The second season of the TV series “The Party”

The second season of The Afterparty by Christopher Miller has started streaming on Apple TV+. Hermetic detective is again combined here with a witty parody of various film genres, and the resulting result, according to Julia Shagelmanwill entertain both lovers of crime puzzles and cinephiles.

The last season of The Party, which aired from late January to early March 2022, focused on the investigation into the murder of pop singer Xavier (Dave Franco). He unsuccessfully fell out of the balcony of his own mansion, where he organized an after-party for former classmates who had gathered for the graduation anniversary. As expected in the classic detective story, continuing the tradition of Agatha Christie, each of those present had a motive, means and opportunity to kill the hospitable host, who was in fact an arrogant narcissistic jerk. The astute detective Danner (Tiffany Haddish), who knew how to talk to anyone, and then draw up a true picture of what happened, understood all this.

Danner dubbed the stories of the suspects “mind films,” because each of us constantly plays a movie in our head in which we play the main role. Accordingly, every episode of the first season of The Party was filmed in the style of some movie genre, corresponding to the personality of this or that character: for example, a rom-com, a musical, a high school comedy, a paranoid Fincher thriller, or a police drama. It’s this skillfully executed mix of styles that betrays not only a great deal of watching, but also a sincere love of the authors for cinema, as well as a really well-wrapped detective intrigue, glib dialogue and a great ensemble cast, which turned The Party into one of the best Apple TV + series (although it remains in the shadow of major streaming hits like “Ted Lasso” and “The Morning Show”). And they got it renewed for a second season.

It is filmed according to the same formula: “murder in a locked room”, a limited circle of suspects and their “thought films”. There are also familiar faces: the two heroes of the first season are now a happy couple who come to the wedding in a rich country house. But the morning after the ceremony, the newlywed (Poppy Liu) finds her newly minted husband (Zach Woods), the owner of a huge fortune earned from digital technologies and cryptocurrency, dead. And, of course, his death was not natural – he was poisoned. Like last time, everyone is under suspicion: the young widow herself, who refused to sign a marriage contract before the wedding, her parents (Ken Zhong and Vivian Wu), her uncle (John Cho), who arrived at the wedding from distant wanderings, and a former admirer (Paul Walter Hauser), who still has tender feelings for her. As well as representatives of the groom’s side: his old friend and business partner (Jack Whitehall), foster sister (Anna Konkle) and even a mentally unstable mother (Elizabeth Perkins).

Detective Danner, now retired and under contract to write a book on the Xavier case—only the text isn’t moving at all—readily responds to an old acquaintance’s request for help and arrives on the scene to try to identify the killer before the police intervene. New “mental films” are unfolding before us, starting with the sequel to the rom-com, this time, of course, dedicated to meeting the parents. Some of these episodes, like, say, a noir, an erotic thriller, or a high melodrama in the spirit of Douglas Sirk, turned out to be more successful, others, for example, an imitation of a screen life, a little less. The success of the series, stylized as Wes Anderson’s paintings, probably depends on how tired you are of the parodies of him that have become a fashion trend on social networks (certainly, the version of the authors of “The Party” is more professional and witty than ordinary users with smartphones).

However, in general, Christopher Miller and his team managed to avoid the “curse of the second season” and not lose any pace, technical skill, or sense of humor. They again put together an excellent cast: among the newcomers, one can single out Paul Walter Hauser, who is especially funny in his “noir” incarnation, and Zach Woods, who appears as a completely different person in each flashback, but retains the charming social awkwardness of his hero. And Tiffany Haddish again showed herself to be an excellent modern Miss Marple, not climbing into her pocket for words and not missing a single smallest detail, so I would like to hope that this is not her last business.