The Ultimate Afterparty Season 2 Puzzle Hunt Guide
Note: all spoilers are hidden, even inside puzzle explanations
Also, "we" throughout this post refers to myself and my stalwart editor / puzzle guide / partner extraordinaire, Vicky, without whom this would not be possible.
Table of Contents
Welcome to the Party
The Afterparty was one of my favorite shows of 2022. I loved its ensemble cast and genre-bending presentation as it detailed the events of a murderous high school reunion, but its intricate puzzles are what really put it over the top for me. Unbeknownst to us at the time of our first watch-through, each episode had a visual clue as to who didn't commit the murder (each with the pattern NOT ___
).
For season 2, puzzle creators Dave Shukan and David Kwong stepped up their game. This season chronicled the mystery of a murder at the wedding of Grace and Edgar, with a couple of returning cast members and a bunch of kooky new characters. Each episode has two tricky puzzles hidden in the background (or sometimes foreground!), and one of those puzzles leads the solver to yet a third. If you solve that one (the hardest/most involved of the 3), you get a word or short phrase that eventually fed into a meta-puzzle. Truly, they outdid themselves. If you want to jump straight to the hardest puzzles and aren't interested in the show, they've posted the entire puzzle hunt, which can be solved without any knowledge of The Afterparty. But, watching is more fun, so I recommend that.
Vicky and I solved most of these on our own, but we also collaborated with the folks on /r/TheAfterPartyTV and occasionally turned to them for hints and help. Our personal strengths lent themselves to some of these puzzles and left us a little stumped on others. There were a ton of them! And some were super hard!
It ended up being more enjoyable overall for us to make judicious use of the subreddit when things got frustrating – and we returned the favor by explaining a few bits and pieces to our fellow puzzled solvers online. That’s why we decided to write up this guide: as a gift to future watchers who may not be able to navigate the now-buried Reddit threads, but who could still use the support of riddle-driven friends.
This post provides hints for each puzzle in each episode, plus full explanations if you ever get stuck.
How to Use this Guide
We encourage you to solve as much as you can! The puzzles are fun and will play to different strengths, so just because a prior one stumped you doesn’t mean you won’t have a stroke of brilliance on the next one. That said, we appreciated hints when we needed them and the goal here is to alleviate gatekeeping and frustration. We have done our best to lead a solver through several layers of hints. That way, you can choose your own difficulty level. Click through just a few hints that prompt your own “aha” moments and independent solutions, or go all the way to the solution to admire the puzzle-makers’ cleverness and trickery if you just can’t (or don’t want to) get there on your own.
Hint Format
As mentioned above, episodes 1-9 each had two puzzles hidden within the action: One solved to a clue about who didn’t commit the murder in the form of a Not...
or Not the...
statement, and the other gave the name of a flower
. That flower name could be typed in to the Registry
page of Grace and Edgar’s wedding website (spotted in an episode, on an invitation) for a third, more involved puzzle.
The hints use the following format for each Not the...
, and Flower
puzzle:
- A vague window of timestamps to check between to find the puzzle on screen (e.g. "between 5:00 and 15:00")
- A hint to the delivery mechanism (e.g. "goes by fast / pay close attention to letters / have to decode shapes", etc)
- A pretty good hint about what the puzzle itself consists of (e.g. "pay special attention to cereal boxes")
Followed by:
4. Screen w/ puzzle visible
And finally, a block that explains every step of the puzzle and includes the final answer in a spoiler tag:
Explanation
To solve the puzzle, do A, then B, then C. You get the code to my luggage: Fake spoiler.
The Registry puzzles are each very unique, so the hints for those are a little more freeform.
With that out of the way, grab your pencil, notebook, and thinking cap. Let's get to it.
Episode 1 - Aniq
Aniq's Not the...
- 10 minute time window to see puzzle: SPOILER
- Delivery mechanism: SPOILER
- What exactly to look at: SPOILER
4. Screen w/ puzzle visible
Explanation
Look at each “table number,” or in this case, table letter, shown in each shot of this scene (even when it’s the same table you saw before – they change). They spell out SPOILER. This eliminates SPOILER
Aniq's Flower
- 10 minute time window to see puzzle: SPOILER
- Delivery mechanism: SPOILER
- What exactly to look at: SPOILER
4. Screen w/ puzzle visible
Explanation
Look at the little vases on the mantle behind Aniq while Ulysses is taking a shower. There are 5 sets of 3 vases each. Each vase is either short, medium, or tall. If we assign each height with the number (0
, 1
, or 2
respectively), the vases represent the following base-3 numbers (and their base-10 counterparts):
base-3 | base-10 |
---|---|
202 | 20 |
210 | 21 |
110 | 12 |
100 | 9 |
120 | 16 |
The right column corresponds to letters of the alphabet if numbered in alphabetical order, which then spell out SPOILER.
Aniq's Registry Puzzle
- Decoded instructions: SPOILER.
- First answer: SPOILER
Answers (individually spoilered)
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
The starred letters in the puzzle (underlined above) combine for a final clue when read in order:
SPOILERWhich solves to SPOILER. Save this answer for later.
Episode 2 - Grace
Grace's Not The...
- 10 minute time window to see puzzle: SPOILER
- Delivery mechanism: SPOILER
- What exactly to look at: SPOILER
4. Screen w/ puzzle visible
Explanation
Edgar’s itinerary lists a bunch of airports that he planned to fly into. They’re not listed explicitly on the paper, but we know airports each have a three-letter IATA code associated with them:
- Gnoss Field in Marin, California:
NOT
- Senador Petronio Portella Airport in Teresina, Brazil:
THE
- Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane, Washington:
SKA
- Lajes Praia da Vitória in Portugal:
TER
The phrase SPOILER eliminates SPOILER.
Grace's Flower
- 10 minute time window to see puzzle: SPOILER
- Delivery mechanism: SPOILER
- What exactly to look at: SPOILER
4. Screen w/ puzzle visible
Explanation
The typewriter that Grace sells Edger has its letters all mixed up. To find the answer, go alphabetically through where you know the keys should be.
Where there should be an A
, there's instead an N
. Where there should be a B
, there's an I
. Do that through the whole alphabet to get the message SPOILER, meaning our flower is SPOILER.
Grace's Registry Puzzle
Decoded instructions: SPOILER First answer: SPOILER
Each answer
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
then:
- Hint for part 2: The words SPOILER and SPOILER in the instructions are there for a reason.
- Second hint: SPOILER.
Part 2 Explanation
Count the number of words in each clue and note the position of the bolded word. For example, the first clue has 9 words and the 8th word is bolded. Also, note that the bolded pairs of letters are each US state abbreviation (LA
is Louisiana, ME
is Maine, etc).
The state that corresponds with the first clue (Louisiana
) has exactly 9 letters and the 8th word of that clue is bolded, so you take the 8th of 9 letters (N
). Repeat that for each clue & state combo and you have our answer: SPOILER. Tuck that away for now.
Episode 3 - Travis
Travis' Not The...
- 10 minute time window to see puzzle: SPOILER
- Delivery mechanism: SPOILER
- What exactly to look at: SPOILER
4. Screen w/ puzzle visible
Explanation
The last names of all the people on Edgar’s list each have ten letters and they’re each rated between 1-10 stars.
In each row, count the number of stars and then note the corresponding letter in the last name (if 3 stars, check the 3rd letter, for example) to spell SPOILER. Think about that one for a sec, and then be relieved – the creators confirmed in a sort of sideways response to a Redditor that there was a typo, and the puzzle solution rightly reads SPOILER.
Travis' Flower
- 10 minute time window to see puzzle: SPOILER
- Delivery mechanism: SPOILER
- What exactly to look at: SPOILER
4. Screen w/ puzzle visible
Explanation
One of the books on the shelf is entitled Doves And Hankerchief Lessons: Ira Anderson
(sic). The capital letters spell out SPOILER.
Travis' Registry Puzzle
- Instructions hint: SPOILER
- Decoded instructions: SPOILER
- Second answer (because it makes for a better example than the first answer): SPOILER
Answers (individually spoilered)
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
Explanation
Reading all of the “extra” letters down the page, you get the phrase look at third letters
. Then, taking the third letter of each unscrambled word, you get the phrase ANSWER IS UNSCRAMBLE
. Tuck UNSCRAMBLE
away for the future!
Episode 4 - Hannah
Hannah's Not The...
- 10 minute time window to see puzzle: SPOILER
- Delivery mechanism: SPOILER
- What exactly to look at: SPOILER
4. Screen w/ puzzle visible
Explanation
Hannah’s calendar forms a Playfair cipher, an antiquated way to encrypt messages using a cipher phrase and a grid. This may be familiar to you if you like puzzles like this or have seen National Treasure 2. Otherwise, hopefully the words “play” and “fair” are enough to clue you in. Our starter phrase is there at the top: WANDERLUST
. We start the grid with that and then fill the rest of the grid alphabetically, skipping the letters that already appeared in the starter phrase. That gives us:
W A N D E
R L U S T
B C F G H
I K M O P
Q V X Y Z
From there, match the different shapes scrawled on the calendar's days, and use those coordinates to form the corners of a box. Then read the opposite corners of that box as your encoded message. Go in order of the number of points on the shape (teardrop, football, triangle, square, pentagram).
DM
-> SPOILERLH
-> SPOILERKS
-> SPOILERMD
-> SPOILERAT
-> SPOILER
This reveals that it's SPOILER, eliminating the dog.
A Note About Cybersecurity
You'll soon find out that starting this episode, you need both the flower name and a location rather than just the flower name. Early in the season, I was doing some digging on the wedding site. I found a hashed (a sort of 1-way encryption) version of all of the flower names. With a bit of Python I was able to decode the hashes and get all the flower answers weeks before the episodes aired. I posted about it on Reddit, and clearly... someone in production saw. The next week, the website required you to know both the flower and how you arrived at that answer. So uh, sorry!
Hannah's Flower
- 10 minute time window to see puzzle: SPOILER
- Delivery mechanism: SPOILER
- What exactly to look at: SPOILER
4. Screen w/ puzzle visible
Explanation
There are 2 armadillos on the shelf when Hannah is doing taxidermy, so take the second letter in ARMADILLO
(R
) as an answer. Repeat with the other objects on her subsequent three shelves of hobbies:
- 5 anchors (
O
) - 4 bows (
S
) - 4 typewriters (
E
)
and you get ROSE
(found on a shelf
).
Because of my investigative work getting the flowers, we knew the answer this week was ROSE
and someone on Reddit guessed that the shelf was the location, but no one quite put together why that was the case. It took so long, in fact, that the creator of the show had to post on Reddit himself and give us a hint.
Hannah's Registry Puzzle
- First hint: SPOILER
- Second hint: SPOILER
- First answer: SPOILER
Part 1
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
Metapuzzle
Now it gets even screwier. Each column has one circled letter, and one letter that remains un-crossed-out. The circled letters are all letters from A through K, so if you associate each circled letter with its corresponding unused letter (or phrase) from the column above it and then unscramble to put the circled letters in alphabetical order... you get the phrase SPOILER. Save that phrase for later.
Episode 5 - Sebastian
Sebastian's Not The...
- 10 minute time window to see puzzle: SPOILER
- Delivery mechanism: SPOILER
- What exactly to look at: SPOILER
Explanation
No real secret this week. Break out your pencil and get crosswording!
Here's the filled version of the crossword
When complete, reading bottom-left to top-right, the letters in that diagonal read SPOILER, eliminating SPOILER.
Sebastian's Flower
- 10 minute time window to see puzzle: SPOILER
- Delivery mechanism: SPOILER
- What exactly to look at: SPOILER
4. Screen w/ puzzle visible
Explanation
The tools on the table spell out DAISY
(found on blueprint
).
Sebastian's Registry Puzzle
- Decoded Instructions: SPOILER
- For simplicity's sake: SPOILER
- First answer: SPOILER
Answers (individually spoilered)
Green squares are underlined
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
Metapuzzle
The green (or underlined) letters almost form the names of trees, but each is missing a letter. For example, lines 1 & 2 have the green letters SQUOIA
, which is SEQUOIA
without the E
. Note down the missing letter and then repeat that tree-finding process with each pair (or trio) of lines. This gives the following trees; missing letter is underlined:
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
When you combine all the missing letters, you get SPOILER; stash that away.
Episode 6 - Danner's Fire
Danner's Not The...
- 10 minute time window to see puzzle: SPOILER
- Delivery mechanism: SPOILER
- What exactly to look at: SPOILER
4. Screen w/ puzzle visible
Explanation
The marshmallows and other foods on the therapist's chest are laid out in Braille. They spell out SPOILER.
Danner's Flower
- 10 minute time window to see puzzle: SPOILER
- Delivery mechanism: SPOILER
- What exactly to look at: SPOILER
4. Screen w/ puzzle visible
Explanation
The flags in the bar use International Maritime Signal Flags to spell out SPOILER (found in bar
).
This one was actually spotted in a behind-the-scenes image before the season aired, but we didn’t have context at the time.
Danner's Registry Puzzle
The clues for this part aren't especially cryptic - there are sets of words that form 10 nonsensical palindromes, which will eventually form paths through a grid. Here are the palindromic phrases (and their character lengths not including spaces):
Answers (individually spoilered)
- 1A -> 1B: SPOILER
- 1B -> 1A: SPOILER
- 2A -> 2B: SPOILER
- 2B -> 2A: SPOILER
- 3A -> 3B: SPOILER
- 3B -> 3A: SPOILER
- 4A -> 4B: SPOILER
- 4B -> 4A: SPOILER
- 5A -> 5B: SPOILER
- 5B -> 5A: SPOILER
- 6A -> 6B: SPOILER
- 6B -> 6A: SPOILER
- 7A -> 7B: SPOILER
- 7B -> 7A: SPOILER
- 8A -> 8B: SPOILER
- 8B -> 8A: SPOILER
- 9A -> 9B: SPOILER
- 9B -> 9A: SPOILER
- 10A -> 10B: SPOILER
- 10B -> 10A: SPOILER
With the lengths in hand, you can try laying each clue out on the grid to connect its points. We didn't have the patience for this, so we turned to Reddit. /u/hacker6284 came in clutch and provided a filled grid:
Filled Grid
The circled letters in the grid correspond to the "Data compression" clues, each missing a letter (underlined below).
Metapuzzle
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
Those give us our next "stash this for now" answer: SPOILER.
Episode 7 - Ulysses
Ulysses' Not The...
- 10 minute time window to see puzzle: SPOILER
- Delivery mechanism: SPOILER
- What exactly to look at: SPOILER
4. Screen w/ puzzle visible
Explanation
Answer: This clue reminds me of one of my favorite-ever Archer scenes - it's all about the NATO Phonetic Alphabet. There are a few lines that include words that feel out of place:
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
Together, these spell out SPOILER
Ulysses' Flower
- 10 minute time window to see puzzle: SPOILER
- Delivery mechanism: SPOILER
- What exactly to look at: SPOILER
4. Screen w/ puzzle visible
Here's a better look:
Explanation
His clock is a standard 7-segment display, but it's not showing numbers. Instead, it's a series of segments that don't really mean anything:
If you invert the display by swapping the red and gray segments above, you get our word:
So the flower is POSY
(found on the clock
).
Ulysses' Registry Puzzle
- Decoded instructions: SPOILER
- Time saving hint: SPOILER
Answer for each box
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
Then:
- What to do next: SPOILER.
- First answer: SPOILER.
Ordered flag answers
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
Which gives us SPOILER.
Episode 8 - Feng
Feng's Not The...
- 10 minute time window to see puzzle: SPOILER
- Delivery mechanism: SPOILER
- What exactly to look at: SPOILER
4. Screen w/ puzzle visible
Explanation
When Danner is looking at all of the videos in the gallery, they each have a duration (like 1:23
or 3:16
). If you order each one by the number before the colon and translate the number after the colon into a letter, you get:
1:14 -> N
2:15 -> O
3:20 -> T
4:20 -> T
5:08 -> H
6:05 -> E
7:19 -> S
8:16 -> P
9:09 -> I
10:20 -> T
11:20 -> T
12:05 -> E
13:18 -> R
This is SPOILER, ruling out SPOILER.
Feng's Flower
- 10 minute time window to see puzzle: SPOILER
- Delivery mechanism: SPOILER
- What exactly to look at: SPOILER
4. Screen w/ puzzle visible
Explanation
Bullseye! It's the dartboard. Follow the darts in rainbow order and pay attention to the point value of the pie slice they're in. Ignore the bonuses/multiplier given in actual darts scoring:
- Red: 15
- Orange: 18
- Yellow: 3
- Green: 8
- Blue: 9
- Violet: 4
Associate those numbers with their corresponding letter of the alphabet to spell out SPOILER (found on the darts
).
Feng's Registry Puzzle
This may seem very complicated, but it's not quite as bad as it looks. Also, we found two sheets of this graph paper extremely useful for putting our answers together.
- Walkthrough (part 1): SPOILER.
- Walkthrough (part 2): SPOILER.
- Column 6 flavor name: SPOILER
- Walkthrough (part 3 & spoilers for above hints): SPOILER.
- First clue answer: SPOILER
- Column 6 flavor position + explanation: SPOILER
- Walkthrough (part 4, spoilers for above hints): SPOILER
Answers (individually spoilered)
- 88681: SPOILER
- 109706: SPOILER
- 141772: SPOILER
- 349076: SPOILER
- 421521: SPOILER
- 456463: SPOILER
- 605441: SPOILER
- 617123: SPOILER
- 659363: SPOILER
- 666783: SPOILER
- 772511: SPOILER
- 776524: SPOILER
- 826631: SPOILER
- 838476: SPOILER
- 933258: SPOILER
- 1102071: SPOILER
- 1271106: SPOILER
- 1548516: SPOILER
- 1659991: SPOILER
- 1692841: SPOILER
- 1764711: SPOILER
- 1777636: SPOILER
- 2013485: SPOILER
- 2049152: SPOILER
- 2174908: SPOILER
- 2303152: SPOILER
- 2348130: SPOILER
- 2399045: SPOILER
- 2418528: SPOILER
- 2448468: SPOILER
- 2615561: SPOILER
- 2724996: SPOILER
- 3140023: SPOILER
- 3191356: SPOILER
- 3257443: SPOILER
- 3339428: SPOILER
- 3513106: SPOILER
- 3606836: SPOILER
- 3729311: SPOILER
- 3898611: SPOILER
- 4043306: SPOILER
- 4055128: SPOILER
- 4213774: SPOILER
- 4429512: SPOILER
- 4650213: SPOILER
- 4958671: SPOILER
- 4973631: SPOILER
- 4975796: SPOILER
- 5172928: SPOILER
- 5293951: SPOILER
- 5415964: SPOILER
- 5542849: SPOILER
- 5647143: SPOILER
- 5652764: SPOILER
- 5663991: SPOILER
- 5764325: SPOILER
- 5872791: SPOILER
- 6114868: SPOILER
Metapuzzle
We were aided in this with another Python script which made use of itertools.cycle and the modulo operator. It's not really useful to share (since it just spit out answers, which I've already done above), but is useful for validating all of the timestamps.
Anyway, knowing the cycles for each flavor give you their positions in the first and last rows, which when read together, reveal SPOILER, another clue for later.
Episode 9 - Isabel
Isabel's Not The...
- 10 minute time window to see puzzle: SPOILER
- Delivery mechanism: SPOILER
- What exactly to look at: SPOILER
4. Screen w/ puzzle visible
Explanation
Check out the intersections of words in their scrabble game. When read, they spell out SPOILER
Isabel's Flower
- 10 minute time window to see puzzle: SPOILER
- Delivery mechanism: SPOILER
- What exactly to look at: SPOILER
4. Screen w/ puzzle visible
Explanation
Though there are a lot of spices on the screen, we only care about the 5x2 column on the left. In each row, the two spice names share exactly one letter. For instance, BASIL
and GROUND CLOVE
share only a single letter: L
. Do this for each of the 5 rows to get the flower: SPOILER (found on spices
).
Isabel's Registry Puzzle
Finally, we’ve got a use for the mysterious words the rest of the Registry puzzles have been giving us!
- Decoded instructions: SPOILER
- First hint: SPOILER
- Second hint: SPOILER
Full Explanation
Each of the registry puzzle answers has had a sex-specific animal name in it:
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
- SPOILER
Those are the intersection points of the answer pairs, which then fit nicely into the blanks.
With your letters in place you can use the numbered boxes to read out the final, flowery answer: SPOILER.
Episode 10 - Vivian and Zoë
Vivian and Zoë's Not The...
- 10 minute time window to see puzzle: SPOILER
- Delivery mechanism: SPOILER
- What exactly to look at: SPOILER
4. Screen w/ puzzle visible
Explanation
The barcode in the closet is some stretched out letters in disguise. It's hard to read as it goes by, but if you crop and stretch the image, it's a little more clear:
If you squint, it says SPOILER.
We absolutely did not catch this one- it was the final episode and the killer was about to be revealed, so we had stopped looking for puzzles. Joke's on us! I believe credit goes to /u/aleatorial
in this post for finding this.
There are no flower or registry puzzles in episode 10, so that's it!
Conclusion
And there you have it. An extremely detailed writeup of every puzzle from The Afterparty Season 2. We had a blast watching, solving, and making this guide. Thank you for reading and we hope to see you again for season 3!