Diverting from its main plot, episode 6 of season 2 of The Afterparty focuses on Danner and why she decided to quit being a detective and become a writer. What we know is that she became famous for writing a book on Xavier’s case, but now she hasn’t done anything in a long time. In all honesty, because it’s one episode a week, I had actually forgotten Danner had quit the force because she was being a natural at the detective thing again. We finally get some insight into what happened, but in a rather boring manner. The Afterparty was a good one-season show, and Xavier’s story was more enticing because it really felt like a good old-fashioned “whodunit.” Season 2 is a lot slower and less exciting. Although some of the characters are more fun than others, there’s nothing that makes me want to sit through four more episodes to figure out who killed Edgar. Anyway, since we’re past the halfway mark, we’ve got to stick with it and finish it off.
Spoilers Ahead
What happens in the episode?
Aniq finds himself listening to a rather hypersexual story from Danner about her last case before she left the force. Danner tells him about how she was doing really well after Xavier, and when her partner Culp and she got an arson case, she jumped on it immediately. Danner finds herself believing that the suspect is innocent, and while she’s interrogating him, she comes to know that he’s doing therapy. To dig deeper into the case and find some kind of proof, Danner decides to meet this therapist. Of course, as you can suspect, this is when things get steamy, to say the least. Danner finds herself entangled with the hot psychiatrist, who claims his passion for helping patients is only rivalled only by his passion for sex. Dr. Deveraux tells Danner that he can’t give her any real information about his patient, but he can teach her the ways of a pyromaniac. He asks her to dinner so he can share more information, and she reluctantly agrees. Apart from psychiatry, the doctor is also an artist.
At dinner, it’s evident that all they want to do is jump each other, and it seems they’re interested in raiding the fridge for some extra excitement. After some fun times with a lot of food waste, Dr. Deveraux claims he’s better at being a psychiatrist than he is in bed, making Danner believe her suspect can be set free. Culp doesn’t like the idea, but without proof, they have to let him go. Dr. Deveraux is the suspect’s emergency contact, and when he visits the prison, Culp tells Danner to be careful because he can see that there’s more to their meetings than meets the eye. Later, Dr. Deveraux shows Danner some candles and plays around with candle wax (Danner is so blind, huh). Before leaving, Danner reveals to the doctor that the fire was at a dairy freezer, which gives him a bit of a shock. He tells her something his patient, the suspect, told him some time ago. We learned earlier that he’s moved on from fire to karaoke now, his favorite song being “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” but, with what the doctor tells Danner, he’s the only suspect.
Danner rushes to the karaoke bar while Culp checks out the guy’s home. She finds him there, trying to sing the song and making a fool of himself. When she calls out his name, he starts to run, and she catches him outside the bar. She checks the trunk of his car and finds an inflammable liquid that is also used in art as a mixer for paint, turpentine. Unfortunately, Danner is too close to the case to realize what the real matter is and ignores what the man she’s arresting is saying, even though he claims it’s not his. When she goes back to thank Dr. Deveraux for helping her catch the suspect, she sees the same liquid and finally puts 2 and 2 together. She looks at the painting that he had covered up. It’s clear that Dr. Deveraux was not interested in art and just used it as a cover-up for his obsession with fire. Danner tries calling Culp, but he doesn’t answer, and that’s when the doctor enters the room. He pretends that he doesn’t know that Danner knows the truth and takes her to the bedroom. Then he handcuffs her to the bed so he can light the house on fire and escape. Fortunately, Culp arrives and shoots the bedpost to save Danner. He faints himself, but Danner gets him out there. Because Danner arrested the wrong person and got too close to someone related to the case, she decided to quit the force.
While Danner explains all of this to Aniq, Zoe, and Ulysses discover that Travis had drunk tea made from the “Devil’s trumpet.” He was trying to experiment with a small dose, but soon he started acting really strange because it’s hallucinogenic. Everybody comes down to check on him when he’s talking to nobody and doing strange actions. Grace is able to calm him down because she’s the only one who can understand his steampunk lingo. Finally, Ulysses makes his special pancakes called “Dutch Babies” to bring Travis back to reality, and it works. Travis admits that all they need is some hot water and a teapot to make the poison, so anybody in the house could’ve done it. This sparks a lightbulb moment for Zoe, and she goes to the room Edgar’s body is in and finds a teapot covered by a crochet lid. She takes it off and smells it, but Isabelle comes into the room at the same time. Zoe hides the pot in the bathroom and rushes out so that nobody else can catch her in the room. Maybe it was Zoe who accidentally poisoned Edgar, or it could’ve even been Grace.
Final thoughts
Danner wants Aniq to forget that it’s his girlfriend’s family he’s investigating so that they can get to the core of this case. It’s most important for them to find the truth, even if it means giving a bad impression to Zoe’s family. This episode felt a little bit unnecessary, and as much as Tiffany Haddish is the best part of this show, the plot seemed really lost in this one. I’m also not sure we needed a whole episode to explain why she quit the force. Hopefully, Ulysses’ episode is more fun and brings us back to the groove. There are still four more episodes, meaning four more suspects to go through. Who do you think is the biggest suspect right now? Or, like us, do you think it may have been just an accident?
