A 15-year high school reunion followed by a house party ends with the host dead at the bottom of his cliffside abode in the comedic whodunit “The Afterparty” on Apple TV+. Coming on the heels of “Knives Out” and “Only Murders in the Building,” we seem to have a modest murder mystery resurgence on our hands and nothing could make me — a devotee of “Murder, She Wrote” still to this day (with episodes a-piled on my DVR) — any happier. It’s as if the show’s creators put 1997′s “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion” in a blender with Agatha Christie and, voila, may I interest you in “The Afterparty”? Or as I prefer to think of it: “Murder on the Millennial Express.”
Tiffany Haddish arrives, eyes narrowed, as the ambitious police detective called to the scene. Dave Franco is the not-so-dearly departed homeowner. And an assortment of comedy ringers play his old classmates — including Sam Richardson, Ilana Glazer, Ike Barinholtz, Zoë Chao and Ben Schwartz — all of whom become potential suspects.
If “The Afterparty” lacks a tight storytelling structure, that’s because there’s a gimmick framing this eight-part series from executive producers Christopher Miller and Phil Lord: Each episode emulates the tropes of a different genre, be it rom-com, horror, muscle car action, animation or musical.
