Bullet Point Review: Only Murders in the Building

Mild Spoilers Ahead…

• I like Selena Gomez, I like murder mysteries and I like New York City. So inherently, I knew I was going to like Only Murders in the Building. Even so, the show was a pleasant surprise. It was funny, engaging, heart-warming and wholesome; the last two words aren’t what you would usually use to describe mysteries, but Only Murders is a comedy that uses a murder mystery to tell the story, instead of the other way round.
  The show has an infectious exuberance to it, largely credited to its fantastic lead trio comprising of Martin Short, Steve Martin and Selena Gomez, but also a story that keeps gore, blood, politics and current social issues at bay, to focus on the three characters and their friendship, making it a truly escapist escapade.
• I don’t listen to true crime podcasts (or any podcasts for that matter) but I am aware of their popularity, and Only Murders wisely upgrades the formula, by having the main characters be fans of true crime podcasts, instead of fictional mystery books (though there is a little of that too). Subsequently, they also create their own podcast, a perfect reflection of today’s internet culture where you can both consume and create content readily.

• I have never much enjoyed humour derived from the generational differences between boomers, millennials, Gen Zs, etc, so I liked that in Only Murders the humour is instead derived from the trio’s differences in personalities rather than their age. Apart from a few jabs, the show chooses to concentrate on their similarities, like their love for mysteries, true crime podcasts and that they are all suffering from loneliness and a past mistake that they can’t seem to move on from. I liked that Charles (played by Steve Martin), an older character suffers from anxiety, an illness that is more commonly diagnosed and therefore associated with the younger generation and Oliver (player by Martin Short) is the extroverted whimsical character, a trait that is usually assigned to the youngest member.
  We also see Charles and Oliver constantly using the iPad, the iPhone, and the features within it, and Oliver is the one who records and uploads their podcasts, not Mabel, disabling the notion that the older generation is divorced from technology and unaware of how the internet works.
• Shows and movies set in New York have been long criticized for not being reflective of the diversity present in the city, and Only Murders thankfully doesn’t fall into this category. You have characters of different ethnic backgrounds, even specifying the Greek origins of a white character — most shows ignore that diversity includes white people, as their families too at one point must have been immigrants.
  It is also less on the nose which normalises people of different ethnic backgrounds populating a show, instead of justifying their existence.
• With shows like You, Never Have I Ever, 13 Reasons Why (to name a few), employing narration as a key component in their storytelling, its usage has become commonplace. Only Murders too employs this tactic, but two instances stand out. One is an episode which uses the narration to introduce a new character, a fan of the podcast, into the story, and the other is told solely from the perspective of a deaf character, Theo (played by actor James Caverly, who is also deaf in real life).
  The whole episode is muffled, employs ASL and subtitles to emulate Theo’s perspective, and it’s also a crucial episode that unpacks a big reveal. It is not only narratively unique and compelling, but expands the sphere of diversity to include actors and characters with disabilities. It, for once, asks us to alter our viewing habits, rather than asking them to tailor their story for us.