Characters / The Afterparty

The Police

Danner

Detective Danner

"We're all the stars of our own movie."

Played By: Tiffany Haddish

A detective investigating the death of pop sensation Xavier. Her past acts as the topic of episode seven, which is presented as a police drama.

She returns in Season 2, now having quit the force, when Aniq calls on her help on another murder case. Her reason for quitting is the topic of episode six, which is presented as an erotic 90's thriller.

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• Audience Surrogate: The "mind movies" that the viewer watches are her perception of each witness' testimony, and she will occasionally chime in with comments or criticisms about the person's story that closely line up with what the audience is thinking.
• Batman Gambit: Deliberately wrongly accuses Brett of being the killer as a Secret Test of Character for Aniq; determining that his response would confirm whether he was the actual killer's accomplice or not. When Aniq stands up for Brett and proceeds to piece together the killer's true identity, Danner's pleased reaction suggests that she had already figured the solution out herself and was hoping for Aniq to also do so on his own.
• Boyish Short Hair: Sported some during her time as a beat cop in LA.
• Brains and Brawn: The brains to Culp's brawn. While they're nominally partners, it's Danner who does almost all of the actual crime-solving between them.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: She's a quirky, unusual woman who pictures entire testimonies as lengthy movies and openly admits she's not particularly a "clue person." She's also an excellent judge of social dynamics and uses that to decipher the different secrets and issues among the suspects.
• The Charmer: Her breezy, laid-back demeanor makes her skilled at getting witnesses to let their guards down, making it easier for her to catch inconsistencies in their testimonies.
• Cowboy Cop: Instantly takes charge of a case she's not supposed to lead and plans to solve it in a single night before a higher profile cop can take control the next day.
• Deadpan Snarker: Often interjects with a wry quip while listening to testimonies.
• Everyone Has Standards: In Season 2, she seems to genuinely give Grace her condolences and compliments her due to the murder victim being her husband and the fact Grace was instantly billed as the number one suspect.
• Foil:
  • To Aniq. Both are attempting to solve the same mystery despite neither being legally permitted to, but Danner is a Bunny-Ears Lawyer who forgoes conventional investigation in favor of analyzing social dynamics between the suspects while Aniq is an Amateur Sleuth trying to put his escape room puzzle-solving skills to use by seeking out esoteric clues around the crime scene. They are also the only black characters in the main cast, which Danner acknowledges early on and which seems to at least partially motivate her desire to give him the benefit of the doubt. We eventually learn that both of them had their careers temporarily ruined after a fight with a peer that resulted in the peer pressing charges against them out of spite and the police force going along with it due to implicit racial profiling.
  • To Germain. She's the Bunny-Ears Lawyer who prefers studying interpersonal relationships over conventional investigation methods to his "proper" police detective. While Danner is devoted to finding the truth above all else and is willing to put her career on the line for the sake of it, Germain is more concerned with maintaining his own reputation and is willing to charge innocent people for crimes they didn't commit to do so.
• Freudian Excuse: Her determination to solve the case stems from wanting to be a cop like her father, having to deal with the boys’ club in the academy and department, and a humiliation early in her career, not to mention wanting to show up a rival cop.
• Friend to All Children: It's implied she has a soft spot towards children. When she interview's Maggie, she is nothing but sweet, kind, and friendly to her. She even calls her "honey" when she first meets her.
• Genre Savvy: She's a movie lover who filters witness testimonies through genre lenses, and will often directly address when their story strays away from the expected tropes.
• Great Detective: While she's affiliated with the police, Danner otherwise fits this trope like a glove; being highly eccentric and in possession of a unique talent for deduction that allows her to solve mysteries that others can't. Her quitting the force in between seasons to become a writer and later film director makes her a more traditional consulting detective type in Season 2.
• Historical Character's Fictional Relative: By the end of Season 2 she is engaged to Jaleel White.
• I Don't Know Mortal Kombat: Danner, who solves mysteries professionally, is hopelessly bad at figuring out escape rooms. She actually makes a reasonable excuse for this by claiming that her strengths as a problem solver lie in her ability to study social dynamics, which we see to genuinely be the case through her investigation methods.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She's pushy and impulsive, but shows genuine sympathy for both Aniq and Chelsea's situations outside of the case and a willingness to give the former the benefit of the doubt even as he becomes an increasingly more likely suspect.
• Last-Name Basis: Everyone calls her "Danner", with her given name yet to be revealed.
• My Greatest Failure: Allowing herself to believe Quentin Devereaux that Leonard Vurr was the arsonist in a case she handled, thus letting Quentin enough time to flee from his crimes is one for her, and is the real reason she quit the force in between Seasons 1 and 2.
• Nerds Are Sexy: Her childhood crush was Steve Urkel, and she gets very angry when Brett implies that he isn't a sexually enticing figure. She even gets engaged to Jaleel White at the end of the season!
• Pass the Popcorn: Keeps popcorn on hand whenever hearing a witness' testimony as part of her "mind movies" approach to investigating. In the first episode of Season 2, she even gets drive-thru during a call with Aniq as they go over his recollection of the wedding events.
• Pop-Cultured Badass: Makes frequent pop culture references and is a bonafide genius mystery solver.
• Properly Paranoid: Her insistence on solving the case before Germain arrives initially comes across as being a byproduct of her own ego and pettiness, wanting to do so to improve her own reputation and to keep him from taking the credit. Episode 7 reveals that Danner is aware that Germain has a history of being willing to arrest innocent people for the sake of claiming to have solved a case, and that he would likely do the same if he were put in charge of finding Xavier's killer.
• Sassy Black Woman: Doesn't carry herself with any of the professionalism you'd expect from a police detective and offers frequent color commentary when listening to witness testimonies.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: The final episode reveals that she was aware that Aniq was listening in on her conversations with the other suspects from the beginning but allowed him to continue doing so without letting him know as part of her Batman Gambit.
• Secret Test of Character: Deliberately accuses the innocent Brett of being the killer in the final episode as a ploy to confirm whether or not Aniq was in league with the true killer. Aniq passes the test by vouching for Brett, confirming his innocence.
• Serious Business: Don't besmirch Steve Urkel's name around her if you know what's good for you.
• Shipper on Deck: Openly supports Aniq and Zoe getting together while listening to the former's testimony.
• Supporting Protagonist: While she is the detective attempting to solve the case, she's generally a secondary presence due to not being involved in the witness testimonies that make up most of the series' runtime.
• Writers Suck: In Season 2, she has left the police force and tried writing a book about the Xavier case. However, she doesn't actually commit to the book, leaving her agent outright begging to see any kind of progress. At the end of the season Aniq convinces her to change careers into filmmaking, which she's much happier with.

Culp

Detective Culp

"WHAT IS GOING ON?!"

Played By: John Early

Danner’s partner, helping her investigate the death of pop sensation Xavier.

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• All Gays Love Theater: He's an Ambiguously Gay man who offers a lengthy critique about a live TV musical Xavier was involved in.
• Ambiguously Gay: Played by the openly gay John Early and generally comes across as rather campy. While he mentions having an ex, he does not use any pronouns while discussing them. Confirmed to be attracted to men in Season 2; he mentions an ex-boyfriend, and he reprimands Danner for sleeping with a person of interest in a case, only to admit “I would kill myself in public to have sex with him one time.”
• Beware the Nice Ones: He's pretty relaxed and docile initially, but as Yasper learns the hard way after trying to escape, he can be surprisingly efficient when it comes to subduing a criminal on the run.
• Brains and Brawn: The brawn to Danner's brains. Since Danner is a Bunny-Ears Lawyer, it's Culp who does most of the legwork as far as scoping out crime scenes goes. The first season finale also reveals that he's surprisingly capable when it comes to physically apprehending criminals.
• Bumbling Sidekick: To Danner. He mostly trails behind her to reinforce her authority and accidentally destroys evidence that would have exonerated Aniq. While the latter incident is eventually revealed to have been Yasper's doing, the fact that Culp was inept enough with handling the security footage to allow it to happen still places him in this territory.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: While he's generally more professional than Danner is, he's prone to getting into petty arguments with both her and the suspects they're investigating and can't help but offer his own opinions on the film and television industry whenever the topic comes up.
• Butt-Monkey: Gets bossed around constantly by his partner and doesn't appear to be taken seriously by anyone.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He's never much help to Danner throughout the investigation, but easily chases down, tackles, and handcuffs the killer when they attempt to escape. Season 2 also reveals he's quite a shot, being capable of shooting a bedframe rail in the middle of a raging fire with smoke in his eyes.
• The Dog Bites Back: Danner's dismissive attitude toward him eventually pushes Culp into reporting her Cowboy Cop antics to their captain behind her back.
• Fanboy: Downplayed. While he claims that most of his knowledge of Xavier is due to an ex of his having been a fan, he is nonetheless able to instantly identify a prop and the show it was used in while investigating his guest house and has to take a moment to compose himself after seeing that Xavier is indeed the victim. We later see him secretly try on Xavier's pith helmet from the Hungry Hungry Hippos movie and quote dialogue from it. He's last seen swiping Xavier's framed platinum record and the original lyrics to 'X Marks the G-Spot' from his house under the guise of them being evidence.
• Hidden Depths: Season 2 reveals that he was the best shot in his class during his academy days, and had experience hunting with his family.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Danner intentionally avoids telling him that they aren't permitted to lead the investigation into Xavier's death in order to maintain her own credibility. He's understandably ticked off when he finally finds out.
• Meaningful Name: "Culp" is the Latin word for blame, which is befitting for a police detective.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Detective Culp accidentally deletes the footage from the hidden security camera in Xavier's bedroom which would have shown exactly how he was killed. The finale reveals that the killer deleted the footage remotely to remove the evidence and framed Culp to make the police appear incompetent.
• No-Respect Guy: While he and Danner are technically partners, everyone seems to think of him as her sidekick and he can't do much to assert himself as anything more beyond insisting that they're equals. He isn't even able to properly introduce himself when the investigation starts!
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Compared to the likes of Kleyes, Culp doesn't actually seem like he's that bad of a cop; it's just that his partner is a Great Detective whose mystery-solving skills blow him out of the water.
• Pop-Cultured Badass: While he lacks Danner's obsessive love of movies, a sizable portion of his dialogue indicates that he's very in the know as far as Hollywood news goes. And while he's nowhere near Danner's level, he has a few moments that prove he's a worthy partner for her.
• Satellite Character: Almost all of his interactions are with Danner and he doesn't carry much weight in the story beyond being her partner and de facto assistant.
• The Stool Pigeon: Possibly a Disgruntled Davey or a Betrayer Barry, but in Ep 6 he tattles to the captain about Danner's attempts to solve the case, possibly out of spite for Danner brushing off his comments about Aniq listening in on her witness statements.
• Straight Man: Gets Danner to focus on the case when her quirkier behaviors get the better of her.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: After spending most of the series as one of its primary Butt Monkeys, Danner begins episode 7 assuring him that she values him as a partner and episode 8 has her credit him for helping her discover the decisive evidence that proves the identity of Xavier's murderer. He even gets to pull his weight more directly when the killer tries to flee and he swiftly takes them down.
• The Watson: His primary function in the story is to be a neutral party that Danner can explain her current thoughts on the case to.

Germain

Detective Aldrin Germain

"Mad Dog Danner!"

Played By: Reid Scott

A detective from Danner’s past who is called in from LA as a ringer.

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• The Ace: Played with. During their academy days, Danner noted him to have been the class golden boy, with a sharp mind and an athletic body that enabled him to become a detective soon after graduating. At present, he's a renowned detective brought in as a ringer to solve a high-profile murder case. When we actually see him in action, he's shown to care more about maintaining a perfect case clearance record than finding real culprits.
• Bait the Dog: His early appearances give the impression that he genuinely respects Danner's skills as a crime-solver, giving her an Affectionate Nickname, listening to her insight and even letting her take part in interrogating a suspect despite her only being a beat cop. During the interrogation, he shows himself to be needlessly cruel toward the suspect, clearly already convinced that she was the culprit despite many pieces of conflicting evidence. Eventually, he reveals that he cares more about maintaining his perfect record than actually finding the truth and is willing to sabotage Danner's entire career as retribution for opposing him.
• Broken Pedestal: Danner is suggested to have admired him to an extent during their academy days and seen him as an ally during her time in the LAPD, only for her to lose all respect for him after he revealed himself to be the corrupt social climber he truly is.
• Dirty Cop: Attempts to arrest an innocent girl for murder despite there being several strong pieces of evidence absolving her, and overlooks evidence suggesting another suspect due to said suspect bribing him with a consultant position on his successful TV show.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Got Danner demoted in retaliation for her ruining his perfect arrest record.
• Establishing Character Moment: He's introduced during his and Danner's police academy days, cheering her on as she struggles to scale a climbing wall. When Danner thanks him for his support, he reveals that they'd be forced to run the course again if even one of them failed to complete it in time, demonstrating that he ultimately only cares about himself despite superficially seeming to be on her side.
• Famed In-Story: By the time the series begins, he's earned some fame in the police force for catching a criminal known as the Tar Pits Strangler.
• Foil: To Danner. He's the "proper" police detective to her Bunny-Ears Lawyer who excels in the conventional parts of their profession that she struggles in. While Danner is devoted to finding the truth above all else and is willing to put her career on the line for the sake of it, Germain is more concerned with maintaining his own reputation and is willing to charge innocent people for crimes they didn't commit to do so.
• It's All About Me: To him, solving cases is just a way to improve his own reputation; figuring out who actually did it is less important than finding enough evidence to arrest the most likely suspect. Getting in his way, even if it's for a good cause, will only earn you his ire.
• Jerkass: A stubborn, egomaniac cop who constantly looks down on Danner and takes pleasure when she is demoted for ruining his arrest record.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Caught a serial killer known as the Tar Pits Strangler at some point before the beginning of the series, though later revelations about his character cast some doubt on the actual validity of this accomplishment.
• Punny Name: He's the ringer called in to solve the case and his name is AldRIN GERmain.
• The Rival: Danner has a history with him, and her primary motivation for solving Xavier's murder is to do so before he arrives to take over the case in her place.

Kleyes

Officer Kleyes

Played By: Jimmy Tatro

Danner’s former partner in LA.

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• Police Are Useless: A more straightforward example. He's Danner's more dimwitted partner during her time in LA.

Reardon

Sheriff Reardon

Played By: Martin Mull

The Sheriff of Napa County and personal friend of the Minnows family.

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• The Sheriff: The sheriff of Napa County and the first to be called to the scene of Edgar’s death.
• Slave to PR: Danner uses this to get him to briefly consider alternative suspects. She points out arresting a suspect in a high-profile case with no physical evidence and multiple other people confessing to the murder will end up becoming a scandal once it hits the papers.

The Victims

Xavier

Eugene Xavier Duckworth, Jr.

"Imma Live Forever!"

Played By: Dave Franco

A world-famous pop sensation attending his high school reunion and throwing the after party when he is murdered.

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• All of the Other Reindeer: He was regarded as such a loser in high school that even Yasper and Aniq, who were pretty low on the food chain themselves, talked badly about him behind his back.
• Asshole Victim: Obnoxious, egotistic, selfish. Threw a temper tantrum when Yasper split the band, ruined Chelsea's reputation by claiming he slept with her, destroyed Aniq's chance to go to Stanford, and more. Every episode exposes more layers to his sheer dickery and why someone would want to kill him. It's ultimately played with a bit, as it turns out that the person who killed him was an entitled fame seeker with the least sympathetic motive of the suspects.
• Berserk Button: Messing with his stuff and meddling in his personal life are both easy ways to set him off.
• Betty and Veronica: Served as the Veronica to Aniq's Betty for Zoe's Archie during the reunion. While Zoe recognized her chemistry with Aniq and had some genuine interest in reconnecting with him, her desire to prove that she still had the spontaneity of her youth pushed her to instead pursue Xavier, the "Hottest, funnest, dumbest" guy at the party.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: While he's an annoying showboater from the outset, the only character he is shown being openly antagonistic towards early on is Brett and he is otherwise mostly amicable to the other party guests. The flashback to the St. Patrick's Day party reveals him to be much pettier and more vindictive than he was previously suggested to be.
• Brainless Beauty: Xavier is a charismatic Pretty Boy, but much of his dialogue suggests him to be short on brains.
• Chick Magnet: As a billionaire pop icon, this trope is to be expected. Exaggerated in Zoe's animated testimony, which depicts women literally throwing themselves at him in droves. Also played with to an extent, as both Chelsea and Zoe, the only two women he is actually shown pursuing, rather pointedly reject him.
• Color-Coded Characters: Wears purple predominately and is the only character to have this trait directly acknowledged in-universe.
  Brett: I hate him. I hate his little purple-suit-wearing Bieber-hair ass.
• Dirty Coward: After ruining Chelsea's reputation for his own benefit, his first instinct when reuniting with her is to avoid her at all costs. He also goes from smug arrogance to panic and starts pleading when Yasper attacks him, just before killing him.
• Embarrassing First Name: And Embarrassing Last Name! Xavier's real name was Eugene Xavier Duckworth, Jr.; he started going by his middle name Xavier when he rebranded himself as a cool guy.
• Glory Days: Inverted. He was unpopular and bullied in high school, while as an adult he's a world-famous, ultra-successful celebrity.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Xavier comes across as a shallow pop star who came to the reunion to lord his success over his classmates, but his uncomfortable interactions with Chelsea indicate that he feels guilty over his part in her humiliation. He also claims to be a feminist, and the news report on his death describes him as a humanitarian in addition to being a singer and actor.
  • He keeps a framed poster for Bye Bye Birdie, a show he acted in during high school, in his bedroom. While he claims to Zoe that he keeps it there as a reminder to himself of how much of a loser he used to be, we see him confide in Chelsea during the St. Patrick's Day party that starring in it was one of the primary things that motivated him to pursue a career as a performer, suggesting that it means more to him than he lets on.
• Hidden Disdain Reveal:
  • His interactions with Aniq during the latter's testimony portray him as being dismissively polite and suggest that Aniq's hostility toward him is entirely one-sided. The flashback to their high school St. Patrick's Day party reveals that Xavier blamed Aniq for making Yasper break up their band, mocked him for missing his chance with Zoe, and then chose to press charges against him when he attacked his car in a blind rage. All of this gives Aniq's paranoia about him a lot more credibility.
  • Yasper frames their interactions during the reunion as being mostly amicable in his testimony, with Xavier clearly being slightly irritated by his pushiness but otherwise willing to reminisce about the past and lightly play along with Yasper's delusions of getting him to bless his track for the sake of maintaining the mood of the night. The finale shows that Xavier reacted with much more hostility than Yasper let on when the topic of getting him to bless his track came up, making it clear that he had not forgiven him for leaving him in the lurch during high school and stating in no uncertain terms that he would never collaborate with him again.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: For all his cockiness and swagger, it's implied that he still has baggage about being an outcast in high school. The lyrics to his song "Just Like U" reveal that he's secretly depressed and estranged from his father.
  You know how it feels
  When you're drippin' in diamonds
  You're smilin', but dyin' inside
  You know how it feels
  When you drive a Bugatti
  You crash it for fun 'cause you're high
• I Was Quite a Fashion Victim: While every character featured in the high school flashback has shades of this, Xavier in particular is shown to have embodied all of the cringiest fashion choices of the mid-2000s in his unending quest to be seen as cool by his peers.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Xavier might be an egotistical jackass, but even a broken clock is right twice a day.
  • During their final confrontation, Xavier correctly calls out Brett's attempts to control Zoe as being a projection of his frustrations at his inability to control his own life. Brett takes it to heart and agrees to sign the divorce papers.
    Brett: The asshole was right. It's why my marriage fell apart. I wanted to control everyone, but in the end, the person I couldn't control was myself.
  • Similarly, his blunt refusal to bless Yasper's track may have been harsh, but it wasn't entirely unwarranted considering it was Yasper who broke up their band during high school. He also makes a pretty reasonable argument that choosing to go by his middle name and using the phrase "How great is this party?" are both broad enough ideas that he doesn't need to credit Yasper for coming up with them.
    Xavier: 'How great is this party' is not yours! That's just some shit people say!
• Mr. Fanservice: His attire during the reunion is an open jacket with nothing underneath, meaning that he spends most of his screentime with his chest exposed.
• Nice Character, Mean Actor: To the public, Xavier was a beloved celebrity and humanitarian. To his former peers, he was an obnoxious, petty and spiteful little scumbag.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: An amalgam of various oversexed male pop icons such as Justin Timberlake and Justin Bieber.
• Only Known by Initials: By the series proper, he's taken to calling himself "X" over Xavier.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Xavier is a total Asshole Victim who's always promoting himself and his ego in the different witness accounts. Around Chelsea, however, his smugness plummets and he's shown to be incredibly uncomfortable during the entire conversation.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Despite claiming to be a feminist, Xavier's songs are filled with misogynistic lyrics and he is consistently shown to view women as sexual conquests to rub in the faces of other men rather than actual people. He is also an Asshole Victim whose behavior caused most of his high school acquaintances to carry some form of grudge against him.
• Posthumous Character: Xavier's death kicks off the plot, but, as the victim, he's a major presence in every testimony and the audience gets to know him (and why the other characters might want to kill him).
• Real Award, Fictional Character:
  • Xavier is mentioned to have won a Grammy and a People's Choice Award. The latter is subject to Take That! since the thing he won it for (a Hall & Oates biopic) is full of Stylistic Suck.
  • Xavier also mentions that he was scheduled to host the Kids' Choice Awards the day after the party.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Gives a cutting one to Brett when he tries to threaten him at the afterparty that caused Brett to have a Jerkass Realization
  Xavier: Go for it, big man. All you'll do is prove who you really are. You try to control her, you try to control me, but the truth is you're the one who's out of control. Yeah, you just got two big turds at the end of your wrists. This whole aggro routine is old hat. And I... I'm new hat. I'm cool new hat.
  • His giving one of these to Yasper after he tries to get him to bless his track is what ends up driving him to murder.
  Xavier: Let me make this very clear, okay? I will never bless any track of yours. You're nobody. You're a loser. I am me, you are my AV guy.
• Revenge of the Nerd: Xavier was a high school Ska nerd turned pop sensation who is heavily implied to have been using the class reunion as an excuse to flaunt his success in his former classmates' faces. In particular, Brett's testimony has him outright admit that his (unsuccessful) attempts at seducing Zoe were done to get back at Brett (her estranged husband) for picking on him as a teen.
• Schoolyard Bully All Grown Up: Played with. Flashbacks to 2006 show him as an awkward nerd desperate to impress his peers, regarded as a loser by everyone and initially seems to indicate he became a jerk once he became famous. As his frustrations and ego builds up, he sabotages and humiliates his peers in order to boost his own prestige. After getting Aniq arrested and ruining his chance to go to Stanford, he proves that he was already a bully that would only become worse upon attaining fame.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Xavier narrowly escapes getting arrested for his fight with Aniq by mentioning that his dad owns a chain of popular coffeehouses. He is also suggested to have only managed to land on the Stanford waitlist due to his dad being alumni.
• Self-Made Man: Subverted. The media surrounding Xavier portrays him as a rising superstar who appeared on the music scene as a naturally discovered talent. "High School" reveals his father is a Stanford alum who owns a successful chain of coffee shops, giving him a huge financial advantage over anyone else attempting to break into music.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: Unlike his classmates, who all wear their signature colors both in the present and as teenagers, Xavier is not wearing purple in the flashback to 2006, reflecting how he reinvented himself after high school.
• Stylistic Suck: From what we see, all of his artistic output is portrayed as being completely banal; with his acting roles broad and his music overproduced (but still very catchy).
• Tempting Fate: His song "Imma Live Forever" turns this into an art form. Not only does it consist mostly of him boasting about how he'll never die, but it also includes a lyric where he muses that all of the enemies he's made across his life probably want to push him off of a balcony.
• That Man Is Dead: Gets visibly upset whenever someone refers to him as Eugene instead of Xavier and the only characters that do so clearly do it to mock him.
• Unrequited Love Switcheroo: A platonic example with Yasper. Back in high school, Yasper found Xavier embarrassing to associate with and broke up their band to strike out on his own. By the time of the reunion, Xavier had become a major success while Yasper remained a nobody, leading the latter to attempt to get the disinterested former to bless one of his tracks to gain fame by association.

Edgar

Edgar Minnows

"Everyone, your attention please; it's time for the evening's grand finale! In which you drive in your cars back to your own houses."

Played By: Zach Woods

The victim of season 2. He's Grace's husband who invests in cryptocurrency, a large space of land, and a pet lizard named Roxana. He is killed the morning after his wedding.

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• Asshole Victim: Edgar's very dark aspects mean that several of the people in the estate had sympathetic motives to kill him. However, his death was completely a mistake and the poison he drank was meant for someone else.
• Ambiguous Situation: To a far greater extent than Xavier was. The testimonies paint Edgar into two very different extremes: a socially awkward and aloof nerd who nevertheless shows warmth and care to people he likes and cares about in his own unique way, and a ruthless sociopathic conman who will do anything to build his wealth and discards anything that doesn't comply with his vision. Because there's evidence supporting both views, it's left to the viewer to determine to what degree Edgar is a monster or not.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: While he presents a socially awkward but sweet personally, Sebastian’s story reveals that he’s quite cruel and petty, firing his long-time friend and partner for not taking a financial risk and keeping a baseball card, not because it has any monetary value but because it means a lot to Sebastian. He even cuts the card just to spite him. And then there's his gaslighting of Isabel, his own mother.
• Commonality Connection: He and Aniq form a fast friendship when they discuss how white chocolate shouldn't be called chocolate because of its absence of cacao. It's even to the extent of giving Aniq a last-minute role in the wedding.
• Contrasting Sequel Protagonist: Inverted. Aniq, Zoe, and Danner are still the protagonists, but his character is very different to last season's victim, Xavier. While Xavier was an obnoxious, egotistical, and extroverted pop star, Edgar is an aloof, intelligent, introverted, and socially awkward Workaholic who isn't fond of public attention. While Edgar has done more genuine nice things than Xavier ever did including forming a friendship with Aniq and giving him a part in his wedding so he could impress Zoe and Grace's parents as well as searching the globe for Ulysses since he knew that Grace would be happy to see him at the wedding, as well as being a good brother to Hannah to the point that Hannah decided to let the marriage continue because Grace genuinely made Edgar happy, later episodes do reveal his darker sides that went beyond what Xavier was shown to be capable of, such as his cryptocurrency business being shown to be a massively fradulent operation or him gaslighting Isabel to put her into a conservatorship for control over her money. The story structure for both is also contrasted; while Xavier in early flashbacks in Season 1 paints him as a petty jerk and a bully - which he is - later flashbacks did attempt to humanize him a little more, even if just slightly. Meanwhile, early flashbacks with Edgar paint him as an awkward nerd who, despite his faults, did genuinely love Grace, while later flashbacks reveal his darker sides, being ruthless, aloof, and sometimes vindictive and manipulative. Their deaths and killers are also polar opposites. Xavier was violently killed in a fit of rage by Yasper who acted on impulse but intentionally killed Xavier. Edgar was poisoned by Ulysses who planned his murder well in advance but intended to kill his brother Feng rather than Edgar to whom he'd barely spoken prior.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: His cryptocurrency was a pump-and-dump scam and Sebastian implies his other business dealings were not any more legitimate.
• Creature of Habit: Follows a very strict health routine in attempts to live well past 100, including going to bed early. His commitment to this is something that irks Grace and pushes her to spike his drink with Adderall.
• Chronic Evidence Retention Syndrome: Kept the original wedding napkins with the correct names in his closet rather than destroying or disposing of them. This results in Isabel being able to prove that he was gaslighting her, when she discovers them after his death.
• Death by Irony: For being a socially inept, aloof, and ruthless businessman, he does search the globe as a grand romantic gesture for Grace - tracking down Ulysses in Patagonia and inviting him to the wedding - which turns out to be the person who accidentally caused his own downfall.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He genuinely loved Grace and married her seemingly just out of love although using her in his plan against Isabel shows that even she wasn't immune from his mistreatment.
• Gaslighting: Started a campaign of gaslighting towards his mother Isabel shortly after the death of his father.
• Geek Physique: Tall and lanky. Lampshaded by the tagline of the poster for "Grace".
  "An independent woman. A very tall man. An unexpected romance."
• Grand Romantic Gesture: Spent a significant amount of time and effort to locate Grace’s Uncle Ulysses for her so he could come to the wedding. Grace appreciates having him there but admits that she would have preferred if they could have spent the time before their wedding together instead.
• He Knows Too Much: Knew quite a few secrets about the guests, that Sebastian is secretly a conman and just was fired, that Feng may not be Grace’s biological father to name a few. These secrets get put forward as potential motives for multiple characters.
• Illegal Guardian: In an inversion of the usual ages for this trope he was planning to force his mother into an abusive conservatorship to get her money.
• Innocently Insensitive: It's clear that he doesn't seem to understand the effect his Workaholic tendencies has on the people around him, especially Grace.
• Introverted Cat Person: Shy and closed off from almost everyone, even his own fiance, but he utterly adores his pet lizard, Roxana. He even shares his food with her and makes decisions based on her reactions.
• Kick the Dog: He fires Sebastian for not investing everything in crypto and later destroys a priceless baseball card Sebastian cared about solely to be cruel.
• Meaningful Name: "Edgar Minnows" is an anagram for "Wrong Man Dies"
• Mr. Vice Guy: He can be curt, frigid, and way too focused on work for his own good (even towards his own fiancee) but it's not intentional most of the time. There are times in the show when he's genuinely kind, such as standing up for Grace against his mother's disdain for her or helping Aniq impress Zoe's parents after he became the Butt-Monkey for the weekend. However, there are instances of him being cold or even downright cruel, such as cutting up a valuable baseball card as retribution for Sebastian's lack of trust in him.
• Malicious Misnaming: He convinced Isabel Grace was named Gail and replaced the napkins at the wedding with one's bearing the name Gail. This embarrassed both of them greatly and helped him gaslight his mother.
• Mushroom Samba: It is eventually revealed that him calling everyone at the after party devils was not him speaking metaphorically, but a hallucination brought on by the drug that would eventually kill him. This is actually a major plot point because it narrows down the time he took the poison to about 15 minutes before that outburst.
• Nerds Are Sexy: He's named Silicon Valley's most eligible bachelor despite his lack of social skills.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: One of his very few acts of genuine kindness, tracking down Ulysses and bringing him to the wedding just to make Grace happy, ends up causing his death as Ulysses uses the chance to kill Feng but accidentally kills Edgar instead.
• Parrot Pet Position: He almost always has his pet lizard Roxana on his right shoulder. When he entrusts her to Aniq for the reception, she takes this position on him as well.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Makes several bigoted comments during Isabel’s recounting of the events such as refusing to hire an assistant with a visible disability or denying a Jewish employee time off for Rosh Hashanah.
• The Rich Want to Be Richer: He's already extremely well-off, both from his family wealth and his ventures, but always wants more, not being satisfied even with making hundreds of millions from cryptocurrency when he could have made more and trying to take over his mother's fortune.
• Self-Made Orphan: Isabel was convinced he was going to kill her now that he knew she was seeing through his attempts at gaslighting her. He didn’t actually do it though.
• Serious Business: Treats Connect 4 very seriously keeping a running tally of the results of his games with Sebastian and being embarrassed about his own poor sportsmanship when he played himself.
• Sherlock Scan: Is shown to be capable of this, such as figuring out Aniq's situation at the wedding from a glance, or figuring out Ulysses had an affair with Vivian from a single remark.
• The Stoic: For a guy on what's supposed to be the happiest day of his life, he doesn't emote too much. It's played for laughs whenever he gets riled up, like to call everyone demons.
• Workaholic: Grace describes him as such during her interview and based on the fact he rushes out to attend to a work matter during their first dance definitely paints him as such. Granted, said 'work matter' turned out to be to intercept Sebastian's heist, but still.
• You Have Failed Me: A non-lethal variation - He fires Sebastian when the latter held back 20% of their capital in investing towards Bucephalus.

High School Suspects

In General

"Tell the story the right way, and any one of us could've done it."

Tropes that apply to all of the suspects.

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• Adult Child: All of them are to varying degrees shown to be emotionally stunted and completely hung up on their high school experiences.
• Color-Coded Characters: Each of them predominantly wears a particular color, both in the present and in the flashback to their high school days:
  • Aniq: Blue
  • Brett: Black
  • Yasper: Green
  • Chelsea: Pink
  • Zoe: Red
  • Indigo: Black
  • Walt: Beige
  • Ned: Salmon
  • Jennifer 1: Yellow
  • Jennifer 2: Orange
• Dysfunction Junction: They're a bunch of maladjusted adults whose interpersonal relationships could be best described as a twisted web of unrequited love and bitter grudges.
• Everyone Went to School Together: They're former high school classmates brought together for their fifteen year reunion.
• It's All About Me: Each of them sees themself as the "star of their own movie," resulting in completely warped and differing recollections of the night. The exception is Walt, who is so forgettable that even his own episode just features him as a background character observing the others.
• Love Dodecahedron: One that only becomes more convoluted as the series goes on. Aniq is in love with Zoe, who was married to Brett but separated from him after he had an affair with Chelsea. Ned dated Chelsea in high school but is now married to Jennifer 1 and clearly still harbors some unresolved feelings for the former. Xavier attempted to sleep with an intoxicated Chelsea during high school and then lied about doing so when she refused him, and spent most of the afterparty unsuccessfully trying to seduce Zoe.
• Red Herring: With the exceptions of Jennifer 1, Ned, and Indigo, who are all given solid alibis early on, each of the innocent suspects has several qualities that make it very easy to believe them to be Xavier's murderer:
  • Aniq blacked out during the time when the murder took place and has a history of acting in a violent and erratic manner when under the influence. His last lucid thoughts were also about confronting Xavier for supposedly slighting him.
  • Brett has a Hair-Trigger Temper and spent all of the party aggressively trying to keep Zoe from hooking up with Xavier, who he had an antagonistic past with.
  • Chelsea came to the reunion for the express purpose of taking revenge on Xavier for ruining her life and clearly views herself as a rock-bottom failure with nothing left to lose.
  • Walt's status as a Forgettable Character makes it hard to keep track of him throughout the night, and he mentions that he'll do something at the reunion that will make it impossible for his peers to forget about him. More subtly, he's the only character that doesn't use an iPhone as a deliberate nod to Rian Johnson's claim that all Apple-produced media have a mandate stating that only villains are allowed to be shown using non-Apple products. His last name is also Butler, alluding to the infamous cliche of The Butler Did It.
  • Zoe is perhaps the most subtle example of them all, as her Red Herring status relies on the expectation that the viewer is Genre Savvy about mystery tropes. While she lacks any immediate motive, her lack of focus until late into the first season and portrayal as a Satellite Love Interest in Aniq and Brett's testimonies create some ambiguity around her character. Like Walt, the medium itself is manipulated to cast further doubt onto her innocence, such as shots of her that would be mostly innocuous out of context being deliberately cut to during sequences that would make her look suspicious.
  • Jennifer 2 disappears mysteriously early on into the investigation, but is revealed in the finale to have been in the hospital giving birth.
• Unreliable Narrator: All of them omit, alter, or misremember details based on their own perception of events.

Aniq

Aniq Adjaye

"How could this all go so wrong?"

Played By: Sam Richardson

A dorky escape room designer who attends the reunion to reconnect with his recently divorced crush, only to inadvertently become the prime suspect. His flashback is presented as a Romantic Comedy.

He returns in Season 2 as Zoe's boyfriend and joins Danner in investigating another murder. His flashback is again a Romantic Comedy, although it's a Meeting-the-Parents Sequel.

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• Alliterative Name: A poster in Episode 1 reveals that his full name is Aniq Adjaye.
• Always Someone Better: His attempts to impress Zoe's family in Season 2 go horribly awry, made worse when Sebastian's charm commands the room and paints him as a fool.
• Amateur Sleuth: Aniq designs escape room puzzles professionally, and tries to put his know-how to use to solve the murder case independently of the detectives.
• Betty and Veronica:
  • During high school, he served as the Betty to Brett's Veronica for Zoe's Archie. Aniq was a nerd who developed a close friendship with Zoe but was too shy to confess his feelings, which enabled the more confident Brett to eventually win out over him by actively pursuing her affections.
  • During the reunion, he served as the Betty to Xavier's Veronica for Zoe's Archie. While Zoe recognized her chemistry with Aniq and had some genuine interest in reconnecting with him, her desire to prove that she still had the spontaneity of her youth pushed her to instead pursue Xavier, the "Hottest, funnest, dumbest" guy at the party.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Aniq is very nice, but Danner recognizes that it is possible to push a guy like him to violence, as Walt’s flashback proves, meaning he’s just as suspicious as anyone, and his account and history of animosity with Xavier makes him the prime suspect.
• Black and Nerdy: He's black and an Endearingly Dorky puzzle lover who was also bright enough to get a full ride to Stanford during high school. He's also seemingly the only character capable of spelling the word "diarrhea" correctly off the top of his head.
• Butt-Monkey: Aniq's night at the reunion and the Saint Patrick's Day Party was less than ideal, to say the least. His attempts at reconnecting with Zoe were foiled, he gets absurdly drunk on alcohol, and high off of cat tranquilizers, he's pantsed twice, and few of his peers seem to respect him. And then he's pointed at as a prominent suspect for murder.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Has trouble confessing his feelings for Zoe and always has his efforts foiled whenever he finally musters the courage to do so.
• Can't Hold His Liquor: Got drunk at both the St. Patrick's Day party and the reunion and is noted to be a lightweight by the other characters. Although, drinking a flask full of cat tranquilizer probably did not help.
• Character Development: Learns over the course of the night to look beyond his own perception of things and attempt to understand the thoughts and actions of others, becoming not only less judgmental but also a much more competent mystery solver in the process.
• Clear My Name: Begins the investigation as the most likely culprit and so sets off on an investigation of his own to prove his innocence.
• The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: Designs escape rooms for a living and yet has a history of acting erratically when placed in stressful situations. He actually makes a very reasonable point justifying this in a conversation with Zoe, stating that part of his love of escape rooms is the certainty that you will eventually be able to solve them no matter how hopeless they make you feel.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Had his Stanford scholarship revoked after the police became involved during a fight with Xavier in high school and lost his chance with Zoe after she mistook the mix CD he made for her as being made by Brett. While we don't know the exact details of his life after that, he states that he was never really able to get over what happened that day.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After many road bumps, he ends the first season having cleared his name, proven his mettle as a mystery solver, and finally getting together with Zoe. It isn't without a bitter tinge, however, as he was also made to realize that one of his closest friends was a murderer.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Multiple people call him Urkel with Kyler even turning it into a Running Gag during his Instagram videos of the wedding. The last scene of season two even has him embarrassed to learn that Danner has cast Jaleel White to play him in her movie based on the Xaiver murder.
• Endearingly Dorky: He's awkward and nerdy, but in a charming and likable way that enabled him to have strong romantic chemistry with Zoe. He's even openly called adorkable by the detectives.
• Face Doodling: Had his body graffitied over by the other afterparty attendees after he passed out, and spent the entirety of the investigation covered in embarrassing doodles.
• Fatal Flaw: His intelligence and feeling of bitterness over losing his chance with Zoey as well as losing his scholarship. Aniq tends to dwell on missed opportunities and previous slights, making him somewhat resentful. Due to him overcompensating for his life not turning out the way he wanted, he can be a bit condescending when speaking with others and clearly likes to think of himself as the smartest person in the room. His pride and bitterness have led him to be judgemental, impulsive and quick to react which lead him to becoming the primary murder suspect.
• Foil:
  • To Danner. Both are attempting to solve the same mystery despite neither being legally permitted to, but Danner is a Bunny-Ears Lawyer who forgoes conventional investigation in favor of analyzing social dynamics between the suspects while Aniq is an Amateur Sleuth trying to put his escape room puzzle-solving skills to use by seeking out esoteric clues around the crime scene. They are also the only black characters in the main cast, which Danner acknowledges early on and which seems to at least partially motivate her desire to give him the benefit of the doubt. We eventually learn that both of them had their careers temporarily ruined after a fight with a peer that resulted in the peer pressing charges against them out of spite and the police force going along with it due to implicit racial profiling.
  • To Brett. Both attended the reunion in the hope of reconnecting with Zoe, but Aniq did so to start a relationship with her that was never able to happen while Brett did it to rekindle a relationship with her that had already failed. Aniq also tends to overthink situations and only take action when it is already too late to do anything whereas Brett is almost mindlessly impulsive and prefers to lie his way out of problems on the spot.
• Geek Physiques: He's the chubbiest of the cast and is referred to as a nerd in-universe.
• History Repeats: Both the high school St. Patrick's Day party and class reunion ended with him pantsed, soaking wet, drunk, and in trouble with the police.
• I Am Spartacus: He falsely confesses to Edgar’s murder to prevent Sheriff Reardon from arresting Grace, kicking off a string of confessions from most of the remaining suspects.
• Jerkass Realization: Has several over the course of the show as he listens in on the other testimonies. It's perhaps most notable in episode six, while overhearing Zoe’s story. He was so wrapped up in his pursuit of her that he never realized she had her own problems going on. This results in his Character Development in the final episode, where he admits that he had dismissed everyone else at the reunion as selfish and judgmental while overlooking their own struggles. His ability to finally recognize the internal workings of the people around him is what helps him realize the true identity of the killer.
• Liquid Courage: Attempted to use alcohol to reduce his inhibitions during both the reunion and the high school party, only for both instances to end with him getting into trouble as a result of acting too erratically as a result of his inebriation.
• Mr. Vice Guy: Aniq is generally overly self-important, lacks the courage needed to speak his mind on most occasions, and tends to lash out when placed under a lot of pressure. Despite this, he is otherwise shown to be a perfectly well-meaning and likable guy whose affection for Zoe is both genuine and well-founded, making him easy to sympathize with.
• Nice Guy: While not without his faults, Aniq is overall a polite and affable guy who tries his best to get along with others and will stick his neck out for people in need when no one else will.
• Self-Made Man: He's heavily implied to come from a less economically advantaged background than most of his peers, but managed to secure a full ride for himself to Stanford during high school through academic achievement. When that scholarship was revoked and his life was thrown off course after the St. Patrick's Day party, he managed to recover, attend a different college, and go on to have a successful career as an escape room designer. While he is suggested to not have risen too far beyond his financial background (he explicitly states that having to pay legal fees would ruin him), he's the only one among his former classmates outside of Xavier who seems to have actually landed into a career he enjoys, purely through his own hard work.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The sensitive guy to Brett's manly man. Aniq makes a real effort to connect with and understand Zoe on an emotional level but is too self-conscious to be upfront about his feelings for her whereas Brett is mostly insensitive to her needs but had the confidence to actively pursue her romantically. Emphasized by their respective testimonies, where Aniq portrays himself as the protagonist of a treacly rom-com and Brett portrays himself as a badass Action Hero.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: During the flashback to high school, Aniq's outfit incorporates Zoe's signature color red in addition to its usual blue; reflecting how close the two were at the time.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: Wears glasses when behind the wheel and reading and is an academically bright puzzle fanatic. He's shown to have worn a pair full-time during high school.
• Spanner in the Works: His blaming Xavier for pranking him at the afterparty and misguided attempt at confronting him inadvertently makes him the most likely suspect in the murder, forcing his friend Yasper, the actual killer, to jump through hoops to both remain beneath suspicion and exonerate Aniq. This results in many slip-ups that gradually add up to prove his guilt.
• Straight Man and Wise Guy: Straight man to Yasper's wise guy. Aniq takes himself very seriously and spends the night determined to clear his name whereas Yasper is lighthearted and, though willing to lend Aniq a hand, not above screwing around during their investigation.
• Tempting Fate: Begins the night declaring that nothing could go wrong and ends it as the most likely suspect in a murder case.
• Unknown Rival: He portrays Brett as a violent competitor for Zoe's affection. Brett himself barely seems cognizant that Aniq exists. While it's initially implied that Xavier barely notices Aniq, their history runs much deeper.
• Wacky Marriage Proposal: He is planning one of these for Zoe at the start of the second season. Proposing following her sister's wedding already counts for this trope as a Faux Paux but the actual proposal where Zoe proposes to him with an improvised ring made from a flower stem is even wackier.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Attempts to approach solving Xavier's death using the same logic one would use to solve an escape room by searching for patterns and decoding hidden messages in potential evidence. This leads him to spend around half of the series focusing on an irrelevant set of writings under the mistaken belief that they're crucial evidence. It's only when he starts to use Danner's approach of comparing and contrasting the other suspects' testimonies with his own experiences that he's able to make a meaningful breakthrough in the mystery. Ironically, the show is littered with hidden messages in the style of an escape room that contain clues about the case; Aniq just doesn't get to see any of them.

Brett

Brett

"I left late. Got to the party just on time."

Played By: Ike Barinholtz

A brash divorcee attending the reunion to win back his wife Zoe after cheating on her. His flashback is told as an action movie.

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• Badass Driver: Presents himself as a high-speed stunt driver in his testimony. All other testimonies that depict his car chase with Aniq, Chelsea and Yasper portray things as being much less dramatic or impressive.
• Based on a Great Big Lie: His relationship with Zoe is eventually revealed to have started entirely because she mistook Aniq's mix CD for her as being made by him and Brett playing along.
• Betty and Veronica: Served as the Veronica to Aniq's Betty for Zoe's Archie during high school. Aniq was a nerd who developed a close friendship with Zoe but was too shy to confess his feelings, which enabled the more confident Brett to eventually win out over him by actively pursuing her affections.
• Bond One-Liner: Turns himself into a quip-spouting action hero in his testimony, and delivers one of the archetype's signature post-battle one-liners after he defeats a bouncer trying to stop him from getting into the afterparty by knocking him out with a frying pan.
  Brett: Order up.
• Butt-Monkey: While he doesn't endure nearly as much as Aniq or Walt do, he is mocked or insulted basically any time the other characters bring him up in conversation and is clearly hated by the majority of his peers.
• Chick Magnet: Deconstructed. He had a reputation as a player in high school, and both Zoe and Chelsea showed some amount of interest in him. By the time the series begins he is married to the former and had an affair with the latter but is shown to be hated by both, with Chelsea even referring to sleeping with him as the absolute rock bottom of her downward spiral. Both of them also agree that he's bad at sex in general, saying that he treats it like "a rush to the finish" as if it's a sport to be won.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Very against the idea of Zoe being with another man, and spent most of the reunion trying to sabotage Xavier's attempts at seducing her. This trope is subverted in the case of Aniq, as he does not perceive him to be enough of a threat to warrant any interest.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: When Danner accuses him of being the killer in the finale, she cites his temper as being one of the most likely signs that he has the capacity to kill when under stress. When trying to defend himself, Brett says this:
  Brett: Stop saying it or I'll kill you!
• Dirty Coward: While he presents the skirmish he got into at the afterparty as an intense brawl with a burly bouncer in his own testimony, Maggie's recount shows that all that really happened was he punched a passing waiter in the face for questioning his parenting skills and then ran away before he could retaliate.
• Foil: To Aniq. Both attended the reunion in the hope of reconnecting with Zoe, but Aniq did so to start a relationship with her that was never able to happen while Brett did it to rekindle a relationship with her that had already failed. Aniq also tends to overthink situations and only take action when it is already too late to do anything whereas Brett is almost mindlessly impulsive and prefers to lie his way out of problems on the spot.
• Foot-Dragging Divorcee: Brett has apparently not signed the divorce papers, considering his situation with Zoe a "separation". He finally tells her that he'll sign them after learning that she has no intention of sleeping with Xavier at the end of his testimony.
• Future Loser: The former Big Man on Campus has become a Foot-Dragging Divorcee trying and failing to win back his ex-wife after cheating on her.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Danner even calls him "Mr. Aggro" within minutes of meeting him.
• Hellbent For Leather: Wears a leather jacket to go along with his wannabe tough guy image.
• Her Codename Was Mary Sue: While every suspect's testimony (with the exception of Walt) is self-aggrandizing to a point, Brett's goes out of its way to overly dramatize everything he did throughout the night to make him look as cool and impressive as possible. His jacket is also subtly padded to make himself look broader and more muscular than he does in reality.
• Hidden Depths: For all his faults and her dislike of him, Zoe has no trouble admitting that he is a great father to their daughter.
• High-School Sweethearts: He and Zoe started dating in high school and ended up getting married. However, they are effectively divorced by the time the series starts.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Perceived Xavier to be the most immediate threat to his chances with Zoe during the reunion despite her obvious chemistry with Aniq and later confession that Xavier isn't her type at all. This only serves to further show how little he actually knows about her, as he assumes that she would go for Xavier simply because he is wealthy and attractive rather than taking into account any of the actual qualities she would desire in a partner.
• Jerk Jock: Got into an Ivy League university on a sports scholarship during high school, and was an obnoxious bully to those outside of the popular clique. For bonus points, it was a scholarship for squash: the signature sport of rich jerkwads in fiction.
• Jerkass: Brett is an abrasive, insensitive asshole who ruined his marriage by having an affair, refuses to take any responsibility for his actions, and frequently employs gaslighting to get what he wants.
• Lousy Lovers Are Losers: Both Zoe and Chelsea agree that Brett is a very unsatisfying lover, saying that he treats it like "a rush to the finish" as if it's a sport to be won.
• Manipulative Bastard: Most of his positive interactions with Zoe come about as a result of him lying to her, and his primary tactic to win her back during the reunion is to emotionally manipulate her by replacing the high school slideshow with pictures of their family.
• Mundane Made Awesome: His testimony portrays him acting like a meddling creep toward his estranged wife with the slick stylishness of an action movie. Everything from parking his car, logging onto Facebook, and going to the bathroom is portrayed as a badass feat of daring.
• Never My Fault: Brett frequently finds ways to avoid taking the blame for the problems around him, including blaming Chelsea for "seducing him" into having an affair.
• Papa Wolf: Goes on a rampage when he finds out someone stole his daughter's favorite stuffed animal. Played with in that his response is framed as an overreaction that inadvertently causes him to put his daughter at risk of getting hurt.
• Parents as People: There's no denying that he loves and is loved by his daughter Maggie, but being an irresponsible Manchild with a Hair-Trigger Temper seriously dampens his parenting skills at times. Not only does he get into a high-speed chase with her in the backseat, but he leaves her alone and unattended in his car when he goes to confront Xavier at the afterparty.
• Pet the Dog:
  • After getting called out by Xavier, he realizes that it was his own fault that his marriage failed, apologizes to Zoe for his meddling behavior throughout the night, and promises to finalize their divorce. He also states that he'll do all he can to earn back her trust despite understanding that he can never regain her love.
    Zoe: Brett did something that I always wondered if he was capable of. I just... never thought he would actually do it.
  • In the finale, he is genuinely grateful to Aniq for sticking up for him when Danner accuses him of being the killer. Later, he allows Aniq to ride off with Zoe without issue, suggesting that he approves of and accepts them becoming a couple.
• Psycho Ex-Girlfriend: Brett is portrayed as a Psycho Ex-Husband in Aniq’s story, wanting to win back Zoe and acting very hostile towards Xavier and Aniq. His own testimony where he portrays himself as an action hero does not do much to absolve him, as he was clearly stalking his wife and trying to emotionally manipulate her into forgiving him.
• Schoolyard Bully All Grown Up: Picked on Xavier during high school and remains antagonistic toward him during the reunion.
• Self-Serving Memory: While everyone in the show does it to an extent, Brett is the most blatant, portraying himself as an outright action hero and turning a minor scuffle where he fled after throwing the first punch into a scene straight of a Jason Statham film where he's an effortlessly cool tough guy who takes his opponent down with his supposed martial arts skills and tosses out one-liners doing so.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The manly man to Aniq's sensitive guy. Aniq makes a real effort to connect with and understand Zoe on an emotional level but is too self-conscious to be upfront about his feelings for her whereas Brett is mostly insensitive to her needs but had the confidence to actively pursue her romantically. Emphasized by their respective testimonies, where Aniq portrays himself as the protagonist of a treacly romcom and Brett portrays himself as a badass action hero.
• Serious Business: In his testimony, he has an extended duel with Xavier over who can pee for longer and with a thicker stream.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Brett thinks of himself as a Vin Diesel-esque action star on a valiant mission to repair his family. Everyone else just thinks he's annoying, and no one is impressed by his antics.

Yasper

Yasper Lennov

"Ska-pe Diem! How great is this party?!"

Played By: Ben Schwartz

An AV technician, Xavier’s former ska band partner, and Aniq’s close friend. He attends the reunion hoping to get Xavier to "bless" one of his tracks and finally launch his music career, only to help Aniq as he seeks to clear his name. His flashback is presented as a musical.

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• Big Ego, Hidden Depths: Despite coming off as a self-absorbed dork chasing dreams of stardom, Yasper genuinely cares about Aniq's romantic pursuit of Zoe. Chelsea's testimony also reveals that his concern over Chelsea's health was genuine and recognized, as he proves to be one of the few people who comes off as a sincere friend.
• Bromantic Foil: He's the silly and supportive Romantic Wingman to Aniq's dorky and intelligent rom-com main character. The Genre Savvy Danner lampshades him as the wacky best friend in a rom-com.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: For all his obnoxious behavior and obsession with success, Yasper is shown to be a very competent AV guy who easily installs new tech into Xavier's place and utilizes it to help Aniq clear his name.
• Determinator: Refuses to accept that he's missed his chance at striking it big, and doggedly pursues Xavier throughout the reunion until he finally gets him to agree to bless his track.
• Dumbass Has a Point: His "Two Shots" musical number mostly highlights how he's in denial about losing out on his chance at musical stardom, with him nonsensically claiming that "we all get one shot [in life] twice." However, the examples he cites actually make a pretty good case for his philosophy being right:
  Your first band, The Quarrymen, doesn't move the needle?
  Form a second band and call it The fucking Beatles!
• Foil: To Chelsea. Both cite an incident with Xavier at their high school's St. Patrick's Day party as throwing their lives off track and came to the reunion in the hope of getting closure. Yasper is a Determinator who maintains a positive outlook on life by living in denial of his failures while Chelsea is a Broken Bird whose failures are a direct result of her shattered self-esteem. Yasper was also the instigator of his incident with Xavier and approaches him at the reunion with the intention of leeching off of his fame while Chelsea was the victim of her incident and approaches Xavier at the reunion with the intention of destroying his career.
• Future Loser: Downplayed. Though he was never particularly high up on the social ladder in high school, he was outgoing, ambitious, and on good terms with popular girls Chelsea and Zoe. At present, while he's still outgoing and ambitious, both of these qualities come across as him being in denial of the fact that his music career never went anywhere and he generally reads more as pathetic and desperate than anything else.
• Her Codename Was Mary Sue: Of a different sort than Brett; Yasper's testimony turns every witness other than himself into his personal cheerleaders who serve no narrative function other than to heap him with praise.
• Hidden Depths: With how fixated Yasper is on his supposed Glory Days and becoming a famous musician you'd be forgiven for assuming that he hasn't done anything with his life after high school. In reality, he runs his own tech installation company that is of a high enough profile to be hired by a billionaire mega-star like Xavier.
• High Hopes, Zero Talent: Believes himself to have the makings of a musical superstar despite the only music he's known to have produced being painfully mediocre Ska. The musical numbers featured in his testimony are much better, but it's unclear how much they can be trusted as an accurate depiction of his talents.
• Hourglass Plot: Throughout his focus episode, Yasper is desperate to revive his old ska band with Xavier in order to achieve fame. Xavier is clearly uninterested, merely playing along for the sake of a good time. "High School" reveals that it was Yasper who broke up the band while Xavier desperately tried to cling on, having switched roles by the present.
• It Will Never Catch On: Dismissed pop music as a fad and stopped collaborating with Xavier due to his interest in it. Conversely, he put all of his stock in ska becoming the next big thing in music despite it being an infamously hated genre.
• Large Ham: He's very flamboyant and always maintains a high energy level. He's even implied to have actually performed the song and dance numbers featured in his testimony when recounting it to Danner.
• Mundane Made Awesome: His testimony turns him browbeating Xavier into agreeing to bless one of his tracks into a feel good musical.
• Nice Guy: While obnoxious and self-absorbed, Yasper is a sincere friend to Aniq, working hard to help clear his name. Additionally, he expresses genuine concern about Chelsea's well-being even when her reputation was in the dirt. His inspirational speech that motivated Chelsea towards making better decisions is revealed to be real in Chelsea's version of events.
• Out of Focus: He's basically an extra in both Brett and Zoe's testimonies.
• The Pete Best: Invoked. He was in a band with Xavier back in high school, but Xavier was only able to make it big after they broke up and he started doing his own thing, leaving Yasper irrelevant and craving fame. Ironically, it was Yasper who instigated the break-up, on the grounds that Xavier was holding him back.
• Romantic Wingman: Presented as such in Aniq's version of the event, which is, surprisingly, shown to be largely consistent with his actions in his own testimony.
• Serious Business: Xavier dying his hair and wearing a puffy jacket to Walt's party is what finally pushed him to break up their band back in high school because according to him you can't be taken seriously as a ska performer while wearing pop clothing.
  Yasper: And look at you- look how you're dressed! You are pop, from top to bottom! You can't do this in those clothes! (starts skanking)
• Shipper on Deck: Yasper is very invested in Aniq finally getting together with Zoe, and pushes him to do so throughout the reunion.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Lionizes his high school ska band despite nobody but him remembering it fondly (in fact, most don't remember it at all). As far as the audience gets to hear, their music was nothing to write home about.
• Straight Man and Wise Guy: Wise guy to Aniq's straight man. Aniq takes himself very seriously and spends the night determined to clear his name whereas Yasper is lighthearted and, though willing to lend Aniq a hand, not above screwing around during their investigation.
• Undying Loyalty: In keeping with his wingman role in Aniq’s story, Yasper staunchly defends him against murder accusations and works with him to clear his name.
• Unrequited Love Switcheroo: A platonic example with Xavier. Back in high school, Yasper found Xavier embarrassing to associate with and broke up their band to strike out on his own. By the time of the reunion, Xavier has become a major success while Yasper remained a nobody, leading the latter to attempt to get the disinterested former to bless one of his tracks to gain fame by association.

Chelsea

Chelsea

"You seem to have made up your mind about me. Just like everyone else."

Played By: Ilana Glazer

The former class president turned drunken mess attending the reunion to fulfill her own mysterious agenda. Her flashback is presented as a Psychological Thriller.

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• The Alcoholic: Presented as such in most characters' testimonies, and doesn't do much on her own to dispel this image.
• Broken Bird: After the infamous Saint Patrick's Day party, Chelsea's life took a complete downward spiral. Betrayed by her friends, slut-shamed, called "crazy" by everyone including her own mother, tied with various self-destructive behaviors and addictions... even her own flashback is full of self-loathing, compared to the relatively rose-tinted, It's All About Me goggles of her peers.
• But Not Too Bi: While she offhandedly mentions having been in a long-term relationship with a woman, both of her onscreen love interests are men.
• Class Princess: Back during high school she was class president and at the top of the Popularity Food Chain, but was also a perfectly nice girl who got along well with her peers regardless of their social standing. In fact, it was her willingness to act as a shoulder for the then-unpopular Xavier to cry on that led to the incident that destroyed her reputation.
• The Comically Serious: Her testimony juxtaposes the aesthetics of a moody Psychological Thriller with the usual humor of the rest of the series.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Self-medicates her depression with alcohol, and is heavily implied to have developed a drinking problem as a consequence.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: By the end of the night, she's found a sense of self worth for the first time in years, rebuilt her friendship with Zoe, and gotten long-deserved apologies from both Xavier and Jennifer 1.
• Foil: To Yasper. Both cite an incident with Xavier at their high school's St. Patrick's Day party as throwing their lives off track and came to the reunion in the hope of getting closure. Yasper is a Determinator who maintains a positive outlook on life by living in denial of his failures while Chelsea is a Broken Bird whose failures are a direct result of her shattered self-esteem. Yasper was also the instigator of his incident with Xavier and approaches him at the reunion with the intention of leeching off of his fame while Chelsea was the victim of her incident and approaches Xavier at the reunion with the intention of destroying his career.
• Future Loser: Formerly the class president and one of the most popular girls in high school, Chelsea is now a drunken trainwreck.
• Gray Rain of Depression: Her testimony uses a much darker and more muted color palette than the others and begins with her looking out through a rain-slicked car window to convey its bleaker tone. No other testimony suggests that it rained at any point during the night, suggesting she included this detail for dramatic effect.
• Hidden Depths: Aniq, Brett, Yasper and Zoe all portray her to varying degrees as being a drunken mess in their testimonies, while Chelsea's testimony reveals her to have been far more keenly aware of her surroundings than they gave her credit for.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: Bitter, paranoid, and an emotional mess, Chelsea slowly reveals herself to possess a strong moral fiber who speaks in defense of Aniq and genuinely apologizes to Zoe.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Her testimony turns Walt trying to return her car keys into a Kubrick-esque psychological thriller about her being stalked. In her defense, the unrelated threatening texts she had been receiving throughout the night gave her some reason to suspect that she was in danger.
• Nice Girl: Beneath her drunken bitterness, Chelsea is consistently shown to be a good person who is considerate to both friends and strangers.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Offered support and encouragement to Xavier after Yasper broke up their band during the high school St. Patrick's Day party, only to be rewarded with him destroying her reputation by falsely claiming to have had a threesome with her while she was too drunk to stand up for herself.
• The Paranoiac: A combination of cripplingly low self-esteem and a history of betrayal have left Chelsea suspicious of everyone around her.
• Playing Drunk: Her testimony claims that she feigned drunkenness during the reunion as an excuse to pour her drink on Aniq and separate him from Zoe. Both Aniq and Zoe's recounts of this incident portray her as actually being drunk, leaving it ambiguous as to which version is the truth.
• Pretty in Mink: Her attire for the reunion includes a mink coat.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: Her signature color is pink throughout the show, but in high school it's a bright pink befitting her role as a popular girl full of potential, while at the reunion it's a dull, washed-out pink that almost looks white or brown, reflecting the loss of that social status and potential.
• We Used to Be Friends: She was friends with Zoe and the two Jennifers in high school. The Jennifers turned on her after the infamous St. Patrick’s Day party, while Zoe stuck by Chelsea back then but is now hostile to her due to Chelsea having an affair with Zoe's husband Brett.

Walt

Walt Butler

"Walt."

Played By: Jamie Demetriou

A forgettable man who appears throughout each testimony. His flashback is not set at the reunion at all but at a Wild Teen Party during high school.

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• Advertised Extra: Played with. He's credited as part of the main cast, and while he is present in every episode, his status as a Forgettable Character largely ignored by everyone else intrinsically means that he does very little. Even his testimony is used as a way of providing background information on the other main suspects rather than to give him any significant focus.
• Apologizes a Lot: Instinctively apologizes for getting in the way of others when they brush him off.
• Berserk Button: Played with. Forgetting who he is clearly irritates him, but he's too self-conscious to outwardly show his frustration much. Yasper continuing to forget about him even after he's revealed as the killer comes the closest to bringing out visible anger from him, but he still chokes it down before anything can happen.
• A Birthday, Not a Break: The finale reveals that the reunion and ensuing fallout occurred on the night before his birthday.
• Butt-Monkey: Socially awkward, unable to retain anyone's focus for a second, and constantly insulted.
• Catchphrase: "Walt;" by virtue of having to constantly remind others of who he is.
• Clothing Reflects Personality: He wears all beige, reflecting how bland and forgettable he is.
• Extreme Doormat: Puts up no resistance when other characters unjustifiably ignore, dismiss or insult him, and often apologizes as though he did something wrong.
• Forgettable Character: None of Walt's high school classmates remember him, and even fewer have any interest in reconnecting. To whit:
  • He frequently vanishes or reappears in different flashbacks, depending on if people can remember him.
  • The Saint Patrick's Day Party that many characters obsess over was at his house, which no one recalls.
  • His own focus episode is labelled High School rather than his name like the other suspects and the title card is stamped over his face instead of at the bottom of the screen as it is in every other case.
  • Yasper, Aniq, and Chelsea all forget that he rode to the afterparty with them.
  • The season finale has him share a ride home with Aniq and Zoe, only to be completely forgotten about when the two pull over to share a Big Damn Kiss.
  • This even continues into his cameo appearance in Season 2, where the karaoke staff, despite having his name written on a list, still calls him 'Wayne'.
• Forgotten Childhood Friend: Went to high school with the rest of the suspects and was even Brett's chemistry partner in Mr. Shapiro's class, but none of them can remember him even after being introduced to him multiple times.
• Gag Nose: His prominent nose is rendered as one of these during Zoe's animated testimony.
• Hidden Depths: By virtue of almost never getting to speak, the occasions when he reveals any kind of personal details about himself are always pretty surprising:
  • He has several niche hobbies, including making honey and writing his own music.
  • The high school flashback reveals that he comes from money, with his family's home being large, well-furnished, and with a pool and his dad having a vintage wine collection.
  • He claims to have a "weird little brother" who supported George W. Bush's 2004 re-election campaign.
• The Klutz: Often bumps into and knocks things over when trying to remove himself from failed conversations.
• Mistaken for Servant: Gets mistaken for both a waiter and a valet at different points during the reunion and afterparty, and was mistaken for being the poolboy at his own houseparty back in high school.
• Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold: He's often referred to as a creep in the rare instances the other characters acknowledge him, but is a friendly guy who just wants someone to remember him. This is most distinct in Chelsea's testimony, where his well-intentioned but awkward attempts at returning her car keys to her are interpreted as her being stalked by a threatening figure.
• Mr. Exposition: His status as a wallflower who spends all of his time watching other peoples' lives rather than living his own enables him to be the only suspect whose testimony is presented as being the objective truth, as he can comprehensively describe what everyone else was doing without embellishing anything to portray himself more flatteringly.
• Nice Guy: On the few occasions he's actually able to get a word in with the other characters, he shows himself to be a generous and considerate guy. This is most pronounced during the flashback to high school, where he brings Aniq a change of clothes after Xavier pushes him into a pool filled with green dye. He also tries to give Aniq romantic advice, but is cut off and ignored before he's able to say anything of substance.
• No-Respect Guy: No one can be bothered to even remember that he exists, let alone show him an ounce of decency. On the occasions when he is acknowledged, the other characters generally act as though he's a creepy stranger or a nosy server rather than their former classmate.
• No Social Skills: Walt is visibly uncomfortable even when he's just standing idly, initiates conversations brusquely, and believes an appropriate way to return a lost item to someone is by chasing after them from a distance while shouting cryptically at them. In the latter case, he even states that he kept his distance because he was conscious of accidentally being perceived as a creep.
• Pokémon Speak: In Maggie’s testimony, he is portrayed as a puppet that can only say his own name.
• The Quiet One: Speaks very rarely and is almost always cut off on in the rare times that he does. A large portion of his dialogue consists of mumbling while other characters walk past him, making it hard to even hear anything that he's saying.
• Recurring Extra: With the exception of Chelsea's testimony, he plays no meaningful role in anyone's story but can often be seen standing aroud awkwardly in the background. This even includes his own testimony.
• Satellite Character: Played with. His character is defined entirely by his failed efforts at establishing any kind of relationship with his peers, and so it's hard to discern much about his personality or background other than that he's very, very awkward and forgettable. His actor Jamie Demetriou even describes him as "a sort of no-personality person".
• Shrinking Violet: He's very shy and, despite making numerous concerted efforts to socialize with others and be memorable, is too timid to ever make any kind of lasting impact.
• Stepford Smiler: While he's an overly-apologetic Extreme Doormat, the one time we get to see him speak privately to himself shows that he very much is resentful of the fact that everyone ignores him.
  Walt: Assholes don't deserve what you've done for them. You've given them your house, your pool, your dad's vintage wine collection, your... your friendship, some p... popcorn...
• Streaking: Attempted to do this during his St. Patrick's Day party as a last ditch effort to leave an impression on his classmates, only to have Aniq and Xavier's fight completely overshadow it. As it turns out, he tried to do it ''again'' during the afterparty, only for it to again be overshadowed by Xavier's murder.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: The last thing Chelsea does before leaving the crime scene is remember his name and assure him that none of their classmates would forget him after what they all experienced together, followed by the rest of his peers repeating his name in agreement.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Hoping to finally connect and be remembered by his class, he hosted the fateful St. Patrick's Day party fifteen years ago that changed the courses of several of his classmates' lives and indirectly led up to the murder. Unfortunately, they don't even remember it was his party.

Zoe

Zoe Zhu

"So who is the killer?"

Played By: Zoë Chao

Brett’s soon-to-be ex-wife and Aniq’s old chemistry partner and crush. Currently the school’s assistant principal. Her flashback is presented as a surreal animated comedy.

She returns in Season 2, attending as the maid of honor for her sister's wedding, with Aniq coming along as her boyfriend - before another murder occurs. This time, her story takes the form of a campy horror movie.

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• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Deconstructed. Her desire to let loose and have fun during the reunion caused her to turn away nice-but-boring Aniq in favor of bad-boy pop star Xavier, only for her to eventually regret her decision after realizing that Xavier was only interested in her for sex.
• Alliterative Name: A poster in Episode 1 reveals that her full name is Zoe Zhu.
• Amateur Sleuth: The personal stakes she has in Season 2, along with Aniq taking on the role of Danner's assistant in the case, cause her to take this role, being more active in evidence gathering around the Minnows estate.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Her "Tiny Angry Zoe" persona embodies this trope, personifying her repressed anger and occasional emotional outbursts as a small, fiery imp-like version of herself. To explain how violent Tiny Angry Zoe can be, Colonel ambushing her in Grace and Edgar's room the night of Season 2's afterparty causes her to throw him off the second-story window in rage and panic (he lands on a trampoline, so he lives) - thus explaining Edgar's "bounding hound of hell" remark.
• Dating What Daddy Hates: As we find out in the second season, Feng and Vivian hated Brett, as they saw him trying to suck up to them instead of showing them he was good for Zoe.
• Deuteragonist: She spends most of the second season investigating the murder on her own which means she gets less screen time than Aniq or Danner since she is often absent during the testimony that makes up most of the episodes. However her personal connection to the main suspect is what causes both of their involvement, and her investigation provides vital clues and helps decide which suspect they want to focus on.
• Dude Magnet: Zoe has Aniq, Xavier and Brett all vying for her attention throughout the reunion although in Xavier's case, it is at least partly motivated by a desire to get back at Brett for bullying him during high school.
• Former Teen Rebel: Downplayed. While she's still depicted as being sweet and mature during her high school years, she's also shown to cut loose during parties and has an extensive history of recreational drug and alcohol use. Part of her frustrations during the reunion was her feeling like she had lost that side of herself as she grew older and stodgier.
• Future Loser: A more subtle case than the other suspects, but Zoe went from a bright-eyed prom queen to a jaded high school vice-principal trying to secure a divorce from her belligerent husband. While Aniq and Brett both put her on a pedestal in their testimonies, her own testimony shows that she spent most of the night trying to prove to herself that she still had the capacity to let loose and have fun and was resentful of the pity her old classmates kept treating her with.
• Girl Next Door: During high school, she was the pretty and popular yet approachable art girl who both Lovable Nerd Aniq and Big Man on Campus Brett had crushes on.
• Happily Married: To Aniq, at the end of the season 2 finale.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Her "Fun Zoe" persona embodies this trope, personifying her desire to let go of her inhibitions for the sake of enjoying herself.
• High-School Sweethearts: She and Brett started dating in high school and ended up getting married. However, they are effectively divorced by the time the series starts.
• Hotter and Sexier: Brett's testimony gives her a slightly shorter skirt and fishnet tights to reinforce his perception of her as a Satellite Love Interest prize for him to win back.
• Jerkass Realization: After Vivian confesses her affair with Ulysses to Grace and Zoe, and affirms to them that her love for Feng is real, Zoe realizes she'd been spending most of the investigation pushing Aniq away.
• Literal Split Personality: Her testimony conveys her identity crisis by separating her internal perceptions of herself into distinct entities. While the primary focus is on the dynamic between buttoned-up and apprehensive "normal" Zoe and the Hard-Drinking Party Girl "Fun Zoe", three more Zoes (Tiny Angry Zoe, Stoner Zoe and Mama Bear Zoe) eventually appear as well.
• Mama Bear: Her "Mama Bear Zoe" persona embodies this trope, personifying her unstoppable drive to protect her daughter as a literal grizzly bear wearing her clothes.
• Masculine Lines, Feminine Curves: Her testimony depicts the reserved and motherly "normal" Zoe as being drawn mostly of circles and the Hard-Drinking Party Girl "Fun Zoe" as being drawn with sharp, angular lines.
• Meaningful Name: Her name is derived from a zoetrope, an early animation device.
• Multiple Headcase: While her Fun Zoe persona is capable of splitting off of her and acting independently during her testimony, it spends just as much time growing off of her body as a second head
• Nice Girl: Zoe is generally kind and patient toward everyone she speaks with, and while she's just as dismissive of Walt as everyone else is, she's the only one among them with the decency to be polite about it.
• Not So Above It All: After spending most of the series coming across as the Only Sane Man relative to the rest of the suspects, her testimony reveals her to be a borderline Cloudcuckoolander who is so quirky that Danner begins to suspect that she may be mentally unstable.
• The One That Got Away: Aniq still regrets missing his chance with her in high school fifteen years later, and came to the reunion solely because he was hopeful that he'd get another shot with her.
• Only Sane Man: Deconstructed. People's testimonies generally portray Zoe as grounded and reasonable compared to her classmates. However, off-hand comments imply that she's struggling far more than the characters picked up on and her conversations with Chelsea are much more terse and uncomfortable than the others. She's eventually revealed to be a very repressed person who felt like she missed out on life and never left her high school, who planned to use the reunion to unleash her wild side and finally have some fun.
• Out of Focus: Downplayed Zoe gets plenty of story focus during the investigation in both seasons but her testimony in the second season is noticeably shorter and less plot relevant than the first season. It only lasts about five minutes and the only thing it ends up clarifying is, where she was when everyone else was at the afterparty and what happened to Colonel.
• Satellite Love Interest: In-Universe, most of the other characters' "movies" reduce her to her role as Aniq's and Brett's love interest.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: During the flashback to high school, Zoe's outfit incorporates Aniq's signature color blue in addition to its usual red; reflecting how close the two were at the time.
• The Stoner: Her "Stoner Zoe" persona embodies this trope, personifying her tendency toward fruitless navel-gazing while high as an obnoxious Granola Girl.
• Theory Tunnel Vision: Throughout the second season she is determined to prove that no one in her family killed Edgar, refusing to consider any of them suspects even as it becomes more apparent that many of them had motives to want him dead.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In season 2. Zoe is still a Nice Girl but she is more stubborn and an overbearing sister to Grace. She also has a few moments that show a reckless side like when she tells her sister she shouldn't marry her husband right before her wedding. Her desperation in trying to prove her family innocent of the crime also causes her to be quick in accusing other people and in jumping to conclusions, as well as being dismissive towards Aniq and Danner when the investigation starts turning its spotlight towards the Zhu family. Thankfully she does have a Jerkass Realization in the finale and reverts back to the always sweet woman she was before.
• Wacky Marriage Proposal: She decides to propose to Aniq after they solve Edgar’s murder. Since she did not plan to do it, she does not have a ring and ends up proposing with a ring made from a folded flower stem. When she learns that Aniq was already planning to propose to her she tries to take it back so that they can have a more conventional proposal before deciding to just go through with it.

Indigo

Indigo Gray

"We're all withering sacks of flesh."

Played By: Genevieve Angelson

A pretentious, fashionable woman attending the reunion. Her flashback is presented as an art house story and is the shortest of the batch.

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• Beatnik: Indigo appears to be a Beatnik artist. Pretentious, cynical, hard-drinking, and refusing to watch any television screens.
• Flat Character: She doesn't get as much screen time or attention as everyone else, her main character trait being her pretension.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: The entire class finds her pushy and annoying for her obnoxious views and tastes.
• Granola Girl: She makes comments to Chelsea indicating that she is into alternative medicines and doesn't believe in vaccinations.
• New-Age Retro Hippie: Indigo has shades of this. In Brett’s testimony, she considers it barbaric that humans are the only species that drinks milk from other animals and is part of an online group dedicated to selling cheese made from human breast milk.
• Non-Indicative Name: Surely a character named Indigo Gray in a show full of Color-Coded Characters would have either indigo or gray as her signature color, right? Nope, she dresses entirely in black.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Her role isn't as big as those of her classmates, but her testimony both sets up Aniq as the prime suspect and provides the Establishing Series Moment.

Ned

Ned Conway

"I'm still married. And very fulfilled."

Played By: Kelvin Yu

An attendee of the reunion. Married to Jennifer 1.

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• Asian Airhead: He's played by an actor of Taiwanese descent, and is a stereotypical dude bro who comes across as being short on brains but big on enthusiasm.
• Future Loser: He was the most popular guy in school among his classmates. Now, he's a Henpecked Husband living a normal life.
• Henpecked Husband: Jennifer 1 has him firmly under her heel and he's always deferential to her.
• Hidden Depths: For all his seemingly idiotic behavior, it's shown he truly loved Chelsea in high school and that their break-up and subsequent issues took an emotional toll on him.

The Jennifers

Jennifer 1 & Jennifer 2

Jennifer 2 (left) & Jennifer 1 (right)

"Our fetuses are friends!"

Played By: Tiya Sircar & Ayden Mayeri

The organizers of the reunion. A pair of catty women who are both simultaneously pregnant.

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• Alpha Bitch: Self-absorbed, mean-spirited, and perfectly happy to cut off their friendship with Chelsea due to her perceived failings. The flashback to high school reveals they were just as bad then.
• Cyber Bullying: Jennifer 2 is revealed to be the one sending threatening texts to Chelsea.
• The Dividual: They're so in tandem that along with sharing a first name, both are also pregnant at the same time. Jenn 1 freaks out when Jenn 2 vanishes from the party.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: As their behavior gets more aggressive, more of their "friends" lose their ability to tolerate them.
• It's All About Me: In episode five, they are more concerned about their problems and reputations over their then friend Chelsea's recent break up with Ned, then her later inebriation and Xavier's claims that he had sex with her.
• Obliviously Evil: Their self-absorption prevents them from recognizing just how cruel they are. Jenn 2 is completely convinced that she's been helping Zoe by sending threats to Chelsea, ignoring the former's horror and disgust at the idea.
• Obnoxious Entitled Housewife: Jenn 1 displays this most prominently:
  • At one point she actually asks to talk to Danner's manager.
  • She constantly accuses Aniq of the murder despite having no evidence, and when accused of the crime herself she states that she couldn't do it because she is "with child."
• One-Steve Limit: Averted; they're two catty women who are both named Jennifer and act in tandem.
• Parental Obliviousness: Jenn 2 apparently learned how to cyberbully from her son. He apparently does it all the time and yet she has no idea why he’s been suspended from school.
• Redemption Rejection: Jenn 1 tries to apologize for her behavior the past few years to Chelsea who in turn makes it clear that she isn’t getting forgiven that easily.
• Those Two Girls: They mainly exist to provide mean commentary on the goings-on. They're so interchangeable they even have the same first name.

Wedding Suspects

In General

The Wedding Suspects In General

Tropes that apply to all or most of the wedding suspects.

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• Big, Screwed-Up Family: Both the Minnows and the Zhu’s have some skeletons in their closets.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: The main characters from the first season where a collection of mostly middle-class people and Xaivier who only really had their highschool experiences to connect them and for the most part had not had much contact with each other since then. The wedding guests are the families and friends of Edgar and Grace which consequently puts them into two camps once the murder occurs. They have wildly varying levels of familiarity with each other compared to the first-season suspects. Many of them have long-standing and deep relationships with each other and had plenty of contact with each other before the wedding and just as many of them have literally never met each other before the weekend. The families also have significantly more class disparities, the Zhu family is fairly financially modest, while the Minnows are Getty rich.
• Love Dodecahedron: Sheriff Reardon calls them a handsy bunch and there are multiple love triangles. Grace was married to Edgar before his death but was in love with his Sister Hannah and having an affair with her. Sebastian was trying to seduce both Hannah and Isabel to try to get access to Edgars vault, and Ulysses attempted to rekindle an old affair with Vivian his brother Feng's wife at the wedding.

Grace

Grace Zhu

Played By: Poppy Liu

Zoe's sister who has an affinity for antiques. She's Edgar's fiance and is the first to discover his body. Her version of events plays out like a typical Jane Austen romance-drama work.

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• Artists Are Attractive: She knits and restores antiques and is quite pretty on top of that. Danner even compliments her appearance during their interview.
• Birds of a Feather: Dated Travis back when they both had a shared interest in Steampunk.
• Business Trip Adultery: Started a month long affair with Hannah when Edgar left on business before their wedding.
• The Corpse Stops Here: She was the first to find Edgar when she woke up in the morning. That and the fact that she would inherit Edgar's money after his death is enough to convince Isabel she is definitely the killer.
• Does Not Like Spam: She hates Whiskey and Hannah decides to throw the very fancy bottle she was about to give Grace as a gift way when she hears this. This turns out to be a major plot point since the fact that she was drinking rosé rather than whiskey proves that the whiskey glass Ulysesses was suspiciously handling was not hers like he claimed.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Poor Grace really gets put through the wringer. She loses her husband, is accused of his murder, is regularly mistreated by her mother-in-law, and finds out her husband was actually a lying scumbag and her uncle who she idolized tries to kill her dad. But she gets to end the series with a million dollars to solve her dad's money troubles, able to pursue a happy relationship with Hannah, free from Isabel and Sebastian's mistreatment and seeing her sister and Aniq get engaged.
• Elopement: Suggests this to Edgar, though it's implied it's only due to the stress of his family and their status bearing on her.
• Fish out of Water: Twofold as she's brought into the exuberantly wealthy Minnows family by Edgar and is introduced to cryptocurrency business and the tech world, seeing as she prefers antiques and lesser technologically advanced pastimes.
• Foil: To Aniq, or maybe more specifically, Aniq in Season 1. Both are romantic types who are slightly dorky and focus on novel goals, antiques for Grace and escape room design for Aniq. Both go through tough times with love, for Grace, it's finding the right person, and for Aniq, it's trying to find the courage to confess his crush to Zoe. Both kick off the beginning of the investigations (Grace is the first character not from Season 1 to get an interview) and are immediately billed guilty, although seem to be just as quickly marked as innocent. However, while Aniq is never seriously presented as a suspect, Grace gets a moment at the end of the first episode where it's revealed she tampered with Edgar's drink, making her seem like a legitimate suspect.
• Like Mother, Like Daughter: She and her mother both had affairs with their partner’s sibling.
• Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: Vivian and Ulysses were having an affair which was broken off shortly before she was born. Vivian claims that she had a DNA test run and that Grace’s father is Feng. Ulysses is unconvinced. However,this conversation didn't actually happen - it was all part of Ulysses' excuse to mask his actions that Sebastian witnessed, and Ulysses didn't actually have any such suspicions toward Grace's parentage.
• Nice Girl: She's nothing but lovely and charming towards everyone (except Isabel, who's nothing but awful to her) during the wedding. It's no wonder Edgar proposed in six months.
• Quitting to Get Married: She closed down her antiques business in the months leading up to the wedding. She says it is only temporary and she intends to reopen after the honeymoon but Zoe thinks it's evidence that she’s prioritizing the relationship over her own needs.
• Romantic Rain: Her version of events depicts Edgar's proposal occurring in the middle of this.
• Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: Other characters are suspicious that Grace might be more ruthless and manipulative than her friendly demeanor suggests with even Zoe having her doubts about Grace's innocence. But it turns out that she really is as kind and sincere as she appears.
• Sympathetic Adulterer: She had an affair with Hannah while engaged to Edgar but remains sympathetic as she was often abandoned by Edgar due to his work and he was emotionally unavailable even when he was around and was often left to deal with Isabel's cruel behavior on her own.
• Thinks Like a Romance Novel: She has a very over-the-top Austen-like approach to her story due to being In Love with Love, dramatising various events and recounting everything with the fashion sense and vernacular of the Regency era.
• Wealthy Ever After: She ends the series with a million dollars from the pre-nuptial agreement, more than enough to save her dad's business, and dates Hannah who is heir to the vast fortune Isabel was convinced Grace was after, not that Grace ever cared much either way.

Feng

Feng Zhu

"With the King of Bing, it's love at first bite!"

Played By: Ken Jeong

Zoe and Grace's father. He owns a Taiwanese shaved ice business called "The King of Bing" and is in charge of catering desserts for the wedding. His version of events is told via found footage.

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• Archnemesis Dad: Downplayed, but he definitely takes this role in the context of Aniq's sequel episode, with the two butting heads the most during Aniq's antics.
• Benevolent Boss: Feng is nothing but glowing when he talks up Kyler to other guests at the wedding and Kyler’s videos showed he was polite and generally supportive of him when they were alone as well.
• Berserk Button: He owns a "Taiwanese" shaved ice business, not "Hawaiian." Definitely not Hawaiian.
• Better Partner Assertion: He wanted to be successful in his business because he thinks it will impress Vivian and prove to her that he could be exciting and adventurous like his brother Ulysses.
• Beware the Silly Ones: He's nice and a bit goofy but is rightfully infuriated after discovering that Ulysses is having an affair with Vivian, to the point where he threatens to kill him.
• Clueless Boss: Zig-Zagged. He has no idea about how to market his business on social media and clearly delegates most of that to his employees. But he does have a point that bao-bing is relatively unknown in America and his company has the potential to grow immensely if it introduces a new food that becomes popular. Based on the wedding guests' response to his desert, he seems to be right about it.
• Family Man: Feng prefaces Kyler’s videos by saying that everything he did during the wedding was for his family. Subverted when the video makes it clear that he's thinking at least as much about his business's future than he is about his daughter during her wedding. Double Subverted when he reveals at the end of his episode that he wants the business to succeed to make Vivian happy and proud of him.
• Foil: His testimony more or less exposes that he and Aniq had been going through the same tribulations the weekend of the wedding; trying to impress someone (the Zhus for Aniq, Edgar for Feng) for the sake of the people they love (Zoe for Aniq, Vivian for Feng), only to be constantly humiliated or their attempts interrupted by a perceived rival (Sebastian for Aniq, Ulysses for Feng).
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Feng is an engineer turned restaurateur and is significantly more responsible than his brother Ulysses who was a professional dancer before deciding to leave home and sever any responsibilities or connections with his family.
• Good Parents: He and Vivian do seem like this, supporting Grace's marriage with Edgar and even being open towards Aniq, until things begin to go comically wrong.
• The Hyena: He erupts into laughter when Sebastian rips into Aniq after an awkward moment.
• Inelegant Blubbering: Feng cried loudly and openly while walking Grace down the aisle. It is one of the few things from his testimony that he is not openly embarrassed about and helps show that despite his financial worries often taken precedence over other parts of the wedding for him he still cares deeply about his daughter.
• Jerkass Realization: Spends most of the time watching his video embarrassed or ashamed of his actions on the night of the wedding. He even literally facepalms when he realizes he accidentally cut off Zoe’s wedding speech with his ice shaver.
• Nice Guy: Feng is a good guy overall. He is a Benevolent Boss to Kyler, a Family Man who loves his wife and daughters, and is the one who encourages Aniq to propose to Zoe instead of Aniq needing to impress him for his approval.
• Papa Bear: Immediately jumps to Grace's defense after Isabel accuses her of murdering Edgar.
• Sibling Rivalry: He appears to have one with Ulysses, bitterly noting his "Funcle" nickname before leaving after he shows up unannounced during the rehearsal dinner.
• Spanner in the Works: Inadvertently foils the attempt on his own life by leaving the poisoned glass meant for him on the table and taking Edgar's glass by mistake.
• Unreliable Narrator: Downplayed Trope. Feng is the only suspect who does not give testimony to Aniq and Danner, but because of his genre, he has video evidence from his employee's videos taken for social media. This means that he's the only suspect who the audience can be sure the events in his testimony actually happened. However the video is clearly incomplete and is missing things like his meeting with Vivian and Ulysses the night before the murder.

Vivian

Vivian Zhu

Played By: Vivian Wu

Zoe and Grace's mother. She holds Aniq under extra scrutiny during the wedding. Her testimony takes the form of an 80's telenovela.

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• A Family Affair: Cheated on Feng with Ulysses during her trips as a professional dancer. Feng finding out about this is what caused the rift between him and Ulysses.
• Bluffing the Murderer: How she ends up gathering the crucial evidence needed to pin Ulysses down - she takes his drinking horn and attempts to drink Isabel's gin from it, only for Ulysses to stop her at the last second.
• "Eureka!" Moment: With no hard evidence to catch Ulysses with, Zoe's reckless act of drinking from the teapot in Edgar's room to prove it wasn't poisoned gives Vivian the idea to prove Aniq and Danner's deductions by asking to drink from his allegedly poisoned drinking horn.
• The Fashionista: Has a lot more striking and nicer wardrobe compared to her husband, who simply wears a lot of outfits with his business branded all over.
• Hidden Depths: Episode 7 reveals she's an accomplished dancer, while Episode 9 reveals she's a big fan of Hanson.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Similar to her husband, she disregards a lot of Aniq's attempts to make up for his rocky introduction. By the end of the night, however, she clarifies it's because she wants to see him care for Zoe rather than focus on impressing her and Feng like Brett did.
• Mama Bear: Like her husband, she comes to Grace's defense immediately when Isabel accuses her of Edgar's murder and chews her out for getting Grace's name wrong on the wedding napkins. She also tells off Aniq for trying to make himself look good in front of her and Feng, when all they want is to see him be good to Zoe.

Ulysses

Ulysses Zhu

"I'm a searcher, a wanderer - as the Sami of Scandinavia call it: 'hjertevandrer'"

Played By: John Cho

Grace and Zoe's 'funcle' (fun uncle) who's spent much of his life travelling. Edgar personally invited him to the wedding after tracking him down. His testimony takes the form of an epic global romance.

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• A Family Affair: He had an affair with Vivian behind Feng’s back. When Feng discovered the affair and worse that Ulysses was in still in love with Vivian, he kicked him out of the house and threatened to kill him if he ever returned.
• Bathos: The horror of him seeing his friend's leg blown off by a landmine during their time in Kuwait is undercut by the absolutely garish Sequined Uncle Sam Costumes they both are wearing at the time.
• Black Sheep: The rest of his family has settled down into relatively normal and peaceful lives while he flees his past and travels the world.
• Broken Ace: An adventurous man with many talents who has travelled across the globe, who's been constantly haunted by his feelings for his brother's wife.
• Business Trip Adultery: He started an affair with Vivian while they were traveling as a professional dancing team.
• Cool Uncle: He shows up to the rehearsal dinner on a horse and immediately commands the rest of the party. There's a reason he's called the "Funcle".
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Ulysses spent most of his life wandering the earth fleeing from his past and any lasting responsibilities, while Feng stayed home raised a family and held down a steady job as an engineer before changing careers to run his own small business.
• Life of the Party: He's the one to suggest an afterparty in the first place, declaring it by cutting the cork of a champagne bottle off with a knife.
• Meaningful Name: Ulysses has spent many years traveling the world before finally returning home to see his family.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Played With. He was never a veteran but a dancer with the USO a charity organization that organizes care packages and entertainment for US soldiers. But he did end up with PTSD after a truck he was on went over a mine in Kuwait.
• Shout-Out: One of his get-ups looks strikingly similar to the Indiana Jones outfit.
• Ungrateful Bastard: After he came home from Kuwait with PTSD Feng let him stay with his family. Feng even went out of his way to support and encourage him to rekindle the love of dancing by signing him up for some dancing competitions and even encouraging Vivian to be his partner. Ulysses responded by having an affair with Vivian. Even in the modern day, he seems more interested in determining Grace's paternity rather than making amends for the affair.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: If he hadn't loudly proclaimed an afterparty was taking place out of desperation to gather evidence of Grace's paternity, there's a chance his future nephew-in-law could've lived and/or his niece wouldn't have been accused of murder.
• Walking the Earth: Spent years traveling the globe with no contact to his family before Edgar tracked him down for the wedding.

Isabel

Isabel Minnows

Played By: Elizabeth Perkins

Edgar and Hannah's mother. She's the most antagonistic of the main cast and outright seems to despise Grace for marrying her son. Her testimony takes the form of a 1950's psychological melodrama.

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• Bad People Abuse Animals: She is horrible to her dog Colonel who she openly wants to die and is not a good person.
• Berserk Button: She’s grumpy in general but being called crazy sets her off, such as when Travis inadvertently does so when accusing her of being involved in Edgar's crypto scheme, or when she thinks Sebastian was sent by Edgar to seduce her and question her memory and chases him out of her room with a katana.
• Bitter Wedding Speech: Gives a vitriolic and rambling speech after the wedding confusing and embarrassing everyone who sees it. As it turns out, someone had tampered with her actual speech, and she decided to follow through with it to avoid embarassing herself further. The tampered speech itself is also not as bitter as Aniq recalls it, since it turned out to be the lyrics to Hanson's MMMBop.
• Chemically-Induced Insanity: Part of how Edgar was trying to make her appear insane was by giving her Adderall that he claimed was sleeping pills to cause her to become sleep deprived and erratic.
• Contrasting Sequel Protagonist: To Yasper. While Yasper is presented initially as a Nice Guy, he turned out to be a deeply resentful and entitled murderer who out of all the suspects had the least sympathetic motive. Isabel however is deeply unlikable and callous. but some of that is attributed to her son gaslighting her and she isn’t quite as cruel as initially presented. And while she did at least try to kill her son, she out of all the suspects had the most sympathetic motive to do so.
  • She also has parallels with Chelsea, being a character initially presented as highly inebriated who, in several accounts, is portrayed as a very unwelcome presence, only to have their account reveal them a more sober and warmer person than first seen. Even their genres parallel, both being psychological thrillers with a heavy emphasis on their paranoiac state of mind. However, while Chelsea is more or less portrayed as a Tritagonist following her account, Isabel's aloofness and antagonism remains a part of her character during and even after her account, even continuing to accuse Grace of the crime when Aniq more or less proves her innocence. The eras of their respective thriller genres also contrast - Chelsea's mind movie being more of a Blumhouse horror-esque take, while Isabel's is styled after Hitchcock. Finally, Chelsea's account concludes Season 1's first act, leading into Walt's telling of the St. Patrick's Day party, while Isabel's account concludes Season 2's second act, being the penultimate testimony leading into the finale.
• Deadpan Snarker: She makes a lot of very cutting and cruel remarks to everyone around her, particularly towards Grace.
• Dirty Old Woman: Is more than happy to sleep with Sebastian, a man the same age as her son, before she realizes he's trying to manipulate her. Even after kicking him out she still steals his underwear.
• Even Evil Has Standards: As mean as she is to Grace and awful in general, she does make an effort to make sure Grace isn't hurt by the collapse of Edgar's crypto enterprise, claiming that Grace is part of the family now.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: She believes Grace is a gold digger who only wants Edgar for his money and treats her like dirt as a result and is similarly suspicious of her family. The idea that Grace might not care about his fortune and simply love him doesn't seem to occur to her.
• Evil Matriarch: She's rude towards everyone, even botching her speech during the wedding with a bunch of incoherent noises. When Edgar dies, she also quickly jumps to accuse Grace without shedding a tear.
• Fate Worse than Death: Uses the trope by name when describing her fears of being forced into a conservatorship.
• Gaslighting: She was a victim of gaslighting by Edgar in an attempt to get control over her money. He did things like playing music that he claimed not to hear or telling her his girlfriend was named Gail instead of Grace to eventually get her to the point he could force her into a conservatorship.
• Hypocrite: Is very upset that Grace brought Adderall into her house. Immediately after she's done chewing her out over this, she asks for a pill...primarily to compare it to the 'sleeping pills' Edgar has been giving her.
  • She's the most vocal and insistent that Grace must have killed Edgar when Isabel actually tried to do so and believes she did.
• Irony: Isabel is a generally cruel person and is Edgars mother. Most people would assume that if she killed her own son she would have the least sympathetic reason to do so. Her actual motive for trying to kill him, self-defense after she realized his campaign of Gaslighting is probably the most sympathetic of all the cast.
• Jerkass: Isabel is an extremely cold, snobby, rude and just all-around unpleasant person who no one, not even her own kids, like being around.
• Kick the Dog: She goes out of her way to be rude to and exclude both Grace, at her own wedding no less, and Aniq as much as she can solely out of petty cruelty. She also literally tries to get Aniq to kick her dog in the first episode.
• Lady Drunk: She drinks heavily to the point that her children know that she drank gin every day when she was pregnant with Edgar and her safe word with her Husband was Seagram’s.
• The Maiden Name Debate: When she learns that Grace kept her last name after getting married she has a small mental breakdown lasting over 15 seconds.
• Malicious Misnaming: Crudely describes Grace as a "Gail" based on her appearance during their first meeting, and even gets the name misprinted on the napkins for the wedding night just to be cruel. Subverted - this turns out to be part of a campaign to gaslight her, and she's forced to go along with it both because of her prideful nature and to avoid being seen as insane by her peers.
• Meaningless Villain Victory: She eventually manages to sell off all of Edgar’s Crypto assets before news of his death breaks and forces Grace to sign the prenup meaning that she ends up in control of Edgar’s money. However, Sebastian’s fire sale to get rid of the Crypto caused him to sell it for sixty-two cents on the dollar reducing its value by millions or billions and Travis manages to make the coin triple in value even after the news breaks. Additionally, though Grace ends up giving up Edgar’s money she still gets a million from just signing the prenup, more than enough to help her family's money problems, and Grace and Hannah’s relationship means that in the long run Grace will probably still inherit the money.
• Mistaken for Murderer: Twofold, even! She thought Edgar was bringing cake to her specifically to poison her, and in swapping the cakes she thought she ended up killing Edgar in self-defense. In reality, the cake ended up being just regular cake, and was probably just another attempt to gaslight Isabel at a later point (considering he had earlier agreed to have Feng's bao bing for dessert in the reception specifically because he doesn't like cake).
• Offing the Offspring: She believes that she is the one who killed her son with a Poisoned Chalice Switcheroo after he attempted to murder her. Averted when Aniq points out to her that Edgar should have died much earlier if she had poisoned him then, meaning that she just switched two slices of regular wedding cake.
• The Paranoiac: Isabel fits just about every criteria for this. She is cynical, mistrustful, paranoid, assumes everyone is dishonest and is after her family's money and is extremely hostile and combative to anyone she dislikes, which is just about everyone she meets.
• Pet the Dog: Her insistence that Grace sign a prenup was not because she feared Grace was a gold digger, but because she thought Edgar’s cryptocurrency scam was likely to implode leaving him destitute and possibly destroying any assets Grace had going into the marriage. With a Prenup Grace's own money would be safe and she would be guaranteed a million dollars. Grace is touched when she learns that this is why she was so insistent.
• Poisoned Chalice Switcheroo: She swapped slices of wedding cake with Edgar after becoming convinced that he was trying to poison her.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: She’s the most openly antagonistic and mean of the guests and Edgar claims that she was almost as upset at her husband's funeral as she was when her country club started allowing Italians.
• Psychological Thriller: Her testimony focuses on her deteriorating mental state in the months leading up to the wedding as she tries to figure out what is going on around her.
• Safe Word:
  • Apparently her safeword with her late husband was Seagram’s which is something even her children know.
  • She becomes violent with Sebastian when he tries to suggest using the name of her husband's horse as a safe word because she thinks he is working with Edgar to prove she is having memory troubles.
• Something Something Leonard Bernstein: The rambling speech she gave at the wedding was actually the lyrics to MMMBop by Hanson a favorite song of her husband which Edgar had previously used to gaslight her. Almost every guest is confused to learn that those are the lyrics.
• Sleep Deprivation Abuse: Edgar was switching her sleeping pills for Adderall as part of his attempt to convince her she was going crazy.
• Sympathetic Murderer: Her testimony amounts to confessing that she killed Edgar and explaining in detail why she did it. It eventually is proved that she actually didn't kill her son but the other guests still sympathize with her motive to attempt to kill him.
• Take a Third Option: When she is given a choice of reading the speech written to make her sound crazy or trying to confront Edgar publicly about his gaslighting and sounding crazy, she instead opts to improv a speech.
• Through the Eyes of Madness: When the audience sees her retelling of events it's clear her Sanity Slippage made her think she was being much more reasonable and friendly than other characters perceived her to be.
• Walking Spoiler: It’s hard to talk about Isabel without revealing several big secrets that massively change how everyone views her and Edgar.
• You Have to Believe Me!: Defied Trope She was convinced that Edgar had been gaslighting her but was unable to prove it and afraid her claims that he had been tampering with her meds and switched out her wedding speech would have sounded insane. Rather than trying to confront him or play into his schemes she instead improvs a different speech. This is also why she blamed Grace for the murder when she believed she killed Edgar via Poisoned Chalice Switcheroo. She waited until finding proof that he had been abusing her to back up her claims.

Hannah

Hannah Minnows

"It's actually my adoption day, I don't know when I was born."

Played By: Anna Konkle

Edgar's adopted sister and close friend to Grace. Her version of the events is a Wes Anderson-tinged coming-of-age comedy.

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• Ambiguously Bi: She kisses Travis at the rehearsal dinner to make her real romantic interest Grace jealous. Later that night, she turns down a pass from Sebastian, calling his accent charming but admitting she's not attracted to him. It’s left ambiguous if she is bisexual, homosexual, or only interested in Grace.
• Best Friend: Clearly becomes this for Grace in the Minnows' circle, with the two becoming close enough that Grace entrusts the wedding flower arrangements to Hannah.
• Bourgeois Bohemian: Despite her wealth she lives in a small Yurt and focuses on hobbies rather than any sort of business. She also refers to her adopted brother as a capitalist with a clear negative undercurrent.
• Collector of the Strange: She has many strange collections displayed in her Yurt, including wooden anchors, taxidermy, and antique typewriters.
• Discreet Drink Disposal: Exaggerated. When she learns Grace hates the taste of Whiskey she throws the entire bottle she got to share into a lake rather than show it to her.
• Green Thumb: She has a diverse and varied garden outside her tent at the wedding, and also handles the flower arrangements for the ceremony. This puts her on the suspect list when Zoe and Grace realise that some of the plants are poisonous and could've been used to kill Edgar.
• Idle Rich: She’s a very rich member of a very rich family but she spends most of her time pursuing hobbies, like archery, botany and antique collecting.
• Insistent Terminology: She's quick to remind everyone that she and Edgar are not related by blood.
• Lonely Rich Kid: She was close with Edgar and Sebastian when they were younger but became very lonely after they started focusing more on business ventures.
• Pastimes Prove Personality: Her many and varied hobbies help paint her as an eccentric, lonely and somewhat out of touch member of the Idle Rich. Her more macabre hobbies such as taxidermy and growing poisonous plants are brought up as ways to make her seem sinister and give her more opportunity to kill Edgar. Her referring to Judaism as a hobby or talking about building her yurt while we see workers making it for her paint her as out of touch.
• Second Love: Grace officially hooks up with her at the end of the season, the both of them being very happy with each other.
• Taxidermy Is Creepy: Zoe finds her taxidermy creepy when exploring her Yurt.
• Third-Person Person: Not normally but when giving her account to Aniq and Danner she only ever refers to herself in the third person.
• Token Good Teammate: She's the only member of the Minnows family not to be outwardly hostile towards Grace or the Zhu's. She's also a lot nicer than many towards Aniq.

Sebastian

Sebastian Drapewood

"If you can't beat the house, you have to become the house."

Played By: Jack Whitehall

Edgar's childhood friend and business partner. His version of events takes the form of a riveting heist movie.

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• Alcohol-Induced Bisexuality: Jokes to Aniq that he’s only interested in men when he's drunk and in Europe. A phone call from Prague at the end of his statement makes it very clear he's not total joking.
• The Charmer: He effortlessly charms the main table of guests at the rehearsal dinner and even goads Grace into asking Edgar for a first dance, even though he made it clear he didn't want to.
• Con Man: He admits to Danner and Aniq that he’s always been a Con Artist starting off as a High-School Hustler pulling small cons to steal from corner stores before moving on to what he calls the biggest scams of all; hedge funds and Cryptocurrency.
• Dead Person Impersonation: He is more than willing to impersonate Edgar on the phone to close his business deals.
• Fauxreigner: It turns out he's actually from San Bernadino, California and faking the entire British thing as a long con.
• Evil Brit: He's not actually British but he keeps the accent, even after being found out, and is a rotten bastard.
• Freudian Excuse: He grew up in poverty and in a very troubled neighborhood and only escaped by forging documents to get into a private school where he met Edgar whose later betrayal for petty reasons made Sebastian vow to be the one on top taking advantage of others and not being a victim himself.
• Heist Episode: His episode focuses on breaking into Edgars vault during the wedding with the help of a crew.
• Honey Trap: Tried and failed to seduce both Hannah and Isabel for information the night before the wedding.
• Mistaken for Murderer: He does have the clearest motive for wanting to kill Edgar and after his testimony, Aniq is initially convinced he is the one that did the murder. As it turns out, it was Ulysses. Not him.
• Mr. Fanservice: A charming, good-looking, bearded, British businessman. He's practically a textbook version of this trope. Lampshaded when Danner ogles him as soon as she enters the Minnows estate.
• New Friend Envy: He gets visibly irritated that Edgar takes a quick liking to Aniq, so quick that he's given a role in the wedding.
• #1 Dime: His 1994 Justin “Turder” Rookie Card. Pulled an entire heist to steal it back from Edgar after he won it in a game of Connect Four when they were kids.
• Out-Gambitted: Is humiliated by Travis when he gets his Reddit army to invest in Bucephalus just as the news of Edgar's death goes public, rendering all of his attempts to sell the cryptocurrency beforehand moot and losing several dollars in the process. Isabel promptly fires him on the spot.
• Scholarship Student: Met Edgar while a scholarship student at a fancy boarding school. In a twist he actually did not earn the scholarship the traditional way instead forged documents to get it awarded to him.
• Streaking: He is the mysterious streaker who ran past Aniq the night before the wedding, Subverted since he wasn't doing it for attention he just got locked out naked after an ill fated attempt to seduce Isabel.
• The Reveal: He's not a fancy-schmancy British "old money" type but an American con artist.
• Unknown Rival: Aniq thinks of him as a rival who is constantly showing him up over the course of the wedding. Sebastian barely thinks of Aniq at all.

Travis

Travis Gladrise

"I am sick and tired of you fat cats who make doo-doo pies in our bowls of clam chowder and try to pass it off as saltine crackers!"

Played By: Paul Walter Hauser

Grace's ex-boyfriend and an amateur detective who was invited to the wedding. His version of events takes on the genre of a noir detective thriller.

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• Amicable Exes: With Grace. While her inviting him to the wedding was partially a formality, she does seem to still have some affection for him, as evidenced by helping him recover from a bad high, and he still cares about her, showing up because he believed she was in trouble and has accepted that she has moved on, showing no interest in trying to rekindle their relationship.
• Basement-Dweller: Still lives at home with his mother and spends his free time on Reddit "solving mysteries".
• Bat Deduction: Sometimes prone to this, such as seeing 'tech scam' in 'Steak, Chicken, Scampi', or deciding that the SEC4 paper is actually encoded in Morse code when he interprets Sebastian's sudden interest in Alexander Minnows' horse, through a long series of faulty deductions, as 'more horse' > 'Morse'.
• Birds of a Feather: Dated Grace back when they both had a shared interest in Steampunk.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: He's a bit odd but a surprisingly capable detective who figures out on his own that Edgar and Sebastien were running a crypto scam and later outsmarts Sebastien, ruining him..
• Clueless Detective: While not technically a detective, he takes on this role after Edgar's death and his flashback has a noir detective thriller style to it. Downplayed because while most of his conclusions are massive logical leaps or otherwise just wrong, he was able to find convincing evidence that Edgar’s cryptocurrency was a scam. And then subverted when he confronts Sebastian in the penultimate episode and figures out Sebastian had been spending the whole season selling all the assets involved in propping up Edgar's cryptocurrency, of which Sebastian is impressed by.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He is hampered by his unfortunate tendency to jump to nonsensical conclusions and look for hidden meanings in things where there is none, but he does prove to be surprisingly insightful and intelligent at times, deducing the truth about the crypto scam as well as outsmarting an experienced con artist like Sebastian.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: He may be pretty nutty in his theories but it turns out not only was Travis dead right on Edgar running a cryptocurrency scam but was the first person to see through the man's facade of a quirky figure and the truly vindictive and petty jerk Edgar really was.
• Foil: To Danner. Both aren't technically detectives and are intruding on a crime scene, but whereas Danner did have proper training and the skill level to solve the first season's murder, Travis seems to lean on his suspicions and supposed breakthroughs rather than anything concrete to back them up. While Danner is careful and quietly perceptive of everything going on around her, Travis is brash and clumsy, almost breaking a vase at one point.
• Freudian Excuse: He lost all of his money to a Cryptocurrency scam, hence his suspicion of Edgar, and is now determined to see that the same doesn't happen to Grace.
• Girlfriend in Canada: Claims that he’s dating a Crane Operator in Poland to prove that he is no longer interested in Grace.
• Kavorka Man: Despite being overweight and being a bit of a loser with a boorish personality, he was still able to date the far more attractive Grace and remains on good terms with her after they broke up.
• Mushroom Samba: He trips out and believes himself to be in some kind of Steampunk setting after intentionally consuming Devils Trumpet to see if it could be easily used as a poison for Edgar.
• Nice Guy: While he can be a little grating with his constant proclamations of mysteries without any substantial evidence, he's only at the wedding because he thinks Grace is in danger and wants to help her, having apparently moved on.
• Smarter Than You Look: He looks on the surface to be a total buffoon but he's a surprisingly capable detective with a knack for picking up on details, even if he often arrives at the wrong conclusions, and even outsmarts Sebastien at the end.
• Stalker without a Crush: The end of episode two of Season 2 reveals he has a whole file of articles and photos on Edgar, tracking them due to his belief they were up to no good.
• Take That!: He's a clear dig at internet sleuths (outright namedropping Reddit) who don't contribute much to active cases and even tend to do more harm than good such as when he and Zoe inspect Edgar's corpse for clues and he accidentally locks Edgar's phone and almost breaks a vase.

The Killers (UNMARKED SPOILERS)

The Reunion Killer

Yasper Lennov

"It's a fun night, huh?"

Played By: Ben Schwartz

An AV technician, Xavier’s former ska band partner, and Aniq’s close friend. He attends the reunion hoping to get Xavier to “bless” one of his tracks and finally launch his music career, only to help Aniq as he seeks to clear his name. As mentioned before, his flashback is presented as a musical; however, it was the most blatantly false out of all of them for one simple reason: Yasper is the killer. After Xavier refuses to bless his track, he finally snaps and uses his knowledge of the pop star’s house to do the deed.

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• Be Careful What You Wish For: He technically does end the night becoming famous through association with Xavier... as the person who murdered him. He doesn't seem very bothered by that fact though.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He is shown as kind and supportive towards his friends, but after getting rejected by Xavier and feeling like his work was stolen by him, he murders his former bandmate.
• Berserk Button: Don't refer to him as a loser or a has-been. Xavier learned that the hard way…
• Big Bad: Of season 1
• Big Bad Friend: He’s not just Aniq’s friend, sidekick, and wingman… he’s the killer. To be fair, he is trying to prevent Aniq from taking the fall for his crime…
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Zig-Zagged. Is a jovial and genuine friend to Aniq, but underneath the surface, he can be a conniving mastermind who almost successfully gets away with murdering Xavier.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: His tech know-how allows him to stealthily cover his tracks throughout the night, most notably when he deletes security camera footage depicting the murder and manages to play it off as the detectives accidentally deleting it.
• The Bus Came Back: He shows up in prison with Sebastien's cousins in season 2, talking at length about the music he's working on and how it will be massive while his attorney is trying to get him to focus on his murder case.
• Chekhov's Skill: Briefly mentions having gymnastics participation trophies from high school, and puts his skills to use to drop fifteen feet from the upper balconey to the lower one after killing Xavier.
• Clothing Reflects Personality: Associated with the color green and is eventually proven to be motivated by jealousy.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Like many Ben Schwartz roles, Yasper is over-exuberant, frequently obnoxious, and obsessed with fame and consumption. Unlike characters such as Jean-Ralphio Saperstein, Yasper's inability to accept his lack of fame is shown to be actively harmful to his emotional development. He comes across as pathetic and desperate in spite of being genuinely successful in his AV career and his testimony is among the most delusional of the cast. The finale reveals that his delusions ultimately resulted in him becoming a murderer when reality couldn't match up with his dreams.
• Didn't Think This Through: He probably would've gotten away with murder as there's no clear evidence of Danner's accusations until Aniq brings up how Yasper has been using two different phones throughout the night, having stolen Xavier's to steal his song ideas. Danner calling Xavier's cell confirms everything she's been saying up to that point.
• Entitled Bastard: He coldly cut off Xavier years ago because he thought that Xavier was holding him back. And when Xavier rose to stardom, he felt the guy he discarded owed him a leg up.
• Even Evil Has Standards: While he was willing to let Brett take the rap due to disliking him, Yasper won't let his best friend Aniq go down for Xavier's murder to save himself.
• Evil Counterpart: Broadly serves as this to all of the suspects due to being someone so hung up on his regrets from high school that it drove him to murder, but closely mirrors both Brett and Chelsea in particular:
  • Both Brett and Yasper refused to take responsibility for their respective failures in life. Both eventually shifted the blame onto Xavier and attempted to confront him during the afterparty, only to receive a "The Reason You Suck" Speech calling them out on it. While Xavier's words caused Brett to have a Jerkass Realization, finally accept the blame for his marriage failing, and move on with his life, Yasper was so deeply entrenched in denial that they caused him to snap and resolve to kill Xavier as revenge for "screwing him over".
  • Both Chelsea and Yasper plot to take revenge on Xavier for ruining their lives, but while Chelsea ultimately realized that hurting Xavier would not give her any real sense of fulfillment and decided against it, Yasper followed through with killing him and insists that he was justified in doing so when he's finally caught.
• Graceful Loser: Subverted. Yasper at first seems to accept his defeat after Danner calls Xavier's phone, which he stole and is in his pocket. Afterward, however, he goes on a manic rant and tries to run out the front door, but is stopped by Culp.
• Green-Eyed Monster: States during his Motive Rant that he believed he deserved to be the famous one between himself and Xavier, and it was a combination of this resentment and Xavier's refusal to share any of his own fame with him that propelled Yasper to take his life. Fittingly, he is heavily associated with the color green.
• Hourglass Plot: Throughout his focus episode, Yasper is desperate to revive his old ska band with Xavier in order to achieve fame. Xavier is clearly uninterested, merely playing along for the sake of a good time. "High School" reveals that it was Yasper who broke up the band while Xavier desperately tried to cling on, having switched roles by the present. And like Xavier, he doesn’t take it well after his partner rejects him…
• It's All About Me: After getting ousted, he talks about how he's the one who's been most wronged by Xavier, ignoring that Aniq was arrested and had his future ruined, and that Chelsea was humiliated and almost date-raped.
• Kick the Dog: Plays along when Danner accuses Brett of being the murderer, demonstrating that he's willing to let an innocent person suffer for a crime he committed so long as he doesn't care about them.
• Knight of Cerebus: The scenes depicting his actions leading up to and during the murder are played completely straight, with Yasper acting frighteningly unhinged and threatening as he prepares to kill Xavier.
• Mask of Sanity: Yasper is an upbeat, funny, and charismatic guy, but we eventually learn that he is not only mentally unwell enough to follow through with killing a person, but also that he is capable of completely dissassociating from doing so and return to his usual cheeriness within minutes of it happening.
  Ben Schwartz: Imagine how bananas a person has to be: A couple hours ago I took someone’s life, and now I’m like, “So this is what I think are my four favorite songs.”
• Motive Rant: Delivers a lengthy one when he's decisively cornered as Xavier's killer:
  Yasper: You guys don't understand anything. You don't understand anything. You all have your own stories, right? You know, but— but Xavier, he owed me... He owed me everything. I gave him his career. I gave him his name. I gave him his name. Do you remember that? And he still wanted to screw me over. I should have been the star. I should have been the successful one. I was the one that was supposed to be famous. And all I was asking was for, like, a tiny bit of credit. Just a little bit. And why is that too much? Don't I deserve that? I helped him start the whole thing. Why shouldn't I be the one that gets a little bit, no? But he still wanted to screw me over. But he wasn't gonna get rich off of my line. No way. "How great is this party" is my fucking line! It is the perfect encapsulation of celebratory music! That is mine! And there's another thing you guys didn't think about. (starts running)
• Never My Fault: Claims that Xavier screwed him over by refusing to collaborate despite the fact that he was the one who broke up their band during high school. His insistence that Xavier's fame is only due to stealing his ideas is also based on tenuous evidence and ignores that Xavier became famous through producing pop music; the very genre that motivated Yasper to break up their band in their first place due to his belief that it would never catch on.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: After Xavier's rejects his attempts at collaborating, Yasper drops his usual pep in all further interactions with him; becoming eerily quiet and simmeringly vengeful.
• Pet the Dog: While he is eventually outed as the killer, his friendship with Aniq is proven to be genuine, and it is in fact in part due to his effort to ensure that Aniq would not be blamed for Xavier's murder that he is eventually caught.
• Serious Business: As soon as Xavier starts insulting him and dismissing him at the high school reunion, he goes from desperate musician to enraged murderer.
• Significant Anagram: 'Yasper Lennov' can be rearranged to spell 'Personal Envy', hinting at his hidden jealousy at Xavier for ostensibly stealing his fame.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: During the flashback to high school, green is the secondary color in Yasper's outfit. By the present, it dominates his wardrobe to reflect the extent to which jealousy has consumed him.
• Skewed Priorities: Attempts to promote himself to the papparazi as he's dragged off by the police. In his Season 2 cameo, he still prioritizes his music over the fact that he's incarcerated.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Believes himself to be entitled to some of Xavier's fame due to coming up with the phrase "How great is this party?" that he uses on one of his tracks. When he confronts Xavier about this, he's bluntly told that "How great is this party?" is just something that people say and not his intellectual property.
• Undying Loyalty: Ultimately, in spite of his flaws and murderous actions, he wasn't willing to let Aniq go down for his crimes.
• Walking Spoiler: A lot of aspects of his personality and his character quirks become harder to discuss after he's revealed as the killer.

The Wedding Killer

Ulysses Zhu

"I truly loved you. And I loved you with a passion that my meek brother could never be capable of feeling."

Played By: John Cho

Grace and Zoe's 'funcle' (fun uncle) who's spent much of his life travelling. Edgar personally invited him to the wedding after tracking him down. His testimony, as was stated previously, takes the form of an epic global romance - though his tale masked just how much he truly longed for Vivian. When, upon his return, Vivian rebuked his advances, Ulysses hatched a scheme to get rid of his brother and romantic rival once and for all - only for Feng to accidentally derail it, leading to Edgar's death.

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• Big Bad: Of season 2
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: In certain ways, Ulysses has certain parallels with Yasper - one striking manner in which is that both committed murder out of a sense of entitlement, Yasper for Xavier's fame and Ulysses for Vivian's love, and were ultimately done in by a piece of evidence on their person they didn't - or couldn't - dispose of. However, while Yasper's plan to kill Xavier, while not entirely spontaneous, was still improvised in a short span of time, Ulysses' plot was fully premeditated and prepared a day in advance. And while the failings in Yasper's plan were more or less self-inflicted (such as deciding to keep Xavier's phone to steal more of Xavier's song ideas or trying to find another way to pin the crime on anyone else instead of Aniq, who was the prime suspect of the crime), the biggest failing in Ulysses' plan - Feng switching glasses with Edgar - happened entirely by chance.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: While not totally evil, it's obvious Ulysses honestly believes Vivian will give up her life and family to be with him as long as Feng is dead. That Vivian truly loves Feng and won't just fall for Ulysses again doesn't dawn on the latter.
• Hidden Disdain Reveal: His Motive Rant reveals just how low his opinion of his half-brother Feng really is.
• Love Makes You Evil: Makes an attempt on Feng's life, leading to Edgar's murder, because of his love for Vivian.
• Motive Rant: Gives one after Vivian forces him to expose himself as the murderer:
  Vivian: (after being stopped from drinking the poison by Ulysses) ...Why?
  Ulysses: ...I loved you. I truly loved you. And I loved you with a passion that my...meek brother could never be capable of feeling. I know you felt it too, but you couldn't be honest with yourself. And that's why I had to help you...move on. We could have had the rest of our lives together; a life of adventure, and excitement, and romance...and you wouldn't be stuck with this boring, pathetic-
  (Feng punches him in the face mid sentence)
• Murder by Mistake: Despite not having the clearest motive to kill Edgar, he was still the man who caused it. The thing is, he never intended to kill Edgar but really to kill his brother Feng.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: His motive for the crime - Vivian declares to him under the weeping willow that she loves Feng and will never leave him, so he decides to kill Feng to force Vivian to reciprocate his feelings for her.
• Poisoned Chalice Switcheroo: His plan to kill his brother was derailed by an accidental use of this trope. After poisoning the glass he gave to Feng, Feng brought his glass with him to meet with Edgar and grabbed the wrong glass of whiskey as he left. Because of this Edgar was lethally poisoned and Feng ended up drinking a glass full of crushed up Adderall.
• Sibling Murder: His motive wasn't really to kill Edgar but to kill his brother Feng so he could be with his wife, Vivian.
• Sarcastic Confession: He confesses to killing Edgar as part of Aniq’s I Am Spartacus moment less than 3 minutes before Aniq and Danner actually accuse him of the murder.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: While this is listed on his character tropes above, the reveal that he's the killer means this trope is actually subverted - rather than being out of desperation to gather evidence of Grace's paternity, him calling for an afterparty is a witting and deliberate move to find an opportunity to enact his plan to murder Feng.

Others

Maggie

Maggie

"This night was so much fun!"

Played By: Everly Carganilla

Brett and Zoe’s six-year-old daughter. She's interviewed in the Season Finale. Her flashback is presented as an exaggerated kids' show with funny sound effects, mugging for the camera, and puppets.

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• Cheerful Child: She's incredibly upbeat and peppy.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Danner realizes her unexpected presence at the reunion and afterparty makes her the last key witness she needs to solve the case.
• Children Are Innocent: Most of the conflicts between the adults go over her head. She never even realizes that a man died and that her mommy and daddy were suspects. Conversely, Danner also believes her recollection to be true (minus the exaggerations from a child's filter).
• From the Mouths of Babes: In Aniq’s flashback:
  Maggie: Are you going to put bones in my mommy?
  Aniq: (Confused) What?
  Maggie: Daddy said he needed to stop someone from boning mommy.
• Morality Pet: Brett is a clingy, unlikable douchebag and doesn't do much to improve the viewer's perception of him even when giving his own testimony, but he's shown to be a loving and affectionate (if very irresponsible) father to his daughter.
• Nice Girl: She is just as sweet as she is adorable.
• Put on a Bus: Zoe mentions that she's spending the weekend with Brent rather than attending her aunt's wedding, so she does not show up for season 2.

Vaughn

Vaughn

Played By: Fred Savage

A TV writer whose wife was murdered in a case earlier in Danner’s career.

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• Karma Houdini: Despite Danner figuring out how he killed his wife, no charges were brought against him thanks to his wealth and influence.

Willow

Willow

Played By: Barbie Ferreira

A young package thief accused of murder.

Leonard

Leonard Vurr

Played By: Paul Scheer

The prime suspect in a serial arson case Danner handled after the events of Season 1.

Quentin

Quentin Devereaux

Played By: Michael Ealy

A psychiatrist that Danner begins a sexual relationship with.

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• Karma Houdini: After Danner realizes he was the arsonist she was after, he leaves her to burn in his house and escapes without capture.
• Pyromaniac: Appears to specialize in these cases, and turns out to be one himself; part of his M.O. is to utilize his patients' experiences and then target locations tied to them specifically to pin the otherwise motiveless arsons to them instead.

Judson and Jaxson (UNMARKED SPOILERS)

Judson and Jaxson

Played By:Will Greenberg (Judson) and John Gemberling (Jaxson)

The wedding DJ and a waiter respectively. They are both actually Sebastian's cousins and career criminals recruited by him to help with his heist.

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• Boxed Crook: Sebastian got them both freed from a prison sentence to help him with his heist.
• Hidden Depths: Jaxson is not a real waiter and has no experience in food service but he is the only server who can operate the Bao-Bing machine well enough to impress Feng, showing he has some talent with the machine.
• Holding the Floor: Judson gives an awkward toast during the wedding reception to buy time for Sebastian to break into the safe.
• Siblings in Crime: They are brothers who have been committing crimes together since they were children.
• Walking Spoiler: They don't do that much during the wedding, but it is very hard to talk about them without revealing that Sebastian is an American con artist who was plotting to steal from Edgar on the night of the wedding.

Kyler

Kyler

Played By: Zack Calderon

A social media influencer and employee of Feng’s business. He is at the wedding to work as both the wedding videographer and to help promote The King of Bing on social media.

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• Bad Influencer: Kyler is the social media manager for the King of Bing and has built up his own social media profile as a skateboarding influencer. He’s presented as rude and a little cruel dubbing Aniq Urkel to make fun of him on his social media and filming himself making a game of trying to throw chocolates down Aunt Ruth's mouth as she sleeps.
• In-Universe Camera: He’s the cameraman for the videos that make up Feng’s testimony.

Alexander

Alexander Minnows

The deceased former patriarch of the Minnows family.

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• Passed in Their Sleep: Isabel remarks that Edgar died in his sleep, much like his father, when the body is discovered. She more meant it in a violent manner; he was piloting a private plane when he suddenly fell asleep on the yoke, crashing the plane and killing everyone onboard.

Roxana

Roxana

Played By: Eight Lizards all named Bob.

Edgar’s beloved pet lizard who is nearly constantly perched on his shoulder. She died alongside Edgar and was the first hint that his death was foul play.

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Colonel

Colonel

A small dog previously belonging to Alexander Minnows who now roams the family home barking and growling at anyone he comes across.

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• Angry Guard Dog: Despite being a tiny dog maybe twenty pounds soaking wet, he still qualifies for this trope being viciously aggressive towards anyone who gets in his space and even managing to scare off Sebastian and Aniq on two separate occasions.
• Buried Alive: The Minnows have thought he was dead many times and Isabel claims that time they got as far as burying him before he dug himself out.
• Disney Death: Zoe spends most of the investigation thinking she killed him by punting him out a window in self defense. He later turns up alive and still vicious with Isabel saying it's not the first time he's survived what should have killed him.
• Hellhound: He’s not a literal hellhound but he is compared to one by Edgar hallucinating from the Devil's Trumpet. Still, he's as aggressive as one.
• Killer Rabbit: Colonel is a tiny dog who manages to assault Zoe so badly she imagines him as a Slasher Movie killer when recounting it to Danner and Aniq.
• Mister Muffykins: He’s a tiny dog that could probably fit in a purse, if it were not for the fact that he would probably try to kill anyone who tried.
• Why Won't You Die?: Isabel says as much, pointing out that he has survived cancer at least three times and one occasion dug his way out of his own grave.
  Isabel: Little shit will not die.