Summary
In probably the most satisfying episode of the season, many of the pieces begin to come together, even if we’re still no closer to finding the real killer.
This recap of The Afterparty Season 2 Episode 5, “Sebastian”, contains spoilers.
Halfway through The Afterparty Season 2, and we’re still no closer to finding out who Edgar’s real killer is. However, we are getting a much clearer picture of the build-up to his death. Certain weird things are falling into place, thanks to being consistent throughout all the testimonies. We’re getting to that point now that we’ve been over the rehearsal and the wedding itself with such a fine-toothed comb that subsequent episodes basically must yield new information.
So, that’s positive. In the meantime, though, let’s check in with Sebastian.
The Afterparty Season 2 Episode 5 Recap
Yes, it’s Sebastian in the hotseat this week, and his episode takes the amenable form of a classic heist movie, which is less pretentious than the Wes Anderson riff of Episode 4.
Is Sebastian really British?
Let’s start with perhaps the biggest Sebastian-related revelation – he’s not really British! No, he actually comes from a trailer park in San Bernadino, and adopted a toff British accent when he met Edgar after conning his way into a posh boarding school. Edgar saw through it, but Sebastian for some reason maintained the accent anyway, presumably for the rest of his adult life.
Sebastian and Edgar quickly bonded over Connect 4 and a misprinted baseball card. They became best friends and went into business together. Graduating from small-scale cons with his cousins Jaxson and Judson, Sebastian got rich with Edgar through a hedge fund.
Why did Edgar fire Sebastian?
The problems apparently only arose when Edgar got into crypto. Sebastian, fearing the volatility of the market, held back 20% of their capital without Edgar’s knowledge, which prompts Edgar to fire him. Now, this is weird since Edgar has already made millions from the cryptocurrency, so he’s cutting off a longstanding mutually-beneficial relationship either over more money than he could possibly need – suggesting a degree of greed we haven’t seen from him yet – or because he’s significantly more ruthless in business than he is in his personal life, as Sebastian claims.
Or, you know, Sebastian is leaving something out.
What was the name of Edgar’s father’s horse?
Anyway, a scorned Sebastian decided to pull off one last heist at the wedding, rounding up a crew – his cousins, who were languishing in prison along with Season 1’s killer, Yasper – and planning to break into Edgar’s safe during the festivities.
Of course, Edgar’s safe has layers upon layers of security, and after running into Travis – which we saw in Episode 3 – Sebastian realizes that the final piece of the puzzle he needs is the name of Edgar’s father’s horse. He tries to get that from Hannah – we saw this in Episode 4 – and then from Isabel, and he’s eventually successful, though it takes him two attempts and an embarrassing naked run through the vineyard grounds. The horse’s name was Nutmeg.
What does SEC4 mean?
There’s a lot of satisfaction in seeing how all this comes together with previous details. Roxana went missing in the premiere because Sebastian needs her for the safe’s retinal scanner; Jaxson clubs Travis on the head just as Travis claimed, and the SEC4 code that Aniq has been trying to crack turns out to be a running scorecard of all Edgar and Sebastian’s games of Connect 4.
Edgar catches Sebastian looting the safe – when he ran away from the dance in Episode 2 – and they enjoy a final game of Connect 4 for all the marbles, which is just the misprinted baseball card, which Edgar wins and rips up. Sebastian, though, had already replaced it with a decoy, so he got everything he wanted from the evening, which turns out not to have been the millions of dollars of crypto in the safe.
Does this exonerate Sebastian? It’s hard to say. I find him keeping an AirPod in his ear the entire time to be highly suspicious, and it still isn’t clear what kind of deals he has been cooking up while cosplaying as Edgar. But it also seems, as usual, like he’s too obvious.
Luckily there are a ton of other leads raised here and elsewhere in the episode. Vivian apparently has some kind of secret, Ulysses was doing something dodgy to a glass behind the bar, and Danner has something to reveal about why she really left the force, which one assumes will be the focus of the next episode despite a juicier revelation following it.
The Afterparty Season 2 Episode 5 Ending Explained
In the final scene of the episode, Zoe, who has been conducting her own investigation throughout the episode but not really getting anywhere thanks to everyone’s personal biases and vendettas, spies her sister talking to Hannah by the pool.
Hannah tells grace that she had to confess about their relationship, which Grace is fine with. However, she also claims that she didn’t tell Aniq and Danner “everything”, and Grace fixes her with a knowing expression in return, meaning these two are definitely hiding something else. What could it be?
You can stream The Afterparty Season 2 Episode 5, “Sebastian” exclusively on Apple TV+.
