WMG / The Afterparty

Season 1

Settings for future seasons

• Since it's been confirmed that a second season is on the way with Tiffany Haddish returning as Danner, what would be the next type of afterparty that the season focuses on? There could be:
  • A wedding afterparty. Possibly with a relative of Danner's being the focus and also the victim, which could also provide an emotional reason behind Danner's motive behind solving the crime.
    • Confirmed. Season 2 will take place at a wedding reception.
  • An afterparty for a police graduation. It could offer more commentary on the corruption of the police force that was touched upon in the first season, as well as offer a relevant motive for the killer.
    • It is at least possible that Germain will be involved in some capacity and his work on the Tar Pit Strangler case will be examined.
    • Alternatively, the next killer will be revealed as the real Tar Pit Strangler, with Germain having arrested the wrong suspect.

Aniq will play a role in Season 2

• In the first Season finale, Danner giving Aniq her business card is a deliberate setup by the creators to establish a line of contact between the two. This will come into play in the second season when Danner is having difficulty with a case and calls upon Aniq to help her find a vital clue. By the end of the second mystery, Aniq will realize that he's more cut out for police work after all and will join Danner as the Watson to her Holmes.
  • Confirmed. Aniq and Zoe will be back in the next season.

Xavier was the one who sent Aniq the text from "Zoe" at the beginning of the first season.

While Aniq came to the reunion after seemingly receiving a text from Zoe hoping to see him there, Zoe's own testimony makes no mention of it and in fact portrays her as being surprised to see Aniq again. The text also notably signs her name with an umlaut that it is otherwise not written with, suggesting that it wasn't actually Zoe who wrote it. This theory posits that Xavier was the true author of the text using a few pieces of evidence:

• The high school flashback reveals that Xavier blamed Aniq for ostensibly stealing his spot at Stanford, inspiring Yasper to break up Ska-pe Diem, and ruining his new car, enough to press charges against him and destroy his plans for the future. It also establishes that Xavier was aware of Aniq's feelings for Zoe, as he mocked him for missing his chance with her when she hooked up with Brett.
• The finale confirms that Xavier still carried a lot of resentment toward Yasper for breaking up Ska-pe Diem despite showing more immediate anger at Aniq when it actually happened. This establishes that Xavier maintained grudges across the fifteen year period since graduation and sets a precedent for him to possess a similar hatred of Aniq in the present.
• During the reunion, Xavier swoops in while Zoe is reconnecting with Aniq and pulls her away to make her sit with him, going out of his way to reject her attempts at letting Aniq tag along. When Zoe leaves with Aniq after Xavier is pulled aside by Yasper, Xavier again separates them before they can go to the afterparty together by offering Zoe a ride in his helicopter and again refuses to let Aniq come along.
• Zoe's testimony shows that Xavier spent the entire ride to the afterparty talking about himself and was mostly disinterested in anything she had to say, indicating that he had little real interest in her. It also reveals that Xavier tricked Zoe into laughing loudly and animatedly while they were sitting at their table together during the reunion, as if to fool outside observers into thinking that they were hitting it off more than they really were.

Put together, all of this suggests that Xavier wasn't just attempting to seduce Zoe during the reunion, but that he was specifically attempting to make a show of seducing Zoe in front of Aniq. While this is seemingly contradicted by Brett's testimony, which has Xavier state outright that he decided to seduce Zoe as a spontaneous way of getting back at Brett for bullying him during high school, this is the only time we get any indication of his motive for pursuing her during the reunion, and it is neither supported or conflicted by anyone else's story. Outside of their encounter in the bathroom, the only other altercation between Xavier and Brett happens when Brett interrupts Xavier and Zoe on the balcony. So while every instance of Xavier meddling in Aniq's relationship with Zoe has him acting to stop the two from being together, his conflicts with Brett over Zoe have him consistently reacting to Brett antagonizing him, implying that his attention was more on the former than the latter. Furthermore, in both Aniq and Brett's testimonies, Xavier tricking Zoe into loudly laughing is shown happening before Brett sits down with Aniq and Yasper, meaning that at the time Aniq was the only person visibly watching the conversation from Xavier's line of sight.

There are two ways to interpret the pissing contest scene that still enable this theory to work:

• Since Brett has a historical dislike of Xavier and came to the reunion for the purpose of "saving" his marriage with Zoe by preventing her from hooking up with anyone, it's very possible that he simply projected his own animosity onto Xavier in the same way that Aniq did to Brett during his testimony and that their bathroom encounter either didn't happen at all or didn't happen in the way he made it out to.
• Since Brett explicitly crashed the reunion unannounced (Zoe states that they had agreed that he would sit it out and Ned confirms that others were made aware of this), it's also possible that Xavier initially intended to steal Zoe from Aniq and amended his plan to include Brett when he found out he was also present.
• Xavier didn't originally plan on spiting Brett but, when Brett confronted him in the bathroom, he couldn't resist gloating about how he was intending to seduce the ex-wife of his old high-school bully.

Season 2

Clues in Season 2

• In Episode 1, during the wedding ceremony, the letters on the tables spell out "NOT THE SNORER". This could point to Ulysses, who slept outside where theoretically no-one would hear him snore.
• Episode 2 has Edgar's unusual itinerary, which spells out "NOT THE SKATER". While a little tricky to decipher, it could point to Feng. Skating could refer to ice-skating, and Feng owns a shaved ice business.

Hannah and Grace are secretly in love

• There are copious amounts of Les Yay during Grace's flashback in Episode 2, where she says that she and Hannah spent hours together whenever Edgar would leave for business. Given that he's shown to be quite the Workaholic, it's easy to deduce that Grace and Hannah grew to the point of being closer than friends over this period of time.
  • Confirmed in Episode 4.

Walt returns in the finale

• In the season finale, Danner makes a big deal of cracking the case by turning to the one person she knows has the truth. A dramatic build of music as the camera pans to...Walt standing by the dinner table. And when a stunned Aniq and Zoe ask where he came from, Walt snaps, "seriously?! You invited me!" as flashbacks show how Walt has been part of the wedding event all season.
  • Jossed. Walt does get a quick cameo, but it's during Danner's story in Episode 6, which has nothing to do with the wedding.

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