Last season, Only Murders In The Building tilted more towards the first syllable of the word “dramedy,” much to the chagrin of the show’s fans. Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez still had the same great chemistry they always had, but the show wasn’t nearly as funny as when the trio were navigating the politics and rivalries in the Arconia. Last season, much of the show took place in an old Broadway theater. This season, the show leaves New York for the most part, putting the trio in Hollywood, of all places.
ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING SEASON 4: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: As Charles-Haden Savage (Steve Martin) does a voice over about motion pictures, we see home movie footage of Savage, Oliver Putnam (Martin Short) and Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez); the footage is actually of younger versions of Martin, Short and Gomez.
The Gist: Charles is doing a concluding voice over to the season of the podcast Only Murders In The Building that concluded with the premiere of Oliver’s musical Death Rattle. The trio is still in Oliver’s apartment after the party, and Charles is very concerned that he never heard from his old Brazzos body double Sazz Pataki (Jane Lynch) after he sent her up to his apartment to get a bottle of wine.
Even though we know what happened to her, when the trio go up to Charles’ apartment, there’s no sign of Sazz. Mabel, who still doesn’t have anywhere to live, sleeps over at Oliver’s apartment, and Oliver is greeted with the bad news that Death Rattle is closing because, well, because the producers murdered the show’s star. They also meet Grave-y, the dog that Howard (Michael Cyril Creighton) just adopted.
But they get good news: All three of them get an email from a Paramount executive named Bev Melon (Molly Shannon), who wants to make the podcast into a movie. Soon, the trio is in Los Angeles, being greeted as heroes by Melon and her underlings. All this time, though Charles is still wondering what the hell happened to Sazz.
In the meeting with Melon, they find out that the film is already written, with a sister pair of directors with the last name “Brothers” already chosen. All they want from the trio is to sign away their life rights. Charles, thinking they have leverage, writes a number on a card and pushes it across the wide table: It’s a “4”. Oliver is ready to sign. Mabel is reluctant, because she doesn’t want to be portrayed the way the script has her, as someone with “traumatized, homeless, jobless, mumbling millennial charm, stuck between these old dudes.”
They go to a lavish Hollywood party thrown by Melon and find out their roles are already cast: Eugene Levy as Charles, Eva Longoria as Mabel and Zach Galifanakis as Oliver. Charles and Eugene get along, given they’re basically the same person; Oliver keeps ticking of Zach because he has no idea who Zach is, and Eva, despite being twenty years older than Mabel, thinks they’re contemporaries.
But Sazz’s whereabouts is eating at Charles. And when Charles gets a call from the doorman at The Arconia asking about replacing a window, he realizes where he heard whistling wind from. The trio go back to New York to inspect the hole and get to the bottom of where Sazz is, with help from Grave-y.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Only Murders In The Building Seasons 1-3.
Our Take: The jury’s still out on whether sending Charles, Mabel and Oliver to Hollywood is going to refresh Only Murders In The Building or sink it. Martin and showrunner John Hoffman took a chance in the previous season by keeping the murder in the Arconia but having most of the investigation take place outside of it, with people who don’t live there. Now, the murder that took place in the building is sending the trio out of New York altogether, and we’re not sure how we feel about it.
It’s cliche to say “New York was a character” in Only Murders, but it really was, and not just because of scenes that were shot there. It was embedded in the fiber of the show; the Arconia was a New York co-op building with a miniature society running within its walls. Neighbors kind of knew each other, but generally didn’t. When they did know each other, they didn’t necessarily like each other.
So when Season 3 took place mostly outside the Arconia, it still revolved around a very New York institution: The Broadway stage. Moving the bulk of the action to Hollywood in Season 4 might end up relegating Only Murders to yet another Hollywood satire, one we’ve seen many times in the recent past. What will hopefully make it distinctive is the fact that Charles, Mabel and Oliver have their well-established New York points of view, and we’ll see the absurdity of Hollywood through their eyes as they try to figure out why Sazz met her fate.
Shannon will be a fun addition as the aggressive Paramount executive Bev Melon, and having Levy, Galifanakis and Longoria skewer their personas is going to also be fun to watch — it’s especially fun listening to Longoria list all of her side gigs and delude herself that she and Mabel are contemporaries. But Only Murders is best when the big guest stars are playing actual characters, not just hightened versions of themselves.
Sex and Skin: Nothing.
Parting Shot: As the trio finds Sazz’s titanium knee in a very bad place, Charles gets a response from the person texting him as Sazz.
Sleeper Star: Oh, did we mention that Meryl Streep is back as Loretta Durkin? This may be the only time Meryl Streep will be in the “Sleeper Star” section of a review.
Most Pilot-y Line: As the trio ride in the limo from the airport to the Paramount lot, they pop up in the sun roof, all eating takeout from In-N-Out Burger. Are all of us East Coasters just that predictable?
Our Call: STREAM IT. At this point Only Murders In The Building rides on the chemistry among Martin, Short and Gomez, and in Season 4, that chemistry is well-established. We just hope that Charles, Mabel and Oliver are as much fun running around Hollywood solving murders as they are running around New York.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
The post Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Only Murders In The Building’ Season 4 On Hulu, Where Charles, Oliver And Mabel Go To Los Angeles To See Their Podcast Made Into A Movie appeared first on Decider.
