For a profession that works to make its own labor invisible, stunt performers have taken the spotlight in 2024. First came Ryan Gosling’s “The Fall Guy,” a popcorn movie built around a body double; now comes Season 4 of “Only Murders in the Building,” where the latest mystery’s victim is Sazz Pataki (Jane Lynch), the longtime stand-in for ex-procedural star Charles-Haden Savage (Steve Martin). Sazz’s disappearance after being shot in the Season 3 finale sets up a season that’s just as daffy as its predecessors, but more thematically focused on the idea of doppelgangers and what they tell us about ourselves.
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A new investigation is standard for “Only Murders,” the hit Hulu comedy that centers on a trio of neighbors turned true crime podcasters as they fight both mayhem and urban alienation. What Season 4 adds to the mix is a hefty dose of Hollywood satire. Unbeknownst to Charles, theater director Oliver Putnam (Martin Short), and aimless millennial Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez), their story has inspired a screenplay, which under this universe’s loony logic is now a full-blown production ready to let the cameras roll. All power producer Beth Mellon (Molly Shannon) needs is our heroes’ signature.
Beth’s pitch necessitates a field trip to the City of Angels in the season premiere, but anyone hoping co-creator Martin plans a reprise of his 1991 opus “L.A. Story” may be disappointed. Fans who look to “Only Murders” for consistent comfort food, though, can rejoice: summer is on the wane, sweater weather is in the air and we’re back at the Arconia, the palatial Upper West Side complex that’s a world unto itself. (The only West Coast these Manhattanites recognize borders the Hudson River.) There’s just a bunch of show business types hanging around, and a new corner of the building for Oliver, Charles and Mabel to explore.
If “Only Murders” won’t leave the Arconia, it can at least inject novelty by introducing a new set of city dwellers to earn our suspicion. The Arconia, you see, has a long-forgotten annex located directly across the street, and the bullet hole through Charles’ window points in their direction. In keeping with the show’s rising profile (Meryl Streep is just a part of the cast now!) and escalating absurdity, this latest batch of suspects have even bigger personalities and more famous faces than the co-op committee members we’re used to. There’s the eyepatch-sporting Stink Eye Joe (Richard Kind), an absentee film professor (Griffin Dunne) and a fitness influencer obsessed with Christmas (Kumail Nanjiani, whose character seems designed to reflect his post-Marvel physique). And Mabel, still without a permanent residence, decides to start squatting in an empty apartment that may be a crime scene.
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These so-called “Westies” are enjoyable additions, but it’s the movie that gives Season 4 more focus and pathos than the show has had since Season 1. It’s not just the inside baseball jokes — including a shoutout to this very publication! — or the opportunity to cast Eugene Levy, Zach Galifianakis and Eva Longoria as themselves, glomming onto the open case as a means of studying their soon-to-be characters. Charles grows increasingly convinced that Sazz caught a bullet that was meant for him, in one final act of absorbing blows on his behalf. That leads not just to delightful forays into the stunt community, but sincere introspection about what it means for someone else to capture your essence.
“Is that really me?” Charles asks in his opening voiceover, describing the experience of watching oneself (or a version of it) onscreen. “Is that how I want to be remembered?” Oliver frets that Galifianakis sees him as boring and pathetic, an extension of insecurities around his girlfriend Loretta’s newfound stardom; Mabel is disturbed to hear herself dismissed as a jobless, homeless, adrift young woman. Compared to previous seasons, this one rarely focuses on the podcast-in-progress, instead shifting narrators with each episode. But Charles’ sets the tone for a story that strikes the right balance between melancholy loneliness and naming an adorable piglet George Swinebrenner. Everything in moderation, especially when it comes to making comedy from corpses.
The first episode of “Only Murders in the Building” Season 4 is now streaming on Hulu, with new episodes airing weekly on Tuesdays.
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