Only Murders In The Building review: Steve Martin, Martin Short, Selena Gomez show is a delight

The challenge is clear: the building is the same (the very fancy high-rise called Arconia in Manhattan), the main trio is the same (still-struggling Broadway director Oliver Putnam, once popular TV actor Charles-Haden Savage and artist-in-the-making Mabel Mora), and the central mystery– spot the killer– is the same. But with the writing being so brisk and on-point, the differentials are enough to keep us going, as is the efficient run-time of thirty-odd minutes. And I’m so glad that no one has tinkered with the lovely, lilting background music, by Siddhartha Khosla, which washes over the credits.

Here’s how it begins. The opening night of a Broadway play that Oliver is finally getting to direct comes to a shocked standstill with one of the chief characters slumping motionlessly on the ground, blood all over face. What follows is a fascinating interplay between Broadway and its abiding myths, the hard-working life of working actors, and the entire process of pulling off a production from start to finish, and how all of it becomes such an integral part of this new season.

The two new faces here are, drumrolls, Paul Rudd and believe-it-or-faint, Meryl Streep, the former a thoroughly dislikeable human who thinks everything revolves around him, and the latter making a meal of being the sort of actor who has struggled with years of rejection before lucking into a part. For Streep who has made a dazzling career carving out countless well-etched characters, to show up as an actor-in-waiting, is a smart reversal; she is, quite rightly, the highlight of the show.

But the others aren’t too shabby either. The occasional flatness of the first season had been addressed in the second season, and in this new one, too, you get moments of real feeling amidst all the drollery. A crestfallen Oliver when his big night is ruined, a clueless Charles not quite knowing how to say no to a lady, and a near-desolate Mabel staring at the possibility of having to leave the building where she has done so much growing up, both as a teen and a young woman on the verge of adulting. This unlikely threesome continues to give us much joy, especially in the moments the millennial Mabel gives the two oldies– both spry seventy plus– lessons on how to navigate Gen X territory: after a point you forget the difference in age, because the fun they are having is infectious.

Things are flung into motion the moment the dead body appears. You’ve got to be fxxxing kidding me, exclaims a snarky character we have grown to like in the past two episodes. And our true crime podcast fans are back again doing what they do best, upskilling their abilities as bumbling investigators as they go along. Who can be the killer? So many possibilities: the victim’s brother who silently nursed grouses, the supporting actors whom he constantly undermined, the older female actor whom he had a special dislike for, or someone completely outside this circle?

I can’t wait.

Only Murders In The Building cast: Steve Martin, Martin Short, Selena Gomez, Meryl Streep, Paul Rudd
Only Murders In The Building creators: Steve Martin, John Hoffman