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.