The Afterparty “Aniq 2: The Sequel”

OK, here we are:  another season of a guest star-filled comedy series where a murder mystery is unspooled as a series of genre parodies.  I found the first season clever, but many of the parodies fell flat.

Oh hey, one of the ones that fell flat, the romcom, is also the genre being parodied in the first episode of the season season.

So, I never really have much to say on these.  Both this and Only Murders in the Building are funny, but I never really know what to say about them as individual episodes.  As noted, the romcom didn’t work for me last time because, aside from the plot, there isn’t a lot to the genre by my estimation beyond the comedy elements, and this show is a comedy already.  Hopefully this season won’t have too many episodes where I’m left to wonder if they did much of anything at all.

But the set-up here is simple enough:  Aniq and Zoe, happily together, are on their way to her sister Grace’s wedding.  Grace is marrying a wealthy man, and Aniq, who is meeting Zoe’s family for the first time, wants to make a good impression on her family before asking her to marry him.  It doesn’t actually go well as the one person who seems to like him is Edgar, the groom, and he’s the murder victim along with his pet lizard Roxana.  Grace is a prime suspect because, apparently, Edgar tended to share all of his food with the lizard.

Since Edgar’s unpleasant mother Isabel is certain Grace did it and is friends with the local sheriff, she says she’s calling the guy, only to be reminded by Edgar’s even more unpleasant best man Sebastian of something, allowing Aniq to give Danner a call to solve the case.  Of course, Danner is no longer a cop for some reason and insists Aniq tell the whole story which she frames as a romcom sequel.

Basically, Aniq kept screwing things up.  Zoe’s family, save maybe Grace and “Fun Uncle” Ulysses, don’t like him, Sebastian is especially cruel to the poor guy, and even when he’s doing favors for Edgar, he can’t quite get it right.  Zoe thinks Grace wants to back out of the wedding, and Aniq actually saw what looked like Grace poisoning Edgar despite the fact he’s sure she’s innocent…oh, and Danner was already in the estate when Aniq said that, not only making Grace look guilty but also making everyone else know what he was saying.

It was a bit better than the last romcom attempt, but that was mostly because I just ignored how it was trying to be a romcom.  Regardless, it’s only the first episode, so the next one may have a sharper parody as I am sure this series won’t be repeating genres too much.

And I still don’t expect to have much to say.