‘Only Murders in the Building’ Season 4 Review: All That Sazz

Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez are in trouble. 

That is, their New York sleuthy counterparts Charles, Oliver and Mabel are. After the big reveal last season that the mother-son duo of Donna and Cliff both (sort of) killed Ben Glenroy (Paul Rudd) on opening night of Oliver’s musical Death Rattle, we saw Charles’ lifelong stunt double Sazz Patacki (Jane Lynch) go upstairs to fetch a bottle of wine for the murder mystery festivities and getting shot by a sniper from the west side of the Arconia in the process. Was Charles the real target? That’s where season four kicks off, as the trio’s newest mystery becomes finding their own potential killers. But it’s not far off to say that Martin, Short and Gomez aren’t in a bit of danger, too. This new season teeters on the edge of being so deeply self-referential (“We’ve been very lucky with people dying in our building”) that it’s forced rather than freestyle, bound by a feeling that it needs to be more meta than necessary. All episode titles are pulled from famous movies. Sometimes, there’s a direct connection to the episodes like Once Upon a Time in the West, Adaptation or The Stunt Man, others are random and inconsequential.

Before you know it, our trio finds themselves invited by Paramount Studios to Hollywood as executive Bev Mellon (the always perfect Molly Shannon) wants to turn the successful podcast into a movie and turn it around quickly before the next new thing arrives. So quickly that she already has a cast, contracts to sign in their first meeting and a splashy Hollywood Hills party that night to kick everything off. The stars aligned for the murder pod movie are stellar in their own right, with Eugene Levy set to play Charles, Zach Galifiankis playing Oliver and Eva Longoria for Mabel. The Longoria choice is inspired; normally we’d see Hollywood casting a much younger actress to play the already young Gomez (“When I was your age, a few years ago,” she says) and Longoria has a feast making fun of her own career and persona, from Desperate Housewives cracks to her laundry list of self-started businesses. Levy as Charles is almost too perfect, in a straightforward, ordinary way and Galifiankis’s open hostility to taking such a C-level film and towards Oliver’s antics (calling him a “pocket-sized flop sweat Willy Wonka”) make for some fun dynamics between him and Short but by the time we get a TV montage set to the theme of the 1980s show Perfect Strangers you have to ask what is this season trying to do. But the brief respite in La La Land does give Oliver what he wants most, to reconnect with Loretta (Meryl Streep, a much smaller role this season) who’s been ghosting him since leaving New York City. Keen eyes will spot, among many of the movie landmarks that populate this season, the apartment building from Mulholland Dr. as the team investigates on the West Coast.

But the movie is a distraction for the team; finding Sazz’s killer, and possibly their own, is the real case. Back at the Arconia, we’re introduced to ‘the Westies,’ the denizens across the way from Charles’ apartment that have a direct line to his place, creating a slew of potential suspects. Richard Kind, Daphne Rubin-Vega and Kumail Nanjiani (as a Christmas social media influencer) make up the lion’s share of the new season’s cast, all of whom have secrets, some to share, some to withhold. Clues and red herrings go flying as the trio trek through the burroughs to find answers with Martin and Lynch, who gets a remarkable back story this season, connecting on a deeper level. Both actors certainly get to play up their comic antics this season but it’s in the more serious and contemplative moments as Charles processes grief, trauma and responsibility that they both really shine. It’s also a timely ode to stunt people in Hollywood, replete with a stuntman bar called Concussions and a great cameo.

Before long, Paramount heads to New York to begin shooting the film on location at the Arconia with The Brothers sisters (Catherine Cohen and Siena Werber), a pair of arthouse filmmakers in a droll, if obvious send up of arthouse filmmakers. More low-hanging fruit than outrageously funny but mildly amusing. Also returning this season is the hilarious and exasperated Detective Donna Williams (Da’Vine Joy Randolph, hot off her Oscar win), who pitches in to help our heroes, feeding them valuable intel and lusting over “Zach GaliFINEakis.” Then there’s poor Howard (Michael Cyril Creighton, continuously funny) who just wants to start a new podcast with Mabel about ‘animal jobs’ with his newest pet, a piglet named Hammy Faye Bakker. Jackie Hoffman returns for at least one ‘fuck you,’ making everything instantly better.

As things start to close in, and as we have in each season so far, the cast at large converges at one location. This time it’s Long Island, at the home of Charles’ estranged sister (Melissa McCarthy, in full Long Island Medium mode and a penchant for life-sized dolls) as the team is both hunting and being hunted. They think they have the answers but we know they’re missing something. Penultimate cliffhangers are one of this show’s best features and this season is no exception, but I do hope after this Hollywood sojourn that our Manhattan murder mystery stays in a New York state of mind.

Grade: B

Season four of Only Murders in the Building begins August 27 only on Hulu with new episodes every Tuesday through October 15.