‘Only Murders In The Building’ Season 3 Review: Sometimes, You Can Have Too Much Of A Good Thing
Selena Gomez (left), Martin Short, & Steve Martin in Season 3 of Only Murders in the Building. Courtesy of Hulu.
Editor’s note: This review is based on the first eight episodes of season three of Only Murders in the Building and does not contain spoilers for anything not revealed in promotional material.
People often say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” While it’s good to avoid repetition in sequential seasons of a series, trying new things to spice up the formula is always nice, even if it might not work as well as it’s supposed to. For season three of Only Murders in the Building, this comes in the form of a maintained overall structure, with new (not-so) exciting plot beats thrown into every episode that ultimately does more harm than good.
Selena Gomez in Season 3 of Only Murders in the Building. Courtesy of Hulu.
Like the two seasons before it, this season of Only Murders begins with a murder — a death we saw at the end of season two — with this season’s being that of Ben Glenroy (played by a hilarious Paul Rudd), who died onstage during the premiere of Death Rattle, the lastest play from director Oliver Putnam (Martin Short), returning to Broadway with this production. This, as usual, starts a chain of events; everything goes to sh!t, etc., etc. You’ve seen it all before.
What you haven’t seen before is the slightly idiotic plot point in the first episode — I’m not going to name it outright, but you’ll know it when you see it — that adds little to the story aside from minuscule shock value. It’s a waste of time and makes you wonder if the writers decided to add it purely because they were unhappy with the cliffhanger they ended the previous season with, not having a strong enough idea as to where the story should go, needing to alter events to fit their new plans. In all fairness, though, the overall writing in this season is strong, smart enough to be just ahead of the viewer, enough to have “WTF!” moments scattered throughout these first eight episodes — which, as always, end with a major cliffhanger — while setting up the last two “so, here’s what really happened…” episodes.
Everything seems to be operating at a larger scale in this season, with a larger cast, more suspects, and more back and forth between who the trio thinks they should be looking into. Speaking of the trio, this season splits them up more than in the past, pairing Mabel (Selena Gomez) and Charles (Steve Martin) together and sending Oliver (Short) on his own path, a path that not only finds him directing a musical but gives more insight into who Oliver is as a character, putting him in situations we haven’t seen before.
Meryl Streep (left) & Martin Short in Season 3 of Only Murders in the Building. Courtesy of Hulu.
To touch upon something other than the sad truth that this season doesn’t really do anything we haven’t already seen, the additions to the (now much larger) supporting cast are fantastic. Familiar faces to the streaming series world like Ashley Park (Emily in Paris) pair nicely with our trio, and even people like acting legend Meryl Streep — who finds herself in her hardest role (playing a bad actress) — fit into the comedically chaotic world of Only Murders.
Though a good cast is a key piece in the puzzle of creating a good show, it can’t solve every problem. Most of season three feels less like a coherent narrative, as each episode stands on its own in story and in structure. Sure, each episode builds on the last in one way or another, but none of them seem to tie together in the red yarn on a pinboard way that they need to until the final minutes of the eighth episode, ultimately leaving viewers frustrated until they want more, knowing that they can’t get it for another week.
