Throughout the first eight episodes of the third season of Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building, true-crime obsessive Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez) regularly complains that she’s the only one who seems to care about the latest in the string of homicides that gives the comedic whodunit its title. The indifference applies not only to her podcasting partners Charles-Haden Savage (Steve Martin) and Oliver Putnam (Martin Short) but the show’s writers, who have laid out a far sloppier central mystery this season and devoted too much time to giving each of the protagonists lackluster romantic plots – at the expense of meatier material for guest stars Meryl Streep and Paul Rudd.
Season 3 picks up with Season 2’s cliffhanger: Ben Glenroy (Rudd), leading man of Oliver’s triumphant return to Broadway, drops dead on opening night. Oliver wants to ignore the crime entirely and focus on reviving the play – a Bad Seed-esque drama titled Death Rattle – as a bombastic musical, and Charles’ time is largely divided between his own role in Death Rattle and his relationship with his former makeup artist Joy (Andrea Martin). That leaves Mabel searching for answers with the help of documentarian Tobert (Jesse Williams), the least compelling of the numerous love interests she’s had over the course of the show’s run.
Only Murders in the Building’s meta structure previously ensured that the plot kept moving forward, since the characters always needed new material for their podcast in the form of new clues in the mystery they were solving. But they don’t get on the mic until well into season 3 and until then the characters leave some of the most obvious evidence and suspects unexamined while worrying over clear red herrings.
Past seasons skillfully blended the mystery with a powerful theme, with season 1 focused on loneliness while season 2 delved into issues of legacy and the complexity of family bonds. Season 3 seems to mostly be focused on a parody of the theater world (complete with original songs from the La La Land duo of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul), which has its highs but leaves Mabel highly disconnected from the rest of the cast. The situation isn’t improved by seemingly dead-end plots like famous podcaster Cinda Canning (Tina Fey) offering Mabel a job or the jettisoning of major character growth from previous seasons like Charles’ reconciliation with his daughter-figure Lucy (Zoe Colletti).
The ensemble is also overstuffed this season: Michael Cyril Creighton is elevated to the main cast, but his cat-loving character Howard Morris gains no additional depths beyond an enthusiasm for The Great White Way. The rest of the characters involved in Death Rattle are largely one-note caricatures like actor and TikTok influencer Kimber (Ashley Park) and mother-son producing team Donna (Linda Emond) and Cliff Demeo (Wesley Taylor). With their wealth and uncomfortably close relationship, the Demeos come across like a pale imitation of Arrested Development’s Lucille and Buster Bluth.
Disappointingly, scenes focused on these characters is time we don’t get with season 3’s marquee guests. Rudd does an excellent job of parodying himself as the seemingly ageless star of CoBro, a movie series about a zoologist who fights crime by turning into a giant snake. Ben has a strong mix of swagger, insecurity, and outright cruelty and I wanted to see more of him – the season is sorely missing the cool antagonism previously provided by criminal podcast sponsor Teddy Dimas (Nathan Lane).
Another meta gag in season 3 comes from Oliver discovering Streep’s Loretta Durkin, who spent decades searching for her big break before landing a role as a nanny in Death Rattle. Unfortunately there’s not much to her character in most of the season beyond the joke of the greatest living actor playing an unknown performer and a romantic plot that lacks chemistry. While Streep gets some moments to shine in Loretta’s audition and a rehearsal of Oliver’s showstopper song, her arc and this season of Only Murders in the Building itself don’t really come together until episode 8.
That’s not to say there isn’t fun to be had along the way. The patter song Charles sings in Death Rattle is absurd and catchy and Donna delivers a surprisingly heartfelt monologue about the power of a Broadway musical. Jane Lynch continues to shine as Charles’ stunt double (Sazz Pataki), who feels the need to offer him all sorts of questionable advice. But the show has always been at its best when Charles, Oliver, and Mabel are bickering like family while working closely together, which makes all the time they spend apart this season feel wasted.
The Verdict
Only Murders in the Building is a triumph of tone, character, and quirky meta-layering. It's tricky to have a story itself also serve as a wiking lesson about storytelling, but Only Murders is a gem of a show that can be both serious and playful. It can draw you in with warmth while also pushing you out a bit with self-referential silliness. Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez make for an unbeatable triple combo, presenting characters you want to root for in the midst of a mystery designed to pull them all out of their shells.
