Only Murders In The Building season 3 premiere: Death comes rattling in a superb return

All the world’s a stage in Only Murders In The Building’s promising, funny third-season premiere. Oh, it’s so good to have the crackling banter between Martin Short, Steve Martin, and Selena Gomez back in top form. The show embraces its theatrical bones to its benefit by quasi-moving its setting to Broadway. The lavish Arconia is still an ever-present figure; OMITB is incomplete without the hallowed, creepy halls of this Upper West Side fixture. Now we also have glitzy lights, flamboyant costumes, over-the-top performances, some light crooning, and—obviously spoiler alert—a dead Hollywood actor played by Paul Rudd. In retrospect, it’s fitting for Hulu’s comedy to use this device as its next step. Season three attempts to expand the show’s world while still appearing just believable enough.

To be honest, I was worried OMITB would drag out its intriguing concept. I closed my season-two finale recap by hoping season three would be a last hoorah. There wasn’t a dreaded sophomore slump last year, but I didn’t want them to run out of ideas and fail its delightful puzzle-box premise. Who wants to see a favorite flop in season three (cough, Ted Lasso, cough) because of not treating characters fairly? Luckily, OMITB crafts an entertaining, larger-than-life case with its hour-long premiere. The two episodes are hilarious and broaden the true-crime satire by throwing Hollywood culture into the mix. The writing, performances, and set design get bigger. And does it really get bigger than Meryl freaking Streep? (We’ll get to her shortly.)

Despite the fancy cast additions, OMITB sows the seeds for emotional arcs for its three leads. A new romance and a health scare brew for Oliver. (Martin Short is the best he’s ever been on OMITB.) Charles’ (Steve Martin) relationship with Joy (Andrea Martin) is evolving. Mabel (Selena Gomez) has to move out of her recently renovated apartment (how did she afford such a fancy glow-up?), threatening her bonds with the two men. With no podcast to host or killer to catch, their friendship isn’t as close as she’d like. By the time episode one ends, though, they come face-to-face with a gnarly scene in that goddamn elevator to change all of that.

Charles, Oliver, and Mabel find the corpse of the new Arconia resident Ben Glenroy (Rudd). Or rather, his body finds them after being pushed down the elevator shaft exactly when three of them ride it down to head for a Pickle Diner hang session. Their plan to reconnect via dinner morphs into their favorite pastime: a murder in the building. Ben joins OMITB’s coveted lineup of victims, including Tim Kono (Julian Cihi) and Bunny Folger (Jayne Houdyshell), to bring the trio together in the darkest of circumstances. (And it does make me wonder how many deaths the Arconia can realistically survive.)

GRADE FOR SEASON 3, EPISODE 2, “THE BEAT GOES ON”: B+

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But wait. Record scratch. Didn’t Ben actually die onstage in front of the audience, as excitingly teased in the final minutes of season two? He does collapse during the opening night of Death Rattle, Oliver’s new murder-mystery play. He’s only a goner for an hour before being revived at the hospital. Apparently, it was something he ate, or he was poisoned, but OMITB doesn’t go there yet. Ben returns to the Arconia, turning his afterparty-turned-funeral into a party again. But it’s clear no one’s happy to see him alive, except maybe Oliver because then his play still stands a chance. The flashbacks successfully depict Ben making an enemy out of everyone in the four months between the initial table read and opening night by being a selfish prick. Rudd channels his inner Bobby Newport to perfection here—a great mix of goofy and enraging. No wonder he’s pushed to death for real later that night.

It’s hard to give a shit about Ben dying in “The Show Must…” because he pisses everyone off easily. Every interaction he has at the party is supercharged with tension, establishing his fraught (read: suspicious) dynamic with the others, including his brother/assistant, all of his co-stars (especially Ashley Park’s ingenue, Kimber), the Death Rattle producers—a mother-son duo who are equal parts gross and funny, and his personal team members. And then, bam: episode two makes us surprisingly and slightly care about Ben. Rudd fleshes out his irksome performance by being briefly vulnerable. He’s driven by his ego, which stems from being fired from Brazzos by Charles when he was starting out decades ago. And Ben, possibly a Scorpio, loves to hold a grudge even if Charles doesn’t remember the incident.

As the star of a mega-famous franchise called CoBro (has Marvel thought of that yet, or are they happy with Ant-Man?) now, he uses his power to make everyone miserable. So no one truly mourns him at his real funeral except for his stalker, Greg (Adrian Martinez), who kidnaps Mabel and Charles in a slightly meandering episode-two plot. He assumes they killed Ben, and as they sit hand-tied waiting for death, the two get to bond more than they have in the past few months. By the end of “The Beat Goes On,” Greg is arrested but it’s enough to realize the cops have the wrong guy. So Charles and Mabel bring out their handy recorder, envisioning the ways in which Ben might’ve died, hoping to restart the podcast for season three to solve the case.

Now they have to convince Oliver, who has problems of his own he’s hiding from his friends. In episode two, he has a mild heart attack at Ben’s funeral after a theater critic bashes Death Rattle in person. I love that Short, the funniest of the three, finally gets a grounded storyline. An epiphany—featuring Charles, Mabel, and his son Will (Ryan Broussard) dancing in sequined clothing—leads Oliver to decide that Death Rattle should be a proper song-and-dance musical to save its reputation and be more in his voice. But how will he handle taking care of his health, play, and budding romance, especially if his love interest is a prime suspect, too?

Yes, I do mean a shy little starlet called Loretta Durkin, who appears to be gentle on the surface but gets called out by Ben as a “snake.” Streep brings Loretta to life flawlessly, impressing Oliver in her audition right away and prancing about in her braids. She had me cackling as Loretta tries out different accents during the table read, unsure how to handle her major shot at fame after trying to break into the industry for years. How cool is it to see Streep play this role? When I first saw her casting announcement, I assumed she’d have a bit part. This is the Short, Martin, and Gomez show through and through. And the notable celeb appearances so far have been poorly executed, to put it kindly. Cara Delevingne, Amy Schumer, Michael Rapoport, and Sting didn’t offer anything valuable to OMITB. Rudd and Streep are changing the game.

Loretta appears to be a crucial part of the puzzle considering OMITB opens season three with her life story. Plus, she’s clearly got chemistry with Oliver. For a split second before Ben announces he isn’t dead, they consider getting together because they don’t have to follow professional rules anymore. Romance is clearly afoot. And love interests have notoriously never turned out well in OMITB. Charles’ season one girlfriend was a psycho killer, Delevingne’s Alice was always under suspicion in season two. With that in mind, I’m keeping my eyes on you, Loretta. She definitely seems to have an agenda. Although I’m hoping OMITB doesn’t turn yet another scorned woman into a murderer.

Crucially, while season three’s premiere is jam-packed with nuggets about the case, it never loses focus away from the comedy. The one-liners and banter continue to flow smoothly between Charles, Mabel, and Oliver. Without that, OMITB simply wouldn’t work, so I’m glad that’s still a priority for the show I’m excited to see how each of their personal investment in Ben’s death—Mabel’s a fangirl who is seeing apparitions of him, while Charles and Oliver clearly had a complicated relationship with Ben—will affect taping the podcast without letting it impact their friendship. Let the games begin!

Stray observations

• My favorite line of the premiere comes courtesy of Charles, who tells Mabel: “Without you, we’re just two pieces of stale white bread.”
• A specific Rudd and Ashley Park interaction made me crave his rom-com era. It’s when Ben tells Park’s Kimber he’s a trained intimacy coordinator:
  Kimber: “I didn’t realize we had any love scenes.”
  Ben: “We’re in the middle of one right now.”
• I choked on my lunch at the passionate peck between mother-son duo Donna (Linda Emond) and Cliff (Wesley Taylor), the producers of Death Rattle. The laugh increased exponentially when she loudly says, “He’s gay so I can kiss him like that.”
• Amy Schumer taking over Sting’s apartment in The Arconia was random. Ben taking it over from Amy makes so much more narrative sense.
• Ben got famous by working on a TV show called Girl Cop decades ago. Watching it made Mabel his number-one fan as a teen. Once again, she’s a relatable queen because who else watched Rudd in Clueless as a young adult and fell for him right away?
• Speaking of Girl Cop, I liked the little bit of commentary from Ben about his desperation to become an actor, and that’s why he took up a role in a teen drama in his thirties.
• Do we think Cinda Canning, the Dimas family, and Lucy will return at some point? I’m certainly hoping for a Sazz Pataki appearance.
• “Late bloomers make the world go round.” I’m taking that one to heart.
• Hi again. I’m Saloni Gajjar, and for all its flaws, I’m a big Only Murders In The Building fan. I’m pleased to recap season three and follow along with everyone’s thoughts and guesses in the comments.

[Update: A previous version of the recap mistakenly stated Martin Short was snubbed for an Emmy.]