#the afterparty s1

[owlmylove]

just watched the first season of The Afterparty in one sitting. i like their interpretation of the Rashomon concept, clearly in response to Knives Out, but each person's subjective story is a different film genre. one's even animated! there's Sesame Street puppets in another! it's well done, but (spoiler alert) i saw the murderer coming and was still disappointed by how they handled it. even 15 years later(!), the potential of romance reigns supreme over the facts of close friendship. not to be ace on main, but the show shoots its most believable, compelling relationship in the foot. and for what?

i kept waiting for them to provide a Knives Out approach, to acknowledge that sometimes, irredeemable people remain irredeemable (something they managed with other members of the cast, like the Jennifers—a fantastic performance from Tiya Sircar by the way) and you know what? crime is a little bit okay sometimes. And instead, they attempt to convince the audience to hate one of the most likable characters. yes, that's part of it—and sure, there's a Murder of Roger Ackroyd kind of shock to the intimacy of the betrayal. but The Afterparty fails to make their murderer any less human or their victim any more sympathetic.

emotionally, seeing a fairly well-justified criminal get his comeuppance and be abandoned by the friend he clearly cares the most for doesn't grant me, as an audience member, any kind of satisfaction or narrative fulfillment. for all The Afterparty's excellent casting choices and creative narrative concept (despite some awkward acting and choppy sound editing at times, though their acting as teenagers in a 2006 flashback? honestly fantastic) ultimately, the show's denouement falls flat. If you'll allow the choice of metaphors, The Afterparty shows promise but fails to stick the landing. It's a 2000s song that ends with nothing but a slow fade into silence

[nickismyspiritanimal]

Something underrated about the afterparty is that the Zoe is never even remotely jealous of the friendship Aniq and Danner have because men and women can be platonic buddies without any romance at all! Like they never make any jokes about or hint at anything not platonic or have Zoe be a little jealous that aniq has a close female friend. I know it's a bare minimum but a lesser show would've done something cringe like that so I'm glad this show didnt. Good writing baby!

[berternies]

so obsessed with the fact that every single person at this wedding was up to something absolutely unhinged. like we started off with aniq planning to propose at someone else’s wedding and i was like well that doesn’t seem like a good idea. and then it turns out that was actually easily the least insane plan that anyone had.

[sy5starplaty]

THE AFTERPARTY Season 1 credit sequence

[threedotsfromstardom]

THE AFTERPARTY S01E05 X S02E05

We're gonna be friends forever.

[grendelsmilf]

i enjoy the afterparty for its conceit of framing each episode from the perspective of a different character in an entirely different genre (or even medium, in zoe’s case), i like a lot of the actors in it (especially sam richardson and ben schwartz), and i think the comedy and character building is enjoyable and smart. but it’s also perfect example of the reactionary assumptions of its genre by its very nature, as a “whodunnit”/murder mystery.

it showcases every ideological flaw with this genre to the point that it almost seems like self-parody (but alas, it isn’t). the detective on the case is a brilliant underdog who demonstrates the necessity of the police despite the unfortunate existence of “bad cops” who act in opposition to the work of “good cops.” the murderer is figured out by this heroic cop who doesn’t play by the rules and “brought to justice,” where they will rot in prison for doing violence to a member of the elite whose murder is high profile due to his status.

as the plot unfolds, we are given more and more reasons to despise the murder victim to the point where knowing that someone will be convicted and punished for killing him makes us far sadder for the killer than the victim, and yet of course our conclusion remains as it always does: solving the case is more important than the humanity of those involved, and the brilliant detective who condemned someone to an inhumane carceral system, who will surely be further mistreated for killing a member of the elite, is viewed as a hero for being good at her job of enforcing state violence.

ironically, in the flashback episode, we see the police framed as enacting state violence against a black teenager at the behest of the future murder victim, who is shielded from the same punishment due to being the son of a wealthy capitalist. surely, the show would not give us this scene, this entire episode, if we were not meant to critique the foundational violence upon which this genre is built? and yet the season still ends with the good cop prevailing, and the killer arrested.

i watched gosford park the other day, and it is a perfect satire of the whodunnit genre, challenging every assumption that the afterparty fails to even question. the murder is not the inciting incident; in fact, in happens over halfway through the movie. once it does, nothing really changes, everyone is just now slightly hassled by the presence of police, who fail to solve the case in a shocking turn to anyone remotely familiar with the genre. we, as the audience, know who the murderer is, at least somewhat, and we do not, nor any of the characters, have any desire to see him punished for it.

like in the afterparty, the murder victim is a member of the elite who benefits from inherited wealth, although the exploitation he commits as a capitalist and a misogynist who does not value the lives of his workers, his staff, or the lives of his bastard children born from his exploited female workers, is far more direct and harmful. his son happened to have a personal motivation in wanting him dead, but any of his workers could have poisoned or stabbed him and their resentment would have been understandable. the inept detective claims that there is no need in interviewing his staff, as only those (upstairs) who actually knew him are valid suspects.

in the final scene of the movie, the old matriarch played by maggie smith says to her maid that she hopes that she doesn’t have to testify in court, because it would be awful for someone to be imprisoned over something you said. it’s perhaps the only considerate, empathetic thing she says the entire movie.

while marketed as a murder mystery and lambasted by some for not being effective in its execution of the genre, the movie only really uses the whodunnit aspect as a vehicle for its larger commentary on exploitation and violence (against women, against the colonized, and foremost against workers). while the elites who profit off the imperialist violence of the british empire and exploit their servants who wait on them hand and foot (sometimes sexually) are only vaguely affected by individual violence occurring to them (in the form of retribution for their sins), they effect mass violence and glibly discuss it over a seven course dinner.

gosford park not only subverts the genre in obvious ways such as portraying the detective as incompetent and obtuse who fails to catch the culprit, but by directly interrogating the fundamental pillars of the genre, foundations which go unquestioned as the basic scaffolding of the mystery genre, but are in fact rotten to the core.

[johnny-and-dora]

ALSO love love love afterparty season 2 so far but i miss ben schwartz so bad can we not just cut to yasper organising a musical number in jail as a treat for me

[a-dotrivenitupontop]

thank you ben schwartz for having a birthday today giving me an excuse to watch middleditch & schwartz all over again 😌🙏

[chicohungers24-7]

So I'm onto season 2 of the afterparty (just finished Danner's episode) and like. I feel like this season is not as funny as season 1 </3 Yasper and Walt were really good in season 1 and I miss them so much

[penny-nichols]

protection spell for me as the episodes of a TV mystery series come out not to get too attached to the killer.

[meowsticmarvels]

mmm anything about yasper x xavier?? Like pre-afterparty / as a concept

FIRST OF ALL i know who you are LOL... hi. secondly i do think there's some unintentional gay tension there but not in a like cheesy romantic way i mean like exes that had a terrible messy breakup. it kind of. makes sense like some of the phrases in the band breakup scene are the kind of stock things you hear in a romantic breakup like LMFAO.... going to reiterate that it's under the category of "ships i only like if they're bitter exes please don't let them be together but god them being exes makes sense"

[professional-termite]

drawing requests are currently closed on this blog (with a few exceptions)

BANNER BY @corvidovis TYSM SILLY!!!!

wahoo, new introductory post since ive been getting a lot of new followers lately!

hi, im Vanderbilt (aka Van, Bill, Termite, or Termy), formerly E.W.W. Morningstar (Eddie is now hosted solely on @e-w-w-morningstar)! i am an aspiring artist and writer who just wants to be silly goofy online. send me asks, fool around, and have fun on my blog!! i love interacting with people :3 im e_w_woodson on ao3 if you wanna check me out

yes, i am the lightning mcqueen hater (i-hate-mcqueen). please stop sending me lightning mcqueen (send him in if you want, its funny lmao)

dni (not a lot tbh)

a bigot (homophobic, transphobic, aphobic, racist, TERF, mysogynist, etc)

a pedophile or zoophile (if you support pedophilia or zoophilia i will be blocking you immediately)

if i dont like you i will block you. sometimes i do this on vibe alone

shows/movies im planning on watching:

bbc sherlock (watched up to s3)

psych (watched eps. 1-3)

murder she wrote (yet to start)

only murders in the building (yet to start)

ted lasso (watched eps 1 and 2)

the afterparty (watched s1 a while ago, yet to watch s2)

dead end: paranormal park (watched eps 1 and 2)

bbc ghosts (yet to watch)

red dwarf (yet to watch)

and blogs im involved with/admin for under the cut

my (platonic, gender neutral, we get divorced a lot lmao) CURRENTLY ex-EX-husband, stick, is @/stickbug32

my daughter, tailz, is @/ouppypio

my other other daughter, cherry, is @/cherrysdeadd

my son, squid, is @/five-nights-at-squids

my other son, pine tree, is @/pin3-tr33

my soulsister, lee, is @/creative-soul-22

my internet sibling, toast, is @/iceeericeee

my dad, satan, is @/morningbloodystar

one of my siblings, jay, is @/helphowdoiusethis

my other siblings are echo @/echosghoast, violet @/violet-yimlat, abby @/janeway-lover, eric @/ask-eric-the-disposable-demon and probably more but im too lazy to count

my tags for rp as eddie (before i moved him to @e-w-w-morningstar) are #e.w.w. morningstar and #eddie lore, the tags for casual-wood (derry) are #casual-wood and #d.c.c. and the tags for rping as van the void dweller (the character, not me) is #van lore or #vans void

my art stuff is under #writing adventures with van and #drawing adventures with van (when i remember to tag djgk)

star trek posting is under #trek adventures with van

life of luxury posting is under #luxury adventures with van

oc posting is under #oc adventures with van

most of my original posts are under #random

i am the admin for:

@vans-ghost (van the void dweller)

@jessica-woodson-morningstar (jessica, eddies daughter)

@e-w-w-morningstar (eddie himself)

@novaspacoz (my oc nova)

@tyler-the-destroyer (my oc tyler)

@i-hate-mcqueen (pixar cars sideblog)

@the-real-number-one-van (joke sideblog, was gonna be a personal blog but i havent really used it)

@backup-ominous-threats (but thats a secret if youve read this far shhhh)

@termys-trek-art (trek art blog)

@ensign-navh (star trek oc rp blog)

@captainluckysstuff (second trek oc rp blog)

@cptnjeanlucpicard (picard rp blog)

@lt-cmdr-geordilaforge (geordi rp blog)

[did-i-mention-the-shirt]

blorbo bleebus jasper lennov :))

babe I will love you forever

(S1 THE AFTERPARTY SPOILERS)

[berternies]

eugene xavier duckworth jr is like jamie tartt if he was actually a bad person

[sy5starplaty]

THE AFTERPARTY Season 2 credit sequence

[threedotsfromstardom]

THE AFTERPARTY 2.07 + 1.03

As, Bs, phew phew phew! You gotta enjoy it, okay, it's gonna be worth it in the end. In the end you're gonna be like "Oh, I wish you did more of this."