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.
Each episode also zeros in a different character’s memory of the night, “Rashomon”-style, as they are interrogated by Haddish’s increasingly exasperated Detective Danner, and they become more humanized in the process. It’s a compelling mashup of tropes not only on an episode level but on a character level, because the show is also playing around with high school archetypes; maybe the bully isn’t as aggro as everyone assumed, and maybe the frazzled one-time ace student hasn’t gone entirely off the deep end in adulthood.
It’s a hoot and the variety of it all feels of a piece with Lord and Miller’s creative output as writers, directors and producers, which is so joyously informed by pop cultural literacy and spans a gamut from “21 Jump Street” to “The Lego Movie” to “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.”
The heart and soul of “The Afterparty” is Richardson’s Aniq, your classic nice guy with a low-key charisma whose self-confidence could use a boost (he designs escape rooms for a living; love this detail). He’s hoping to reconnect with this old crush, Zoe, who is now the school’s vice principal. Played by Chao, she is the lovely woman in the room all the guys want to be with, including her ex-husband Brett, an intense meathead in a leather jacket, played by Barinholtz.
Then there’s Schwartz as Aniq’s best pal Yasper, an aspiring musician who makes his living installing home sound systems — his is the musical episode, with a song that zings a certain number from “Hamilton” in the most perfectly awkward way possible: “We all get one shot, twice,” he sings. “In other words we get two shots” — and Glazer plays Chelsea, who is best described as a person going through some things the night of the reunion.
The object of their collective scorn and polite fascination is Franco’s Xavier, a guy who didn’t stand out much as a teenager but blossomed into an obnoxious and skeezy pop star high on his own supply of overconfidence. He shows up at the reunion via helicopter, in a suit but no shirt, and proceeds to slime his way through the gymnasium before inviting everyone back to his swanky house for the titular after-party. Franco is very funny here and we’re treated to a brief montage of Xavier’s career highlights, which includes a Daryl Hall and John Oates biopic co-starring Channing Tatum in a cameo, and all I can say is the blond feathered wig they put on Franco’s head is a thing of beauty because it’s so alarmingly accurate to Hall’s look in the ‘70s and I love that so much care has been given to a throwaway joke about Xavier’s ridiculous career.
That he was likely pushed to his death is shocking to his former classmates, but no one at the party seems too broken up about it. The semi-hapless Aniq becomes the initial suspect, which compels him to quietly launch his investigation on the side to clear his name (if anyone knows a thing about clues, it’s the guy who designs escape rooms) along with Yasper’s enthusiastic wingman assistance.
Richardson was such a standout during his years with Second City in Chicago and I’m happy whenever he’s on screen, regardless of the project, he’s just that kind of actor who brings a wonderful energy to whatever he’s in. He’s usually in supporting roles (notably his breakout performance in “Veep”) but here he’s carrying so much of the story and it’s clear that he can and really should be a leading man more often going forward.
I also like how the show has conceived of Chao’s pretty girl archetype. You understand why everyone is drawn to her — she’s smart and funny and nice to everyone, but she’s not the blandly boring It Girl that tends to be the object of affection in these types of stories. She’s a fully developed character with her own desires and insecurities and she doesn’t take herself too seriously. Chao’s performance is just complicated enough to keep us guessing as to what she’s really thinking. Schwartz is also a lot of fun here, more or less serving as Aniq’s hype man, as is Barinholtz, who finds the doofy vulnerability buried within in this numbskull who used to rule the campus.
There’s also an episode that flashes back to their senior year in 2006 — wherein many of the dynamics among this group are very different — and suddenly we’re in “Can’t Hardly Wait” territory. All of these references I’ve mentioned aren’t Easter eggs so much as the collective influence of pop culture’s past being incorporated into something new and all its own.
In her autobiography, Agatha Christie noted that, “It is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize how much you love them.” Funny, that also happens to be one of the more subtle but persistent themes of the show itself.
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'THE AFTERPARTY'
3 stars (out of 4)
Rating: TV-MA (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 17)
Where to watch: Premiered Friday on Apple TV+
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