people look like they
could be 33 and some assuredly do not, to the point that I almost wish
the show would just acknowledge it already. Also, are 15 year high
school reunions a thing? I thought we did 10 and then waited it out
until 20 or 25.”
Given the style of humour this show is going for (and Christopher Miller is known for) I think both those things are just part of the lower key gags and the joke is they won’t acknowledge that the age discrepencies that they don’t remotely try to hide are weird, as is the idea of a 15 year reunion.
You could be right on that so many high school shows (Glee, Riverdale) have performers who look as if they could be teachers. Perhaps that’s part of Afterparty’s parody.
My favorite example of this trope is a Takashi Miike movie where the high school bad boy who’s clearly played by a man in his 40s or 50s claims he suffers from “old face disease” (or whatever the exact wording was). He’s very sensitive about the topic.
well i’m happy to hear the first one is the weakest because it’s a real slog so far (i’m about 2/3rds done)one thing i’ve noticed about stuff that was filmed over covid is that i’m very consciously aware of it and everyone just seems a little ‘off’. people stand just a little too far away from each other when they’re talking, just a few too many scenes taking place outside and i have no other way to describe it other than i kind of ‘feel’ it in the performances.i’ve felt it in everything from this to spider-man no way home to don’t look up. it’s not in everything that’s been made, but i definitely notice it when i notice it. am i alone in this?
That is now 90% of why I watch stuff now, just to see how covidy it is or how well they pull it off
Also, are 15 year high school reunions a thing? I thought we did 10 and then waited it out until 20 or 25.This is my experience but my reunion was also entirely organized by students (school didn’t do shit for it) so it’s plausible that a high school with more involved alumni might plan more frequent ones.Why anyone would want to go to one of these with the advant of social media making it easy to keep tabs on people, I have no idea. I keep in close contact with the 8-10 people from high school I still enjoy being friends with, don’t keep in contact with others for a reason. I get that before it was a way to satisfy curiousity about the 2nd group of people, now I don’t get it.
My class didn’t get its act together in time to organize a 10-year reunion, so we started with a 15-year reunion. Our 20-year reunion was cancelled due to covid.
That’s funny you said that, my whole life and also our world was cancelled for covid too(also my 25th reunion was too)
I remember getting a phone call at work (I have no idea how they got my number) for a 10 year high school reunion.
I declined. You’ve either done nothing remotely interesting in the 10 years since high school, or you’re in the beginnings of something interesting and have no time for reunions.
Also, most people in high school sucked.
Mine was organized by a guy who was popular in high school, complete loser after. He has had a string of failed businesses that have mainly failed because he’s convinced friends, family, or investors to give him money that he inevitably spends on himself (vacations, cars, etc). No idea how the dude hasn’t faced larger repercussions or why people still like him. He organized this and tried to charge everyone some ridiculous fee to attend for food and drinks. The food ended up being catered by his dad’s sub company that charges similar to Subway or other fast food chains per my friends who decided to go. So basically this dude cheaped out on everything and likely pocketed the rest.
How did these people graduate high school in 2006???
“Practice!”
I mean this takes place in the same universe as let’s say 21 jumstreet nothing actually has to make sense…But I get what you are saying. I believe Dave Franco is the youngest of the cast and he was born in ‘86. So, he would have graduated in 2004 while Schwartz was out of there in 2001 and Richardson the year after I believe the rest of the cast besides Zoe is pushing it…
Yeah, but even in the Jump Street movies they’re constantly making fun of how old they look. But I get your point
Glazer was born in ‘87, Franco and Chao were 85 and Richardson 84.
As I said somewhere in this thread, I think, due to the nature of the comedy, they don’t remotely care that, for instance Ike Barinholtz was born in the mid 70s (though maybe there will be some meta joke about how he was held back in school). But a quick look at the cast online, a number of them were born in 85, and Glazer as born in 87, so by Hollywood standards having them be around 3 or so years too old to graduate in 2006 isn’t too off compared to the ages of most actors playing high schoolers…
We’ve had one every 5 years (class of ‘00), but it’s basically been everyone living in the area meeting at a local bar, almost like the night before Thanksgiving but organized. Our class had about 350 students and maybe a 1/4 are prevalent on social media so there are definitely people I’d ike to reconnect with. Hopefully 25 is something formal.
I’m ust going to politely say I wish the discussion comments stuck to the episodes not people’s personal reunion experiences. The only thing more boring than a high school reunion is hearing about someone else’s. That said, the third episode was the only enjoyable one so far because it was lively and creative and didn’t drag
I went to my 10 year reunion, got drunk, etc. Realized the people who were cool in high school were still cool, but that now they had money too. Reaffirmed the fact I’m a huge loser and no one ever liked me—and that I’m the butt monkey of my friend group. Cried myself to sleep/passing out. Skipped my 20th.See, totally not boring.
I think the time I laughed the most was at…Brett?…yelling, “Koala!” contrasted with what we heard him yell from the other car in the earlier episode. The show’s not all laugh-out-loud funny, but it’s funny enough in spots. I’m enjoying it so far. And I’m old enough that I don’t really know who most of these people are, aside from Ben Schwartz and one or two others.
More Jamie Demetriou on American TV please. AV Club should cover Stath Lets Flats.
Watched the first episode of this, because they went to the trouble of assembling a lot of my favorite comedy people (character or real names: Sam, Vickie, Ilana, Jean Ralphio… Tiffany Haddish and Dave Franco are also fine). After epsiode 1, I really felt like the writing isn’t there. The cast is better than this. My main gripe is that it felt so over-explanatory. At this point, the audience has seen a million Rashomon takes in pop culture, it feels like an obvious thing, you don’t have to have a character explain that we’re going to hear the story from each perspective. I also think that doing each perspective in the style of a different movie/genre is something I’ve seen before, this is not nearly as clever as they seem to think. I think I’m just spoiled by Community, where they’d just do the perspectives and movie styles and trust that we would get it. My husband and I watched Peacemaker right after this tonight and talked about how going from After Party to a show with good writing and likable characters was jarring. We’re like, oh hey, funny jokes!
I did that same watching order and peacemaker fkng killed it. If you’d told me 5 years ago John Cena would be in a better show than that cast …I’d not have believed it is what I’m saying. Because like the after-party I’m spelling out the literal exposition of what is happening in case anyone missed any subtleties
i think one of the issues might be that it’s the hottest cast of 5 years ago.
15-year reunions are a thing in film/tv because it’s old enough to have most of the characters personally (married/divorced/with kids) and professionally past the young-adult stage but young enough to cast actors the shallow producers/audience still think are hot.
Based on the comments here it seems like I’m in the minority, but I’m loving it so far. Great cast, funny dialogue, and the mystery is pretty solid so far. And along with Only Murders In the Building, I like this sudden boom of comedic murder mystery television.
Nah, it’s uneven but I think these kinds of shows generally are, but I’m definitely enjoying it and even found myself trying to guess what other genres they’re doing based on the credits which seem to go through each one in order (so… horror is next? No idea what the one with the bear is)
I feel like the most important part of a whodunit is to actually want to know whodunit. After 3 episodes I really don’t find myself playing the guessing game I usually play with this genre.
Im fairly certain the Killer is Haddish.
I love it thus far. Very much on the same vibe as Only Murders in the Building as was mentioned. And it’s hilarious that obviously-not-the-murderer Walt (who was definitely not in their class) is also only known as the mousetoothed date from Fleabag season 1.
…only known as the mousetoothed date from Fleabag season 1.Sounds like its time for somebody to check out Stath Lets Flats on HBO Max. It’s delightful.
He is also great in “Lovesick,” which is a fabulous show that everyone should check out.