Danner
Episode 7 of The Afterparty Season 1 begins with Danner on the verge of losing her badge. She’s not even supposed to be on this case, and with the captain arriving imminently, Yasper and Aniq continue to listen in to their conversation. Zoe arrives and joins them too, with Yasper handing over his earpiece to Zoe. This time the story turns to Danner for some reason. After her father died, everything changed for her. She decided to join the police academy and realized the place was a real “boys club”. However, she managed to keep up with most of them, aside from Germain, who’s the golden boy here. After acing police academy, Danner set out to make a real difference in the community. A homicide report sees Danner excited and deciding to try and solve the crime. When she arrives, Danner believes it’s not a simple domestic homicide but Tricia’s report, coupled with Danner’s investigative report, manages to show off the footage (the same footage that’s online and distributed everywhere) and shows Germain, who’s in charge of the case. Danner refuses to let this go though and decides to go rogue, heading out beyond her jurisdiction to Echo Park where she finds the green-haired woman and her partner. Her name is Willow, and she’s taken in for questioning. Apparently she wasn’t in Studio City at the time, despite stealing the package off the front porch of the neighbour’s place. Eventually, Danner is encouraged to head in and support the interview. It seems there are two different women wearing hoodies with green hair, and Willow appears to have a pretty solid alibi despite being the number 1 suspect. Specifically that comes from photos on social media confirming her whereabouts at an art exhibit. Danner continues to investigate on her own, believing that Willow is completely innocent. Danner eventually speaks to Willow’s attorney, showing him a video and believing that Vaughn is the one who killed his wife, off the back of her having an affair. Given she works off the book. Danner is relegated to the records room, with no hope of advancement. However, Willow is let off the hook and they manage to arrest the right person. With this story finished, Danner confirms she only moved so she can get a fresh start. She sees this case as a chance to do just that. The captain in question is Germain and with him en-route, Danner speaks to Culp and suddenly realizes that she knows who killed Xavier. There’s one person they haven’t interviewed yet… Zoe’s daughter.
The Episode Review
The second half of this series has been a real drag. This episode adds absolutely nothing to the show as a whole beyond understanding Danner’s motivations. But is that really needed for the story? Does it help this show at all? No. Instead, we get some backstory and an understanding of the gender inequality in the police force… and that’s about it. We don’t see how Danner transferred or why, along with how Danner ended up fronting this case, or at least worming her way into doing that. Much like last week’s episode with Zoe, there’s really not a lot going on here that advances the story or comes close to understanding who the killer is. Hopefully the finale can change that, but this one has been dragging its heels for a while. Will this show end with a bang or a whimper? We’ll have to wait and see.
