YMMV / The Afterparty

• Adorkable: Aniq is described using this exact word by the detectives in the first episode, and is a charmingly awkward puzzle designer who portrays himself as the lead in a Romantic Comedy in his testimony.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Was Xavier really that antagonistic when he blew off Yasper's request for his track to be blessed? The encounter is told from the perspective of Danner, who is using the encounter to explain Yasper’s motive for committing the murder. Was she over-exaggerating to sell her point? It's particularly hard to determine a proper answer when everyone can be seen as an Unreliable Narrator.
  • Really, every aspect of Xavier's character is open to some interpretation, as we only ever see him through other characters' recounts. We only have their word and interpretations of his behavior to go off of, meaning that most of what we know about him is secondhand.
  • Did Yasper give his inspirational pep talk to Chelsea intending to implicate her for Xavier's murder? The audience is never given a definitive answer.
  • Was Yasper bringing up Aniq as the impetus for him breaking up Ska-pe Diem simply an aside that Xavier latched on to, or Yasper's way of avoiding having to take responsibility for doing it? In the latter case, was it a conscious or unconscious decision?
  • From what we eventually learn about his character, it's very possible that Detective Germain didn't actually capture the Tar Pits Strangler and that they're still running free by the time the series starts.
• Alternative Joke Interpretation: When Zoe says "Again?" after Brett makes the excuse of shitting himself to cut their conversation short during his testimony, is it meant to suggest that Brett has actually done so in the past, or that he has used it as an excuse to get out having to speak with her before? Either would be in character for him.
• Awesome Moments:
  • Initially shown as a Butt-Monkey, Culp shows the audience how he became a cop by going on the offensive and outright throwing Yasper to the ground after he attempts to flee.
  • Danner also gets a couple of these in the finale. Not only does she pull off an insane Batman Gambit to get Aniq to recall the open closet door and the true killer of Xavier, but she's also able to get a leg up on Germain by solving the crime before he gets there, gleefully shoving it in his face as payback for all that he put her through when she was in the LAPD.
    • The specific moment where she calls Xavier's cell to prove her theory. Everyone goes dead quiet as Daniel Pemberton's music ramps up, leading up to the moment where... "X Marks The G Spot" blasts from Yasper's supposed work phone. Cue the cheers and the bouncy score kicking into overdrive.
    • If one takes the interpretation that Danner knew who the killer was very early on, that means a large portion of the night was her gaining more eyewitness accounts to eliminate potential accomplices and even waiting for Germain to arrive at the house simply to gloat her victory, which she most definitely deserved.
  • The creators get one for the reveal, as smaller, innocuous details throughout the season are shown to have deeper meaning and purpose leading up to the true culprit.
• Awesome Music:
  • Yasper’s songs during his testimony.
  • Xavier’s song “Imma Live Forever” is quite the bop for a song that tempts fate six ways from Sunday.
  • Daniel Pemberton's entire score for the first season is downright excellent. Not only does he fit the bouncy, comedic take on a murder mystery, but he also adds a lot of punch to the wildly different genres of the series.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Danner solving the murder and taking away Yasper just as her captain and Germain - the colleague who got her demoted for proving the suspect he had arrested innocent and ruining his record - arrive. She earned the gloating and chance to throw his words back at him.
  • For anyone pitying Walt, the moment where Chelsea remembers his name and saying that no one is gonna forget it after tonight. Followed by everyone repeating his name.
  • Chelsea finally receiving an apology from Jennifer 1… and then her response to tell her to shove it.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • The lyrics and music video for "Imma Live Forever" features Xavier playing Russian roulette, driving blindfolded and crashing his car, shocking himself with a live electrical cable, and goading the listener to push him off a balcony. Then the video ends with an In Memoriam for Xavier, meaning that someone In-Universe thought it was a good idea to release that video even after Xavier really was pushed off a balcony.
  • "X Marks the G Spot" features Xavier bragging that he's going to "beat that pussy like police". Particularly egregious given the examples listed under Does This Remind You of Anything? below.
  • Ulysses having PTSD from seeing a friend lose a leg to a minefield in Kuwait is not funny. Both of them wearing garish Sequined Uncle Sam inspired dance outfits when this happens is hilarious.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: The Minnows siblings, Edgar and Hannah, from the second season are generally assumed by fans to be on the autism spectrum. They both have intense interests, some shared between the two of them and some individual and struggle with social skills often unintentionally coming across as of putting without meaning to, such as Edgar saying he wouldn't enjoy Aniqs escape room a second time because he already did it and now knows the puzzles, or Hannah making stoner jokes embarrassing Aniq. They both also have rather few close friends with Sebastian and Grace respectively being the only close friends they have at the wedding. Some fans changed their perception of Edgar when they learned about his crimes, especially his Gaslighting of his mother which lead several fans to consider if he might actually be a Sociopath whose sociopathy presents like autism externally such as his socially awkward moments being calculated attempts at making others around him uncomfortable. These diagnoses are not mutually contradictory and so some fans assume Edgar is both autistic and a sociopath.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Walt’s flashback to the St. Patrick’s Day party ends with police arriving to break up the fight between Aniq and Xavier. Xavier, the Caucasian kid with an influential businessman dad, gets off with no consequences. Aniq, who is African American and has no such connections, gets arrested and loses his scholarship. This may not have been intentional, but one might be reminded of the Black Lives Matter Movement…
  • Danner's own backstory adds to the theme. Danner, a black woman, is punished and deemed "not a team player" by the police department because she seeks the truth rather than search for the easiest suspect to arrest. Germain, a white man, is able to rise through the ranks because he closes cases by picking easy suspects and closing cases as quickly as possible. His hatred for Danner also takes on a racially charged aspect when he seethes that she needs to be "put down" like a dog.
• Draco in Leather Pants: With how charming Ben Schwartz's performance is and with how supportive he was towards Aniq and Chelsea, it's no surprise that many were cheering for Yasper not to be the killer simply because they found him too likable to be the villain.
• Fan Fic Fuel: Many fans of the show have entertained the idea of Yasper offering assistance to Danner on following cases in a comedic Hannibal Lecter style.
• Friendly Fandoms: Fans of the series tend to get along with fans of Knives Out, as both properties homage the murder-mystery genre and its many tropes. Double that up given that their respective creators Rian Johnson and Christopher Miller are well-known for their subversive takes on genres. Also, the heavy Product Placement of Apple devices in both works.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Yasper’s Musical Episode with upbeat songs and the apparent fulfillment of his dreams? All a lie. Xavier brutally rejected his request to bless his song, driving Yasper to use his knowledge of the house to commit the murder.
  • The triumphant moment where he gets a message back from Xavier validating his hopes, which he passes onto Chelsea? Also a lie. Fridge Horror kicks in when you realize that Yasper possibly intended to inspire Chelsea to confront Xavier, which would, in turn, make her suspicious to the police.
• He Really Can Act: While the cast in general all give great performances, quite a few stand out for breaking the mold of their usual roles:
  • Yasper is played by Ben Schwartz who is most known for sitcoms such as Parks and Recreation, where he plays eccentric and excitable Shameless Self-Promoters. It seems here that he's playing that same type of character, only for him to make a shocking turn during the scene of Xavier's murder, where he gives an actually chilling and cold performance. The same goes for his performance during The Summation, portraying Yasper's gradual Villainous Breakdown and delivering an emotional, unhinged Motive Rant.
  • Ike Barinholtz is most known for acting in broad comedies, but plays the part of Brett with commendable nuance; giving emotional depth and undeniable charm to a character primarily defined by being a boorish, entitled Jerkass.
  • Sam Richardson does play the sort of quirky Adorkable character, similar to Werewolves Within and The Tomorrow War. But he also shows off some of his more dramatic chops during the scenes where he gets arrested and has his future upheaved at the St. Patrick’s Day party and when he figures out that Yasper was the murderer, showing genuine horror and torment at the fact that one of his best friends is a murderer.
  • Initially, Danner fits the loud, energetic, Deadpan Snarker's that Tiffany Haddish usually plays. However, she also pulls off a pretty good dramatic performance during the scenes where Danner is harassed and intimidated by officers at the LAPD for 'not being a team player'. She also shines during the final exposition scene where she successfully ousts Yasper as the true killer and perfectly lays out his entire motive and method.
  • Ken Jeong is typically known for playing comedic weirdos. While Feng trying to shamelessly save his struggling business is initially played for laughs, he does manage to show the sheer desperation the man has gone through to get that point. Plus, he also manages to demonstrate some genuine dramatic chops when he confesses that everything he did was because of how much he loves his wife and wants to prove to her that he can still be "adventurous."
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The main piece of evidence used to find out the real killer in Season 2 are swapped alcohol glasses, one of which contains a deadly substance that led to the victim's death, much like a fellow murder mystery story that came out a few months earlier. And given that Season 2 and Glass Onion were filmed around the same time, it's most likely entirely coincidental.
• Ho Yay:
  • Yasper breaking up his band with Xavier is framed like the end of a romantic relationship, with Chelsea even comparing Xavier's situation afterwards to her own breakup. The "Yeah Sure Whatever" musical number Yasper performs after Xavier halfheartedly agrees to bless his track is also very much in the style of an upbeat love song. Yasper's desperation to reconnect with Xavier is also somewhat paralleled to Aniq's desire to reconnect with Zoe.
  • While Yasper is very much a Shipper on Deck for Aniq and Zoe, his hyping of Aniq sometimes veers into homoerotic territory. Highlights include telling Aniq to get his "beautiful thighs and nimble tongue" to the St. Patrick's Day party and briefly straddling Aniq's lap out of excitement when Zoe asks to go to the party with him.
  • Brett's testimony frames his rivalry with Xavier as being incredibly homoerotic, with the two making long, unbroken eye contact while having a pissing contest and getting so close to each other during a confrontation that they're centimeters away from brushing their lips together. As a result, they each come across as more fixated on each other than they are Zoe in their love triangle. This is presumably meant to parody the macho action movies that his testimony is styled on, which are well-known for having unintended homoeroticism.
• I Knew It!: Yasper being the killer was one of the most popular guesses among fans, including him using Xavier's phone to delete the security footage and jumping down to the lower balcony after the murder.
  • A few fans also guessed that the supposedly leaked screenshot of Zoe wearing the Private Eyes wig was merely a misdirect.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Xavier is undeniably an Asshole Victim who quickly loses whatever sympathy the audience has for him afterwards, but seeing him as an insecure teen having Yasper (his Only Friend, at least from what we see) harshly cut ties with him at a party just because he likes pop music is still pretty heartbreaking. His confused, pained expression and voice throughout the conversation really sell it.
  • Sure, Yasper killed Xavier. But he also is seen in a flashback getting brushed aside dismissively by Xavier and he's genuinely torn up over the fact that his friend Aniq might get arrested for a murder he committed. Ben Schwartz's dorky, energetic and endearing performance also nets some sympathy points.
  • While Isabel is a deeply unpleasant person, it's hard not to feel bad for her after the reveal that her own son was gaslighting her for her money. Even the characters sympathize with her after learning this.
• LGBT Fanbase:
  • Season 1 has the aforementioned Ho Yay between Aniq, Yasper, Brett, and Xavier. It helps all of them are played by fairly well-looking men.
  • Season 2 attracted a good amount of queer viewers thanks to the Hannah/Grace ship. The fact that Poppy Liu is queer in real life only adds more to the coupling.
• Memetic Mutation: Viewers have taken to treating Xavier's death as an actual event, with posts memorializing him and his impact on the music industry making up a sizable number of the comments section for the "I'mma Live Forever" video.
• Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales: Travis is a chronic Reddit user who assumes that everything is a conspiracy and is frequently ineffective at solving the murder in his attempts to insert himself into the investigation, serving as the creators' response to the show's devoted Reddit fanbase. Said Reddit fanbase has eagerly embraced him as a representative of their community, helped by Paul Walter Hauser's hilarious performance and the fact that while Travis is certainly odd, he is ultimately a genuinely good person who gets some things right every once in a while.
• Moral Event Horizon: A few characters cross this in episode five.
  • Having just had their band broken up by Yasper, Xavier proceeds to handle his emotions like an angry toddler by pushing Aniq into the pool, causing him to miss his chance with Zoe, twisting the knife when he sees Zoe with Brett, and then having Aniq arrested after their fight despite his heartfelt pleas for forgiveness. It does help that Xavier also got Chelsea drunk, almost date raped her, and then claimed to have gone all the way with her, ruining her reputation.
  • Any doubt that the Jennifers, especially Jennifer 1, were unlikable alpha bitches goes out the window. Episode five shows their self-centeredness, focusing on their own problems over their friend Chelsea’s, Jennifer 1 slut shaming her friend in public rather than showing concern over her well being, and then trying to throw the blame for the murder back onto Aniq in the present. And then episode six reveals that Jennifer 2 was the one sending the threatening texts to Chelsea to mess with her.
  • If Yasper didn't already cross the line by murdering Xavier, then he definitely crossed it by being willing to throw suspicion on his former classmates and supposed friends such as Chelsea, and, most significantly, let Brett, an innocent man who is lovingly devoted to his daughter, take the fall for his crime.
  • In season 2 Edgar had already been shown to be a scam artist and fraudster, but his gaslighting of his own mother in an attempt to get her money while he was already extremely rich is the point where most viewers and most characters lose any love they had for him. Even Grace is happy that he is dead after learning this.
• Play-Along Meme: The series released a music video that was made in-universe by murder victim Xavier. Viewers commented on the video as though Xavier were a real, sadly deceased celebrity.
• Squick:
  • Indigo is promoting cheese made from human breast milk. That is all.
  • The puddle Danner slipped in back in the first episode is revealed in episode eight to be amniotic fluid from when Jennifer 2’s water broke.
  • Aniq spits up camel milk right onto Vivian in Season 2.
• Unexpected Character: Very few people expected for Yasper and Walt to make brief cameos in Season 2.
• Unpopular Popular Character: In-universe, Walt is a Forgettable Character who no one can be bothered to remember. Out of universe, he's one of the show's primary scene-stealers, a frequent target of the audience's sympathy, and one of the most popular guesses for the culprit's identity.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: More like cinematography of awesome, but mad props must be given to the crew for their successful efforts to emulate the visual style of each genre they tackle. This arguably reached a peak with Episode 3 in Season 2, where the set decorators, director, and cinematographer go through painful lengths to mimic the style of a noir detective talkie while also making it seem modern.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The second season has several main characters who suffer from this.
  • Aniq is planning to propose to Zoe soon and wants to use her sisters wedding as a chance to get her parents blessing. This is all well and good, except he also wants to propose the weekend of the wedding. Several fans felt this was incredibly rude to Grace and Edgar, the couple getting married, because someone, especially the bride or groom’s sibling, getting engaged at someone else's wedding is seen as a rude attempt to upstage the couple actually getting married. The fact that Aniq at first makes it sound like he wanted to propose at the wedding and does not specify that he actually wanted to propose to her on the drive home from the wedding until very late in the season does not help. But even with that clarified many viewers thought he was uncharacteristically rude to Grace and Edgar.
  • Grace and Hannah’s affair in the months leading up to the wedding was supposed to come across as sympathetic. On Grace’s half she ended up feeling neglected with Edgars frequent business trips and Isabel's cruelty, and on Hannah's half she was incredibly lonely before meeting Grace and considered jer the most important person in her life. However some fans feel that this is not enough to justify having an affair with your fiance's sister or having an affair with your brother's fiance. The fact that Hannah has grown distant from her brother as they grew up but was originally very close to him and has no reason to justify hurting him makes people feel like she massively betrayed her brother. That Grace goes through with the wedding and is never implied to have not known she was attracted to women before Hannah meaning that her relationship with Edgar is probably not a case of Incompatible Orientation makes people feel like she still massively betrayed him too. Many fans were hoping that the show would reveal that they knew several of Edgar’s dark secrets to make their actions more justifiable but the series implies they find out at the same time the audience does, making their actions much less sympathetic.
  • Travis getting reddit to invest in Bucephalus to keep it afloat after Edgar’s death is probably meant to be a heroic way to save the people already tied to it from getting screwed over. But because crypto currency is so incredibly volatile to begin with him getting a bunch of new people to invest comes across as him ultimately caring more about hurting Sebastian by ruining his career than he does about the many other people who would be hurt by his actions. There is also some implication that he made money himself on these deals which many viewers think ultimately makes him a scam artist just like Sebastian.
• The Woobie: Plenty to go around:
  • Poor Walt is constantly overlooked by his classmates and occasionally even left out of parts of their testimony entirely. No one even remembers that he was the one throwing the St. Patrick’s Day party to begin with.
  • All Aniq wanted to do was get a second chance with Zoe… but Xavier, the guy who cost him his first chance AND a scholarship, continues to get in the way. Then their history of animosity causes Aniq to be suspected as his killer. Ouch.
  • Chelsea used to be the most popular girl at school before a combination of booze, Xavier wanting to look cool, and her Alpha Bitch friends destroyed her reputation and drove her to become an alcoholic, paranoid wreck.
  • In Season 2, we have Grace, who's described as always unlucky with love before she met Edgar. Though their relationship had a nice beginning, Edgar's Mr. Vice Guy and Workaholic tendencies end up consuming most of their relationship, combined with his utterly cruel mother. And then after their wedding, Edgar winds up dead while Grace is accused of his murder.

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