Series created by Steve Martin and John Hoffman
Starring Steve Martin, Martin Short, Selena Gomez
Series premiere August 31 on Hulu

by Emily Maesar, Staff Writer

When I reviewed Only Murders in the Building originally, I really couldn’t talk about any of the plot or things that I really thought were fun and made the series work. But now? Well, now the whole of season one has aired and it’s time to bust our way into spoiler territory. So! I will be talking about the “who” in the “whodunit” of season one, so this is your warning if you haven’t watched the finale.

The series was created by Steve Martin and John Hoffman and is about three true crime podcast fans who decide to play amature detetives when someone dies in their New York apartment building. Charles (Martin), Oliver (Martin Short), and Mabel (Selena Gomez) become an unlikely, but very likeable, trio who bond over their love of a Serial-type podcast during the fire alarm that allows Tim Kono’s death. 

So, between Mabel keeping her childhood relationship with Tim a secret and Oliver wanting to start their own podcast because of money woes, the team finds themselves following so many threads that eventually lead to their favorite podcast host (played by Tina Fey) making a show about them. Only Murderers in the Building. Very catchy. And, ironically, how my brain read the title of the show for too long before I actually started it.

Only Murders in the Building is a series, like many before it, that begins in media res. It points to events that will eventually end the season, but we have no context for what is actually happening. We meet Charles, Oliver, and Mabel all before we know them. And I think it serves two very distinct purposes. It gives the audience more initial intrigue, as well as an eventual look into what the next season might look like. As well as it giving us a very brief look at where the relationships between the three characters will be, before seeing their first contact.

The opening also gives us the great twist of the rainbow hoodie death. Realizing that rainbow hoodie guy that Charles and Oliver saw heading into the building during the fire drill was Oscar (Aaron Dominguez) makes the question of his fate hang heavy over the series. Especially once we get to know and love him. But then, of course, there’s the second twist that the person, dead, in the rainbow hoodie at the beginning isn’t Oscar, because Oliver starts selling them as merch. What a fucking ending! But that’s just set up for next season.

The stunning conclusion to the mystery of who killed Tim Kono was absolutely spectacular. Jan, as played by Amy Ryan who most people probably know as Holly from The Office, was never actually someone I suspected of being the killer, but it makes perfect sense. It’s not one of those things that feels like it comes out of nowhere, especially since Oliver and Mabel don’t vibe with her particularly well and she’s got a real… odd energy to her. Like, there’s clearly something that’s too good to be true about her relationship with Charles and her want to be involved in the podcast. 

And that’s something I think Only Murders in the Building does super well, which is to say that it sets up the answer but guides you away from it. It does the thing, as it were. We think the gang’s wrapped it all up when they discover the truth about who killed Mabel’s friend Zoe (a death that put Oscar in jail when they were younger). Clearly it’s Theo Dimas (James Caverly) who’s father, played by Nathan Lane, is basically a mob boss with a deli and Tim was closing in on stopping him. 

Except… that it wasn’t either of the Dimases. It was Jan. Jan the second chair bassoonist. Jane who’s actually a black widow. And it doesn’t feel out of left field or like we were being tricked. It’s truly great whodunnit writing and I’m looking forward to all that skill and careful planning unfurling in season two. Not to mention finding out who killed Bunny, and if they’re actually trying to pin in on our trio of armchair detectives.

Only Murders in the Building is a modern day Agatha Christie serial and it absolutely fuckign rules.