Only Murders in the Building

The scripts for season three are just as strong and funny as the first two seasons, and the chemistry between Martin, Short and Gomez never flags.

It may not be perfect, but it is a hell of a show, speaking to and of a love of Broadway and showmanship. And behind all that, there’s still a strong emotional core that carries you to the end.

Having seen the first eight episodes of the 10-chapter run, I’m dying (so to speak) to see who did it and why. Martin Short, Steve Martin and Selena Gomez are never short of wonderful together.

While season three’s premiere is jam-packed with nuggets about the case, it never loses focus away from the comedy. The one-liners and banter continue to flow smoothly between Charles, Mabel, and Oliver. [The score is the average of the grades for the first two episodes.]

Few shows bring a smile to one’s face as consistently as Only Murders in the Building, and Steve Martin and John Hoffman’s half-hour murder-mystery comedy continues to succeed in that regard with its third season.

A TV series that revolves around its characters putting on a Broadway show demands to be a showstopper in and of itself. “Only Murders” pulls it off. Anyone who sees Season 3 and doesn’t walk away convinced that the actors deserve a share in its success, well, you’re clearly one of the would-be thieves.

The addition of great guest stars this year gives each of the leads new character beats to explore. Even the case this season feels less made-up as it goes along than it did in season two, which ended with something of a thud in its final reveal. Most of all, season three doesn’t feel like a repeat of the first two, amplifying the strengths of those seasons in a way that allows the performers to shine again.

Obviously, Only Murders… will be too soft-core/fluffy for some, but it manages to remind everyone that TV crime doesn’t have to mean 24/7 gritty realism and thinly veiled torture porn. If the murders are markedly less alarming than the jazz hands, that’s all part of the charm.

[Streep's] performance and Rudd's meld with that of the rest of the excellent cast. .... All these moments compensate for the softer corners this season manifested in the usual physical farce and misdirects, and the questionable choice to make Andrea Martin's Joy as campily vivacious as she comes across. Ultimately, however, that matters less than the vibe weighing on our trio.

So “inside baseball,” the new season fits the stars better than previous outings. It hints at retracing steps, but the over-the-top production numbers make it more of an original than even “Schmigadoon.”

Does the third season, of which I’ve seen eight episodes, go on too long, like so many streaming shows these days? Probably so. But there’s such warmth afoot, in our cross-generational Mod Squad and in the fun that all the cast members seem to be having. Along with silliness, the show has heart.

It’s no longer a surprise that Gomez enjoys such unlikely platonic chemistry with Martin and Short, or that Hoffman and Martin keep finding new ways to expand their characters’ insular world. It is a surprise, and a pleasant one, to see how that expansion takes shape, and who stops by to help fill the space.

I’ve seen only eight of the new season’s 10 episodes, so I can’t speak to its qualities as a whodunit, but the season as a whole is a pleasant surprise: less frenetic, more confident and more character-driven.

While the concept would seem to come with a built-in expiration date, credit the producers with finding a way to reinvigorate the Hulu series in this third season, both inside the building and beyond it.

With A-listers Meryl Streep and Paul Rudd guest starring with our favorite true-crime podcasters Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez, Season 3 of this wicked, whacked-out whodunit (infant triplets as murder suspects!) spins ragged silliness into comic gold.

It’s more of the same, and what more could you want? It’s still plush, escapist and ridiculous, performed by a cast now so good it’s becoming faintly absurd.

To put it simply, this season of Only Murders in the Building manages to keep the parts of the show we love locked down without being a carbon copy of the seasons that came before it.

There's always the chance that "Only Murders in the Building" won't stick the landing in its third season, but for its bulk, it's starting out pretty strong.

The play’s the thing, and when you’re having this much fun, the show says, who’s going to get pernickety about plotholes? Because if Only Murders is anything, it is splendid fun. There is something delectably arch about the whole thing, a piece of well-worked stagecraft that nonetheless feels unorthodox at a time when so much TV takes itself so very seriously.

The writing remains sharp as a stiletto, and the cozy mystery is puzzling enough to keep us guessing. Streep and Rudd make it even more entertaining. They’re having a grand time, and so will you.

This season, the friendships are fractured — or at least, not quite front and center the way they once were. But Oliver remains such a deeply moving figure. This might be one of Short’s best performances of his career, balancing so many ideas and tones at once.

A lot of fun, especially for theater buffs.

Only Murders is more a team effort, and the new season struggles at times with a split focus between putting on a show and solving a crime. The backstage shenanigans are great fun, though, and the guest casting raises to a new level. [14 Aug - 3 Sep 2023, p.6]

There are just certain parts of the entertainment experience missing in Season Three, which is strange to say given how much fun its wacky musical numbers can be. Mostly by its own design, it's just not as funny, and it’s not heartbreaking as its reflection-heavy mood wants to be.

If the new season isn’t as funny as it should be — don’t get me started on various characters brought back from earlier seasons with diminishing returns — and it isn’t as mysterious as it could be, why is it still entertaining enough for a tepid recommendation? Because, as I said up top, it plays effectively as drama.

Only Murders may never again catch lightning in a bottle the way it did back in 2021, but it remains a better-crafted entertainment than anything we’ve glimpsed from Charles or Oliver’s careers in showbiz.

The season is worth watching for Streep and the show’s ode to Broadway showmanship; just prepare to be disappointed when she and the music are not part of an episode.

It’s not that Season 3 of Only Murders is anything close to bad — it’s just that they’ve shown us in previous seasons how great this concept, and the chemistry within, can be. By separating the cast as much as the show does, a touch of that magic is missing. Even so, we have a murder to solve, people, and we do have a bright new crime scene to explore. The show goes on, and this show is still worth tuning in for.

Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez make an uncannily beguiling trio, but the formula of quirky murder-solving in an aesthetically pleasing Upper West Side Manhattan apartment building needs to be rejuvenated.

These episodes of Only Murders in the Building show some of the inevitable wear of a concept that has already gotten more mileage than anticipated.

It’s funny, easy to follow and the performances are excellent. But I do find myself wishing that the series would be bold enough to step outside its comfort zone and go something new.

There’s not enough time spent on solving the mystery at the center of season 3 of Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building, leaving the characters disconnected and pursuing thinly developed relationship plots. While the show still delivers some strong performances from this season’s guest stars Paul Rudd and Meryl Streep, it’s lost sight of what made the first two seasons of the true-crime spoof so compelling.