(courtesy IMP Awards)
As season five dawns, many shows are struggling to remain buoyant, fresh and divertingly interesting, with a significant number succumbing to the inevitable ennui that afflicts many a once vital program.
But thanks to its previous insistence on sparkling writing, richly idiosyncratic characterisation and a willingness to be wilfully and deliciously self-deprecating and gently satirical, Only Murders in the Building, while showing a few tatty signs of longevity, is still every bit as delightful as it always was.
Key to this vivaciously compelling long-life, which is both warmheartedly cosy and bitingly honest about the many pitfalls of the human condition, are the three people at the heart of the show – one-time much-loved TV star Charles Haden-Savage (Steve Martin), middling theatre impresario and amusing narcissist Oliver Putnam (Martin Short) and budding artist and sage voice of youth Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez).
The closeness between this highly unlikely, close-knit group of friends in New York City grand and storied Arconia building, cemented the show as something special to watch almost from the get-go in season one and it is just as solid as reason to watch now as it ever was.
While the trio are technically together to record a podcast which, as the title of the show suggests, explores whodunnit on a host of murders in the place they call home, it’s the fact that their friendship endures and sustains them that makes Only Murders in the Building such a deeply satisfying program to watch.
It’s the strength and vitality of this friendship that gives them the ability to deal with all kinds of challengingly murderous situations which, if you recall the cliffhanger ending of season four, this time involves the death of beloved Arconia doorman Lester (Teddy Coluca) who is found in the building’s fountain very dead and awash in blood.
Finding a murdered body would traumatise anyone, and Mabel, Charles and Oliver are no different, but it also energise them because here is another chance to dive into their podcast and to sleuth in a way that not finds the Big Bad, whoever they may be, but also exposes fault lines and warmhearted connections between the various people involved in the case.
Delving too much into the case would be to stray too far into spoiler territory, but suffice to say that the murder this time opens just as many cans of worms as the previous four seasons, with all kinds of people from Lester’s wife Lorraine (Dianne Wiest) to mob wife Sofia Caccimelio (Téa Leoni) and and even Mabel’s childhood BFF and now famous pop singer “Thē” aka Althea (Beanie Feldstein) in line as the person who may have had a hand in Lester’s demise.
There are red herrings aplenty, a rather unusual autopsy, crooked police and trips back down a Flatbush memory lane which gives us some touching insight’s into Oliver’s troubled foster past, and a sense that perhaps life in the Arconia is not as squeaky clean as everyone previously thought.
There’s a lot of fun narrative elements at play and a sense of the quirky ridiculous which has always fuelled Only Murders in the Building and made it a show that has you laughing even as you’re barely a few steps away from having your heart ripped open.
That sense of imminent searing emotional impact is never far away in these five episodes, with Oliver and wife Loretta Burkin (Meryl Streep) taking a hugely affecting stroll into the former’s past even as some quirky observational humour plays out around them – Loretta’s portrayal of a southern detective is hilariously inept and endearing all at once and makes the scene – and the second episode of the season, “After You” giving us some necessary insight into who Lester is and why it is that he might be murdered.
Devoting only the second episode of a season devoted to sleuthing a crime, where clues and momentum matter, to expositional backgrounding on the victim of the moment might seem like a strange thing to do since you run the risk of stopping all that go-go-go to finding the killer, but Only Murders in the Building executes it beautifully, serving up an episode that tugs at the heartstrings every bit as much as it effectively and fulsomely fills in the blanks.
It is, in many ways, the highlight of these five adroitly realised episodes, helping us to care about the fact that Lester is dead and to fire up the investigation by giving all kinds of reason why it is that the cuddly, thoughtful doorman might end up sprawled out in a bloody fountain.
It turns out that Lester was selfless as hell, sacrificing a future as an actor to help keep the residents of the Arconia safe from themselves and the building’s secrets, with his role as a compromised protector – where the “compromised” bit comes in is fascinating, showing that life is never straightforward or easy – likely the reason he died.
But who knows, because Only Murders in the Building keeps you guessing throughout, its spotlight of guilt falling on all kinds of people, including some rather powerfully rich members of New York City’s emergent oligarch set who provide a telling commentary on the state of America in an increasingly authoritarian era.
It’s those people who succeed in episode four’s “Dirty Birds” in stymieing the podcasting threesome’s investigative efforts and while Oliver, Charles and Mabel, as delightfully quirky and winningly fallible as ever, are temporarily halted in their friendship-driven sleuthing tracks, they recover quickly in episode five, and Only Murders in the Building rolls merrily along.
It does so, by the way, in this episode by devoting time to each of the three characters but particularly Charles who feels lost and vulnerable as Oliver stays resolutely and adorably in love and who wonders why he can’t do the same as Mabel also grapples with the fact that change might be alarmingly in the air.
While there is a lot going on this season, it’s nowhere Only Murders in the Building hasn’t been before, and if there’s one thing we know as we head into the backend of the season, this series is adept at balancing complex mystery solving and richly layered character interactions and reveals, and it will cosily fascinating to see where it goes next.
Only Murders in the Building streams on Disney+