Only Murders In The Building season 4 is finally here and it gets off to an intriguing start as our central trio is back, investigating another – you guessed it! – murder in the building.
Warning! These reviews will be spoiler-free for the episode in question but will discuss previous seasons and episodes in spoilery details!
Only Murders In The Building, Hulu’s phenomenally popular murder comedy starring Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez, is now on its fourth season, and you might be wondering just how many bloody murders can there be in one building?!
A lot, apparently, and we’d be lying if we said we weren’t willing to suspend an awful lot of disbelief to keep enjoying them. Thankfully, the writers of the show understand that the premise asks a lot from the audience. Even the characters note that it’s a “flaw” in their podcast business model.
From the very first episode, season 4 mixes things up a little. As the trailers already revealed, Charles (Martin), Oliver (Short) and Mabel (Gomez) are off to LA as Paramount Pictures are looking to make a film about their podcast. Not to worry, the season won’t be spent in sunny Hollywood, as our trio soon return to the Arconia to investigate another murder.
Season 3 ended on a shocking note as Charles’ stunt double, Sazz Pataki, was shot fetching a bottle of wine from her lookalike’s apartment. But the question is, was the bullet intended for Charles?
For most of the first episode, the trio is unaware that there has even been a murder. Charles’ apartment has been cleaned and Sazz’s body is gone. Charles can sense something is wrong, but can’t quite place his finger on it.
As the trio jets off to Hollywood to negotiate their life rights, they find out that there’s a cast already in place for the upcoming Only Murders In The Building film. Eugene Levy is due to play Charles, Eva Longoria is Mabel and Zach Galifianakis is on board as Oliver. Mabel is immediately uncomfortable with the whole situation, especially after being described as the “homeless, jobless, mumbling millennial” by Molly Shannon’s film executive.
It’s fun to see Only Murders In The Building expand its horizons and change its well-worn formula a little. The introduction of Levy, Longoria and Galifianakis gives this season a slightly meta edge, which is surprisingly welcome. The dynamic between Martin, Short and Gomez carries the show, but the starry supporting cast always breathes new, fresh life into it.
Going into season 4, there is a worry that the series is getting stale. Episode 1 lines up all the building blocks for another highly entertaining season, but how long can they keep this up before the audience clocks out and refuses to believe another murder has occurred in the Arconia?
To the show’s credit, we are introduced to a lot of new tenants in the West Tower of the building, a somewhat closed off section of the Arconia. They include Richard Kind’s stink eye Vince, Kumail Nanjiani’s Christmas-loving hunk, and a family who are always cooking sauce in their kitchen. It adds yet another dimension to the season and creates a class difference between the two towers, as the West Tower tenants have much smaller flats than the flamboyant, huge apartments that Oliver and Charles live in.
We’re intrigued to see what this new season does with the material. Clearly, there’s an effort to do something different, expand the locations and introduce more characters, but will that be enough? We can’t wait to find out.
Only Murders In The Building season 4 is streaming weekly on Disney Plus.
