'Only Murders in the Building' Season 4 Performs Sitcom Alchemy

Change is not inevitable in a television show. Sticking to a formula and continuing to do what’s already worked must be a powerfully tempting choice. This feels especially true of a series like Only Murders in the Building, which has returned to Hulu for its fourth season. New York and the fictional Arconia building are the fourth and fifth characters of the series that provide a uniquely characterful backdrop and setting for all the clever hijinks. The very title invokes this notion that Only Murders will always be about the murderous goings-on within the Arconia and the Arconia only. While the third season took a fun and creative step outside the glamorous apartment building, the fourth season goes further still, taking the core trio of Mabel (Selena Gomez), Oliver (Martin Short), and Charles (Steve Martin) out to Hollywood to face down a potential screen adaptation of their popular podcast. This opens a new door to a new direction for the show: Hollywood satire.

Hollywood satire is relatively easy to do, but difficult to do well. Only Murders threads this difficult needle by keeping its droll, clever tone and marrying it with a the-entertainment-industry-is-bonkers sensibility that recalls 30 Rock. When the trio is flown out to LA to meet producer Bev Melon (Molly Shannon!!!), they quickly learn that this adaptation is deep enough into production to have a script and a cast. This allows the series to comment self-referentially on their characters and how they’re perceived inside and outside the world of the show, but it’s also a ton of fun to see Mabel, Oliver, and Charles reacting to their celebrity doubles. Eva Longoria, Eugene Levy, and Zach Galifianakis each play knowingly exaggerated versions of themselves to sublime effect. Longoria explains she was cast to ease the weirdness of the age gap between the friends, and offers some funny but rather solid advice to Mabel. Levy is sweet and bumbling, traits that seem to unnerve Charles, who may be a touch too vain to accept the “unfun uncle” title Bev gives him. Galifianakis is perhaps the biggest delight of the new additions and an especially inspired choice to play opposite Martin Short as they both have famously and hilariously mean talk show parody projects. When Oliver cuts Zach down, Zach spirals to Bev and she offers to make one of his wishlist projects. I won’t spoil the whole list, but I’ll say I desperately want to see his “Erin Brockovich, but it’s me” project.

The season’s murder is nestled perfectly within the new LA milieu. As viewers may remember, the always-great stand-in-to-the-stars Sazz Pataki (Jane Lynch) was gunned down in Charles’ apartment, seemingly a mistaken killing. Sazz was Charles’ double, after all, so while the tragedy of the death is sef-evident, the gang worries that Charles may be next. So far, the season retains the all-important New York/Arconia character by sending our sleuths from coast to coast as needed. On another show, this might feel sweaty or too contrived, but Only Murders has fantastic control of its tone and the cozy stylishness it’s built over the seasons keeps everything feeling smooth. It’s early in the season and there’s plenty of time for me to be proven wrong, but this season of Only Murders feels like alchemy: it’s reinvented itself without losing what made it great to begin with. We still get the goofy, wordplay-rich hijinks and imaginative sleuthing, but we also get intelligent and silly satire. Only Murders spoils us.

As before, each of our beloved main characters has some personal strife to overcome. Charles is reeling at Sazz’s disappearance and works tirelessly to solve the mystery of her murder. His sadness and urgency are palpable, potentially because this is the most personal a murder has been for him so far. Oliver is struggling with his fledgling relationship with Loretta (Meryl Streep); her career is taking off and she wants him to stay in LA with her. Streep and Short have a chemistry that makes you wonder if they’re really together, which makes Oliver’s fear of leaving his familiar nest all the more poignant. Mabel’s struggle to know herself and define what she wants to do with her life isn’t new, but the level of attention Only Murders gives it this season certainly is. In past seasons, Mabel’s ennui seemed to confuse the show, and her journey out of millennial malaise happened in fits and starts at the periphery of the story. This time, Mabel seems to be on a newly strong course of self-discovery. Eva Longoria’s advice about making Hollywood pay and then using the money to build something seemed to inspire Mabel, and I’m excited to see where it goes.

While Only Murders’ foray into Hollywood satire is exciting, it thankfully keeps its heart in New York and just as thankfully keeps the focus on Sazz. Just as it has with seasons past, we dive into the victims’ past, only this time the journey into memory is much more emotional given that the victim in question is Charles’ dear friend. The second episode manages a gorgeous, hilarious, and affecting eulogy for Sazz as Charles wrestles with the probability that she was killed for being mistaken for him. Only Murders utilizes some clever tricks to get more Sazz out of Jane Lynch for our viewing pleasure and we’re treated to a (1990s?) documentary, Sazz family home video, and some other fun conceits I won’t spoil. Needless to say, Lynch is a delight and an unflappable pro who’s a scream to watch. Sazz was a colorful presence, one that strode beyond joke-character status and Only Murders takes her seriously enough to respect her. In one particularly magical-realistic scene, Sazz sits triangulated with Charles and Jan (Amy Ryan, always great) as they give a eulogy together. It’s a theatrical moment that breaks the usual form of the show, melding something new with something old. It’s notable that despite all this poignant subject matter, Only Murders remains hilarious throughout. Where else can I find “parkour and psychosexual manipulation” together at last? Just wait until you see the alternate reality that is the Arconia’s West Tower, where we meet a whole new spate of wonderful character actors. I need to learn that Oh Hell game they were playing!

There’s something sort of elegiac about the season so far with these themes of self-examination and mourning the past. That Only Murders in the Building so effectively balances those themes with its comedy is a testament to its big glowing heart. New episodes drop on Tuesdays at midnight on Hulu.