There's something unique but also familiar about the chemistry between Sam Richardson and Zoë Chao in the second season of the acclaimed Apple AAPL TV+ show The Afterparty.

While the pair have worked together several times, including on the first series, their characters echo the pairing of Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd in the iconic 80s TV show, Moonlighting.

"I think that's a great comparison," agreed Chris Miller, one of the show's co-creators. "I often think of Sam Richardson as the Bruce Willis of his day."

The actor, who returns as escape room designer Aniq Adjaye, agreed but also got the essence of another classic mystery show in the DNA of The Afterparty.

"I was also going to say there is a bit of Hart to Hart," Richardson mused.

"They're both just the most wonderful people on screen and off," Miller added, saying it was "a no-brainer" to keep the pair as "the emotional heart of The Afterparty" due to their natural chemistry.

"Literally," interjected co-creator Phil Lord. "They took chemistry class together."

"Sam is home for me," Chao, returning as Zoë Zhu, Aniq's high school crush, admitted. "We met on this set, and it was an immediate friendship, and we've gone on to do four or five other projects together, so we always lock in quickly. He's an orienting force for me, especially when we are dipping back into Afterparty stuff."

The Afterparty's first season, which dropped on the streamer in January 2022, instantly found a devoted audience. Watching that grow and develop gave the pair a real kick.

"It's always great to see when an audience jumps on board and embraces a show, especially a show like this that is so interactive," Richardson enthused. "Watching fans get into theories and trying to solve the mystery was crazy. Watching the Reddit threads and seeing how people are picking up on the small, subtle clues and going off on some of the red herring tangents, really trying to figure it out, that's how you know it's good and they're paying attention."

Chao continued, "It tickled me so much that people dug what we did, but I had no idea that there were clues baked in and that I participated in. I had no idea, and I was like, 'There's a Reddit? What?' "

Richardson recalled a specific incident on set that even they couldn't explain.

"There was a scene where Zoë wore a wig and, looking at the script, it made no sense that she would be wearing it, but we shot it anyway," he revealed.

"I asked not one question," she laughed. "I remember I was mid-burrito, and they were like, 'Hey, we need to steal you for a second. Can you wear this wig in the mirror and go like this?' And I was like, 'Oh, yeah. Sure.' I didn't ask any questions."

The scene got used in a trailer to throw audiences off the scent.

"Then they removed it," Richardson said excitedly. 'It was done like that was a mistake, and the Redditors were like, 'Aha! The wig must mean something!'"

"You would think I would ask more questions the second time, right?" Chao laughed. "I didn't."

The success of The Afterparty's first season led to a demand for more, but it caught creators Lord and Miller on the back foot, even though they pitched a possible return in an earlier meeting.

"When we originally pitched the show to Apple, it was a self-contained murder mystery," Lord confessed. 'However, at the end of the pitch, we were like, 'You could do other seasons where Tiffany Haddish's character Detective Danner solves a murder at a wedding, maybe we keep some of the characters from the first season on and bring a bunch of new suspects in.' It was sort of tossed off at the end of the meeting to say that there could be more.' Then they said, 'Well, you said there could be more, so let's do it,' and that's when we were like, 'Oh.'"

"Now we had to figure out a whole new, complicated story, find a bunch of new genres and styles of filmmaking for each person's point of view, and build a whole other complex murder mystery that's also funny and emotional. We did wonder what we had got ourselves into but thankfully had a lot of help."

As with the first, the second season of The Afterparty boasts an ensemble cast that includes Elizabeth Perkins, Zach Woods, Paul Walter Hauser, Jack Whitehall, Poppy Liu, Anna Konkle, John Cho, and Ken Jeong, among others. It premiered on Wednesday, July 12, 2023, with one new episode every Wednesday through September 6, 2023.

"We definitely write with actors in mind when we're writing the characters, and we've been lucky in both seasons to get many of the actors we imagined in those roles," explained writer-producer Anthony King. "It's wild to take that ensemble from season one and then say, 'Most of you aren't coming back. We're going to get a whole new ensemble,' but it paid off because we got another incredible ensemble of comedians doing their version of this differently. It enriches both seasons."

Aside from their dream cast, one thing the show's creative also wanted to lock in was the right to use the lyrics from a classic track that dominated radio play in 1997. To reveal it would be a spoiler; however, they knew that working the lyrics into the script would be comedy gold.

"There is probably more than one song where when you examine the lyrics separate from the music, they don't quite hold up as literature," Lord admitted. "This is one of them. It's the Homer of its time. That song was always on the radio when we moved to Los Angeles."

"We unironically played it loud and proud. Okay, maybe it was mildly ironic. If we didn't have the rights to that, we would have been quite disappointed," Miller added, with King confessing they "fell in love with the idea" of the words and there is a reason it has "stood the test of time."

With a third season entirely possible and Richardson and Chao down to return, more murder mysteries could be on the cards. Bearing that in mind, do they consider their characters' presence at an event a blessing or a curse?

"I think it's a little bit of both," the actor laughed. "It's incredibly bad luck, but maybe good luck that they're there? Not that the murder is lucky, but they are fortunate our characters happened to be there to solve it. If they weren't there, maybe we'd never know."