The comedy show The Afterparty, starring Tiffany Haddish, Sam Richardson, and Zoe Chao, has returned to grace our screens with a new season and a new murder. We’re going deeper into Zoe’s family after Aniq and her have been dating for a year. After Xavier’s murder, things really picked up for these two and turned out to be everything Aniq had dreamed of. Now, he plans on taking things to the next step and proposing to her, but will the family like him? Let’s get into Aniq’s sequel.
Spoilers Ahead
What Happens In Episode 1?
The Afterparty season 2 begins with the death of Grace’s husband, Edgar. As she wakes up after her wedding night, still dressed in her gown, she notices Edgar not moving, and soon enough, she realizes he’s dead. Hearing her screams, everyone comes into the room, and Aniq is the first to notice that Edgar’s pet lizard is dead too. Considering Edgar had been sharing food with the lizard the whole weekend, Aniq comes to the conclusion that Edgar was poisoned, and so was the lizard, inadvertently. Edgar’s mother agrees with his conclusions and immediately blames Grace for the murder. To know the whole story, we need to trace it back a few days to the start of the wedding weekend. But before doing that, Aniq has an important call to make. Since Edgar is a rich man, his family intends to tidy up some things before calling the authorities. So, Aniq decides to call on his friend, the ex-detective Danner. Danner is presently authoring a novel about the Xavier murder, but since she’s more of a detective and less of a writer, she’s happy to make the most of any excuse to and come help Aniq with his new murder mystery. On her drive there, Aniq is the first person to tell her his side of things.
Zoe is excited to go to her sister’s wedding with Aniq. This is the first time her sister Grace has found somebody well-suited enough to be her husband, and while Zoe is excited, she’s also skeptical about the whole relationship. They’ve known each other only for six months, but according to Zoe, Edgar’s very unlike Grace, making him not so much the perfect match she’d have hoped for. But Grace seems to feel otherwise; she is marrying him after all. Aniq, on the other hand, has his own stressful planning going on. He’s nervous about proving his worth to Feng, Vivian, and Grace, Zoe’s family. While he hopes to impress them at every step during the wedding weekend, things don’t turn out as planned right from the get-go. For starters, Aniq’s car crashes into Feng’s new shaved ice truck. He also accidentally compares Taiwanese shaved ice with Hawaiian shaved ice, starting off on the wrong foot with Feng. Aniq also accidentally drops the hand-crocheted tea cozy that Grace made for him, basically ruining his introduction to everyone. It seems like only Edgar takes a liking to him, though, calling him polite.
At the rehearsal dinner, Edgar’s mother places Aniq away from the family, leaving room for Sebastian, the best man, to cozy up to Zoe. While Aniq tries to make small talk with Travis, Grace’s ex, Sebastian is clearly adored by the whole family. After some awkward moments with the family and getting made fun of by everyone, thanks to Sebastian’s insults, Aniq manages to sit down at the table. Sebastian announces a special guest’s arrival at the wedding, a grand gesture by Edgar, Zoe, and Grace’s uncle Ulysses. Everybody is thrilled except for Feng, who stands up and walks away. Just as we thought things couldn’t get worse for Aniq, he spits some fermented camel milk on Vivian by accident, courtesy of Ulysses.
To save himself yet again, he rushes to offer help when it’s needed and tells Zoe that he can give Vivian his phone charger. But while going up to her, he hears Feng, Vivian, and Ulysses arguing. He hides in the bushes, but an almost naked man runs past him, making them notice Aniq. Aniq tries to make them believe that he didn’t hear anything and leaves after giving Vivian the charger before further disaster strikes. The next day, when Zoe has to help Grace get ready, Aniq offers to go pick up more family. What do we know? He picks up the wrong people, and Sebastian comes to the rescue.
Sebastian asks Aniq to help Edgar with his bowtie while he just watches them get along. It looks like Sebastian might even be jealous of the similarity between Edgar and Aniq. Even Roxana, the lizard, likes Aniq, and she never liked Sebastian (hinting at something, maybe?). Aniq feeds Roaxana some white chocolate as per Edgar’s request, and Sebastian leaves because he can’t handle their bubbling friendship. Edgar even wants to help Aniq propose to Zoe in whatever way possible. In the middle of all this, Zoe also admits to Aniq that she accidentally told Grace not to marry Edgar, and she’s now very mad at her, but Aniq knows in his heart that Edgar is a good guy, even with all his crypto stuff.
This is all 10 minutes before the wedding, so of course, Grace will still marry Edgar. The unique job that Edgar has given Aniq to be part of the wedding is to be in charge of the vow box. He has to place it on the heads of the bride and groom because Edgar is introverted, so he wants to make his vows in private. After the wedding, the family takes a photo, and Edgar gives Roxana to Aniq and not Sebastian, making him more upset. He even says a couple of kind things about Aniq and hands him his mother’s purse to take care of too. Unfortunately, soon enough, Aniq loses Roxana, and while he’s searching for her, Edgar and Grace have their first dance.
What Did Aniq See Grace Do?
While Aniq is in a panic about losing Roxana and Edgar’s mother is busy calling him a thief, Zoe finds Roxana on Edgar’s shoulder, bringing Aniq out of his panic. But there are bigger problems at hand; Grace is still not on speaking terms with her sister, and Aniq suggests that Zoe just needs to talk to her. Zoe realizes her maid of honor speech might be her saving grace, but unfortunately, it’s interrupted by loud noises. Edgar then interrupts her to tell the people to stop their noise because Roxana doesn’t like it and skips ahead to Sebastian’s speech, leaving Zoe at square one.
Finally, it’s the afterparty, and all Aniq knows is that this is his last chance to clear things up with Zoe’s parents. Vivian compares him to Brett, though, making things much worse than Aniq had anticipated. Now there’s only the family in the house plus Aniq, Sebastian, and Grace’s ex, Travis (for whatever reason). Edgar starts acting strangely after what looks like too many drinks, so Grace decides to take him to bed early on.
At the end of the episode, Danner promises to get Aniq that blessing and also help him find the killer soon. But there’s one thing Aniq was hiding from Danner. He had seen Edgar and Grace fight and later seen her drug Edgar’s drink, making her look really suspicious. Of course, all Aniq wants to do is exonerate Grace, which is why he never told Danner these details. But she so happens to have reached the vineyard by that time and announced to everybody in the house that Aniq thinks Grace poisoned her husband. With a dead body and a bunch of people to interview, we move on to episode 2 of The Afterparty.
