Our Latest Binge: ‘Only Murders in the Building’

For her birthday, one of my daughters gave my wife a subscription to the streaming service Hulu—and we have been overwhelmed, in the two seeks since that day, by an obsession.

We just can’t get enough of “Only Murders in the Building,” and have binged the first two of the four seasons of this show. There’s just so much to like in it. It reminds me a little of “The Good Place” or “Pushing Daisies”—it’s full of memorable characters saying witty things, with unusual insights into topics that aren’t often covered by TV shows.

Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez.

Granted, “Only Murders” isn’t magical realism, like those other shows, but instead is set in a real building in a real city. Still, there is a zany sense that makes this “real” show somehow unreal, somehow better than real. Maybe it’s real magicalism?

A draw of this show it its stellar cast. Selena Gomez (Mabel Mora), Steve Martin (Charles-Haden Savage) and Martin Short (Oliver Putnam) are an unlikely trio who accidently find, after there has been a murder in the building, that they are mutually obsessed with a true crime podcast. So, they decide to produce a podcast of their own, entitled “Only Murders in the Building.”

Inside Martin's brain--haunted by Looney Tunes.

The building is one of the characters in the show, full of interesting people, unexpected passages, and its own secrets. It’s a large full-block apartment building in New  York—and although the name is changed, it is a real New York apartment building. And it’s inhabited by an eclectic mix of New York characters. For several episodes, our crime-investigating trio becomes convinced that the victim was killed by Sting—yes, that Sting, who happens to live in the building.

Of course, the Police lead singer is a red herring, as are so many others.

A sting against Sting goes wrong. He didn't do it.

It’s the second mystery show that has hooked us, after the UK’s “Midsommer Murders.” This show, however, is not a police procedural, but rather a comic, thoughtful rumination on some rather deep topics. One recurring theme is the distinction between memory and reality, how our own brains will trick us into magical thinking.

Another theme is that there is always a story. None of the character are all good nor all bad—the crime boss eatery owner, for example, is suffering real pain because of strains in his relationship with his son, whom he deeply loves. One of Steve Martin’s associates is the stunt woman who stood in for him in a past popular TV cop show he starred in— but she is the stunt woman who he had to continue working with after his wife had run off with her.

New York Times image of The Belnord, the real building.

And yet, one reason why they connect now is that relationship ended badly, too, so they both had been jilted by the same woman who they both cared for.

Parental relationships and misunderstandings between parents and children is another theme. Martin is estranged from his stepdaughter, who he deeply misses. Martin Short’s character is a Broadway producer long past his prime who is depending on his son for support and hates himself for it. Selena Gomez’s mother pleads for the old men to leave her daughter alone so she can move on from previous trauma.

Theo, deaf son of a crime boss, but not who you think he is. Nobody is.

I think one of the real charms of the show is the way it so often shows “the other side.” The unpleasant head of the tenant’s association is actually a deeply lonely woman who just wants some human connection. Sting thinks he drove the murder victim to suicide (and is so relieved when he learns it’s just a murder).

And we learn, along the way, the importance of a turkey to open doors and start conversations.

As a media professor, the nature of podcasting, the way in which a need to record experience changes the experience, the jokes about theater productions, the use of text messages as a key communication tool for dialogue that fuels the plot, the impish pokes at the nature of fandom—well, this is one sweet show.

It is sweet, It’s also saucy and spicy. The mystery is almost beside the point, and yet it’s there, too, with unexpected layers being peeled back and new secrets coming to light.

We’re taking a short break between seasons 2 and 3, due to Thanksgiving and house guests. We just can’t sit, rapt, in front of the TV for several hours each evening as the most pleasant of murder shows washes over us. But don’t’ worry, Hulu, we’ll be back. We’re hooked.

The End of the Editorial as We Know It

Thanks a lot, Jeff Bezos. Democracy dies in darkness and it seems you’ve turned the lights out.

You got a quarter of a million subscribers to drop the Washington Post by deciding the Post shouldn’t run its already written editorial urging voters to choose Kamala Harris for President. And Bezos is not alone. The Los Angeles Times and the Des Moines Register are joining venerable names in newspaper journalism that have decided not to publish an endorsement editorial in this year’s presidential election.

Are billionaire and corporate newspaper publishers running scared? Or are newspapers returning to their roots? The Post can at least note that 60 years ago it has a tradition of not endorsing presidential candidates, although to cancel a planned editorial via a ruling by your billionaire owner days before an election makes the “we are returning to our roots” explanation a bit thin. However, see excerpt of a Post statement below.

No doubt our politics are becoming more sharply divided. Newspapers have been shedding readers for years, and only a few outlets, such as The New York Times, seem to be getting numbers of online subscribers to compensate for the loss of print readers.

1862 editorial

And online news outlets don’t have the editorial tradition that newspapers have. In 1862, Horace Greeley published “The Prayer of 20 Millions” in The New York Tribune, calling for freeing American slaves during the Civil War. That prompted President Abrahan Lincoln to actually write a letter to the editor in response, arguing his priority was to unite the country, and slavery was not his focus. But months later, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which didn’t actually end slavery everywhere, but nonetheless represented a historic shift in that direction.

Most newspaper editorials aren’t that consequential. But I am a fan of newspapers having an active editorial board that can inject ideas into the marketplace of ideas that are worth considering. To me, if the paper covers national news, that makes a presidential election endorsement almost obligatory. It’s one reason I feel lucky to live in Cedar Rapids, where our daily paper hasn’t yet joined the trend of staying silent on the most obvious public policy question of the day.

The argument against endorsements is that a newspaper’s role is to inform so that voters can decide.

Here is the expert of a statement posted by the Washington Post from William Lewis, publisher and chief executive officer:

“The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election. Nor in any future presidential election. We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.
“As our Editorial Board wrote in 1960:
“‘The Washington Post has not ‘endorsed’ either candidate in the presidential campaign. That is in our tradition and accords with our action in five of the last six elections.’”

Fair enough, although it’s a bit lame in the wake of what appeared to be a personal decision by one billionaire rather than a strategy based on traditional journalistic norms. On the contrary, I think expressing clear, sharp opinion informs in a way that merely reporting facts doesn’t. I think thinking an issue through and coming to a conclusion in a public way is part of encouraging civic engagement.

And it can be dicey, especially these days where the social media information system we’re all part of favors quick, over-the-top outrage because the goal is attention, and strong emotion brings more attention.

So, I understand the strategy that there isn’t much to gain by poking the bear and alienating half of your potential readership. However, I disagree with it. Again, I think “traditional” opinion writing, with its careful, rational voice is important.

Gazette, Nov. 1.

See the Gazette’s editorial endorsement of Kamela Harris. I think it’s clear and carefully written. Part of what the Gazette had to say:

“Trump has talked about using the military and Department of Justice to attack ‘the enemy within,’ including his political opponents. Trump has called Inauguration Day ‘Liberation Day’ if he wins. If he doesn’t, he likely won’t accept the outcome. The best way to avoid the shredding of the Constitution is voting for Harris and dealing Trump a loss he can’t come back from.”

It’s a good editorial—and, while readers don’t always understand this, the reporters who report the news are not the editors who opine on behalf of the paper, so this editorial doesn’t mean that the Gazette’s news coverage is skewed for Harris. (It’s skewed for Harris because objective, fair reporting in the fact-based, rational universe doesn’t favor the clearly deteriorating crazy lying old fascist, but that’s another story).

For an even stronger editorial on this topic, see the New York Times endorsement of Harris. Part of what they have to say:

“This unequivocal, dispiriting truth—Donald Trump is not fit to be president—should be enough for any voter who cares about the health of our country and the stability of our democracy to deny him re-election.”

Whew. Don’t be shy, NYT, tell us how you feel.

Screenshot of online version of NYT editorial.

Anyway, I would rather see more newspaper endorsements, even if some are for Donald Trump. I don’t think they move voters a lot. But they help sum up ideas, to sharpen and clarify the necessary public debate in a democratic republic. So, Bezos, you’ve turned out the lights, and you’re not alone. The trend is for dozens of newspapers that endorsed in the past to flip the switch and stay silent this year, when silence is particularly painful in one of our most consequential elections. Darkness, indeed.

And that, to me, the lack of courage to speak out on the part of newspaper editorial boards is a shame.