Only Murders In The Building is an ongoing dramedy mystery show on Hulu. It follows Charles-Haden Savage (Steve Martin), Oliver Putnam (Martin Short), and Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez) as they investigate the death of a fellow tenant within their building, The Arconia. The show has three complete seasons with the fourth airing at the time of writing. The final episode will be released on October 29th, 2024. It has also been renewed for a fifth season.
In episode one we see the characters meet and bond over their favourite true crime podcast, All Is Not OK in Oklahoma, after a fire alarm forced them to evacuate. Then we find out that a fellow resident, Tim Kono (Julian Cihi), has been found dead. The three of them had been in the elevator with Tim only hours before that and decide that they should go investigate for themselves.
The episodes then follow a pretty clear layout. The characters follow a lead, then later into the episode they either disprove it or find a different lead. The show has found a way to keep this entertaining, especially as you become familiar with the show. As the season goes on though, the episodes get more experimental.
Where the show truly shines is within episode 7. This episode serves as an introduction to Theo Dimas played by James Caverly. Theo is deaf, and his actor is as well. This episode is almost entirely silent. There is minimal music and sound effects and the story is told through captions over American Sign Language or muted clips of people speaking. This episode does a fantastic job of holding viewers’ attention without spoken words. The show has already established its prowess in showing character perspective through visual choices but this auditory choice is executed wonderfully. It had every opportunity to be the most boring episode of the season but it isn’t, the amount of thought and care put into every second of this episode speaks volumes about the creative and writing teams of this show. The camera shots in this episode also show a more direct interaction with the character of Theo Dimas, he looks directly at the camera as he signs his first line.
The final episode also follows a similar format from the perspective of a different character. The ending of season one is pleasantly out of left field. Only Murders is amazing at plot twists, every season has pleasantly subverted expectations. When you think you know what happened, it still manages to surprise you.
Only Murders In The Building is overall an incredible show, it grows with you as a viewer helping you to truly love the characters. It also perfectly rides the line of a dramedy, the humour is not subtle without being tacky. The age range of viewers is also drastic leading to a varried level of references, the main characters are two older men and a younger girl. It really manages to have something for everybody.
Only Murders In The Building is Streaming on Hulu.
New Episodes Release every Tuesday at 12am ET / 9pm PT.
