‘The Afterparty’ returns with a bigger and better season 2

SHARE NOW

Another party, another murder! Apple TV+’s critically acclaimed comedy The Afterparty returns Wednesday, July 12 for season 2, and there’s another murder mystery to figure out.

Several of the original cast members are back, including Tiffany HaddishSam Richardson and Zoe Chao, and Chao tells ABC Audio that season 2 will have “a bigger cast [and] two more episodes.”

“We get to go deeper into these genres. We’re not confined to one night in one room. We really get to explore origin stories. Introducing two families brings a host of new themes to the show,” she continues.

What hasn’t changed from the first season, according to Richardson, is that each episode mimics the styles of Alfred HitchcockWes Anderson, film noir and Ocean’s 11, creating a “sweeping romance, epic, epic romance.”

Zach Woods joins the cast this season, though he admits figuring things out has never been his strong suit.

“I can’t stand it — like escape rooms, I hate them so much. Like puzzles, I can’t stand it,” he shares. “I just feel like life is bewildering enough without paying someone to bewilder you more. And even when I finished the last episode, I still had to take it a minute and be like, okay, so it’s this guy? It’s this girl?”

Writing the show, on the other hand, is a fairly straightforward process for series co-creator Chris Miller.

“You figure out what the murder is and how to hide the how and the why of the murder, and then how to hide what happened,” he says. “And then you start building characters around it. And then you’re trying to find other people who could be potential suspects, who have motives and have their own secrets and have their own stories.” 

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.