The Afterparty – Episode 1, Aniq

From the mind of Christopher Miller (“The LEGO Movie 2”, “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs“) comes something a little different to AppleTV+, The After Party.

We’re at the Class of 2006 Reunion where the ‘star’ of the show is Xavier, Dave Franco (“6 Underground”, “The Disaster Artist”), as he’s now a famous pop star and actor.

But for this episode we’re focussing on Aniq, Sam Richardson (“The Tomorrow War”, “Werewolves Within”), an Escape Room designer who is going to the Reunion for love.

You see, back in high-school, Aniq had a crush on Zoe, Zoe Chao (“Love Life (TV)”, “Dirty Beautiful”), though never actually told her. He hopes he’ll be able to now, now that she’s divorced from Brett, Ike Barinholtz (“Bright”, “Suicide Squad”), who’s also at the party.

Aniq gets on with Zoe but at every turn ‘some rich guy swoops in’, which tonight is Xavier who sits her at his table, takes her in his helicopter to the after party, despite Aniq and Zoe having a nice time around the school.

We begin as Xavier has already fallen to his death from his cliff-top mansion at the after party of the Reunion. Detective Danner, Tiffany Haddish (“Girl’s Trip”, “Night School”), arrives but is told by her superior that this is a high profile case and someone from LA is arriving to run it, so she decides to solve it before that happens.

Helping Danner is Detective Culp, John Early (“Search Party (TV)”, “The Great North (TV)”), who appears more of a clues type of detective to Danner’s people kind of detective.

We see Aniq with drawing on his face, covered in beer as he’d passed out. This wasn’t Xavier, but when he comes round he believes it was and went upstairs to confront him about it, which is why everyone thinks he is the killer.

Throughout this episode, at various points, Walt, Jamie Demetriou (“Stath Lets Flats (TV)”, “The Electrical Life of Louis Wain”), will turn up. He’s the one no-one remembers from school though he’s desperately trying to find someone who does.

But no-one at the party saw the actual murder, or so they say, so Danner must interview everyone individually to get her killer, and this is the series, the same night, told from each persons point of view, I imagine all have something that will point to them being the killer.

At the end of this episode, when Danner has finished with Aniq, he goes to the bathroom to wash the stuff of his face, his friend Yasper, Ben Schwartz (“Space Force (TV)”, “Sonic the Hedgehog”), follows to help, and discovers a scrap of paper in the bin saying “this is payback…”.

Aniq thinks he has to solve who did the murder, particularly when Danner tells him she got stuck in one of the Escape Rooms he’d designer.

It’s a fun start to The Afterparty. We are introduced to most of the characters, some more than others, but hopefully all will get their chance. There looks to be some interesting characters too, which is good.