In episode 8 of The Afterparty Season 2, we found out that Feng desperately needed Edgar to invest in his baobing business, but unfortunately, the tech billionaire did not see any potential in the shaved ice dessert. Feng believed that his enthusiasm to rethink his business model proved that he was innocent, but according to Danner, it was not a sufficient explanation. The most crucial piece of information that we learned about in the previous episode was that Isabel and Edgar engaged in a heated argument. It was evident that Isabel was not happy with Edgar marrying Grace, but was that the only reason behind the disagreement? The Afterparty Season 2, episode 9, is centered around Isabel, where she narrates how her life took a tragic turn after the death of her husband.
Spoiler Alert
Was Edgar Responsible For Isabel’s Declining Mental Health?
Isabel Minnows is the tragic heroine in a 1950s psychological melodrama. With a glass of gin, her only true companion, in hand, Isabel made one of the most controversial statements in The Afterparty. Apparently, she had witnessed the murder, and Grace was not the culprit. But on the other hand, it was Isabel who had blamed Grace in the first place. To explain herself, Isabel starts by discussing how tragic her life has lately been. After the sudden death of her husband, Alexander, a year ago, Isabel’s mental health started to degrade. She could not get over the tragedy and developed a case of insomnia. The sleeping pill Edgar gave Isabel had no effect on her, and she could sense that she was gradually losing her mind. Isabel struggled to be a part of conversations, and she often blurted out things that had no connection with the topic of discussion. Isabel started to hallucinate—she heard music when there was none playing, and she had items delivered that she did not remember ordering in the first place.
It was becoming impossible for Isabel to hide her condition from Edgar and Hannah, and the situation escalated when Isabel mistook Grace for Gail. She was confident that her name was Gail, and she went back to the game of scrabble, where Edgar had spelled her name. Isabel realized she was wrong, and she became more certain about her insanity. Isabel’s condition worsened, and she started to give in to the madness. Afraid of watching his mother fade away, Edgar decided to consult Dr. Shulkind. His mother’s condition prompted him to consider conservatorship. Isabel was completely against the idea, and she decided she would try to prove to the doctor and her family that she was capable of making independent decisions. Isabel took over the charge of designing the wedding napkins, and she could not believe her eyes when she noticed that the napkins had ‘Gail’ printed on them. She clearly remembered typing the right name, yet she had once again made a grave mistake. When Isabel bumped into Travis, he brought up Edgar’s crypto business. That was the moment Isabel started to doubt her son. She was convinced that Edgar was trying to prove her insane so that he could become the sole holder of all the assets Alexander had left behind. All Isabel needed were proofs, and she was quite determined to find them.
How Did Edgar Fool His Mother?
Isabel assumed that Edgar had sent his best friend, Sebastian, to her room to make a fool of herself. With a katana in her hand, Isabel threatened Sebastian to leave. According to Sebastian’s version, he tried to seduce Isabel to find out the passcode to Edgar’s safe, and clearly, Isabel had misinterpreted the situation. On the morning of the wedding, Isabel offered Grace their family heirloom, a hairpin. She noticed the prenuptial agreement and encouraged Grace to sign it. While Grace was certain that Isabel wanted to protect Edgar’s wealth, it was only in episode 9 of The Afterparty that Isabel stated that she wanted Grace to sign the agreement because she was afraid of her being left completely penniless after Edgar’s business flopped. Before leaving Grace’s room, Isabel noticed a box of blue pills that looked exactly like the sleeping pills she had taken. Upon asking about it, she found out that it was Adderall, and the pills were meant to keep one awake. It dawned on Isabel that her son had handed her the wrong medicine to make her lose her mind. Though it is important to remember that according to Grace’s version of the interaction (episode 2), Isabel had not for once mentioned her sleeping pill, there is a slight distortion in the story Isabel was narrating.
When Isabel confronted Edgar, he stated that the pills were distinctly different, further suggesting that his mother was completely deranged. Isabel begged him to give her another chance, and the wedding toast was her only way to prove to the world that she was stable. Edgar asked her to stick to the script, and that triggered Isabel. She was certain that Edgar would try to alter her speech to embarrass her, and so Isabel marked her notes to make sure that it was not tampered with. When it was finally time for the toast, Isabel realized that her speech had been altered. The mark she made was gone, and Isabel was convinced that if she read what was written, it would lead to public embarrassment. So Isabel decided to pretend as if she were reading from the note, but instead, she recited the lyrics of MMMBop by Hanson. Isabel noticed the change in expression on Edgar’s face, and she was certain that she had finally gotten to him.
Is Isabel The Killer?
Isabel managed to momentarily bypass the threat, but she knew that her son would not give up until he succeeded. When Edgar offered her a piece of the wedding cake, Isabel was suspicious. She swapped her plate with his when he was distracted to make sure it was not poisoned. After Edgar’s death, Isabel realized that the cake was indeed poisoned. So, in the strangest of ways, she believed that she was responsible for her son’s death. Isabel agreed that she knowingly did not poison Edgar; he died trying to get rid of his mother. But the question was: why did Isabel blame Grace for Edgar’s death? Well, apparently, she was afraid that people would not believe that her son had been gaslighting her all along. But after finding hard evidence that would complement her story, Isabel decided to come forward with the truth.
In Edgar’s room, she found a box full of the napkins that she had originally designed. Isabel realized that Edgar replaced the correct ones with the wrong ones to prove her insane. Not only that, he was the one who had been ordering random items from the internet and blamed Isabel for not remembering about them. She showed the correct napkin around the room, and everyone was convinced that Isabel’s story was the truth. But Aniq was not quite satisfied with the explanation, and neither was Danner. Aniq reminded everyone in the room that Edgar was hallucinating before he died. The devil’s trumpet had that effect, and it took 15 minutes for the hallucination to kick in, so the timeline did not match. Edgar had the cake a long time before the afterparty, which proves that the cake was not poisoned. Also, Roxanne did not have the cake, so how did it die? Isabel’s explanation was clearly not flawless.
Before Aniq and Danner could solve the mystery, the police arrived. During the ending of The Afterparty episode 9, Sebastian calls the police after he sold off Edgar’s crypto company. It was evident that Sebastian and Isabel were simply buying some time for themselves to sell off Edgar’s scam business. When the police asked who the suspect was, it did not take Isabel a second to blame it on Grace once again. Isabel’s story cannot be trusted completely, and the evidence could very well be created. Not to forget, Isabel had flushed down her medication and wanted to give away the suit of armor. It is pretty evident that she is hiding something, but her motive does not seem strong enough. That is, unless it was a decision taken in haste or simply out of spite. Vivian and Zoe are the only remaining wedding guests left to be interrogated.
While Zoe has tampered with the evidence, Vivian was barely involved in anything. Feng’s baobing seems to be the only food consumed by both Roxanne and Edgar, but then again, why would he poison the food that was meant to impress Edgar? One of the wildest explanations could be that Vivian poisoned Edgar to help her husband, knowing well enough that Grace had not signed the prenup. As implausible as the theory is, right now, every person seems to be a possible suspect. Surely, someone is lying about their scenario, and we must leave it to the experts, Aniq and Danner, to solve the mystery.
