By Chiara Piacentini
Staff Writer
The murder mystery drama has picked up where it left off in season four of “Only Murders in the Building.” Charles-Haden Savage and his partners in crime, Mabel Mora and Oliver Putnam, are pulled into the depths of another murder case. As their true crime podcast, “Only Murders in the Building,” is part of the show and has covered three seasons worth of murders, we can only expect an additional plot-twisting season will be added to the series.
The series follows three amateur sleuths, Charles, Mabel and Oliver, who solve murders that happen only in their Manhattan apartment. They provide coverage of these murders through their true crime podcast. Each season follows a different murder mystery.
Season three ended on a cliffhanger with the murder of Sazz Pataki, Charles’ close friend and former stunt double in the movie that gave him his big break. The murder occurred in Charles’ apartment while Charles, Mabel and Oliver were celebrating the successful opening night of their Broadway musical in the next room, tragically oblivious to her death.
The first episode of season four was another cliffhanger in and of itself, as it wasn’t until toward the end of the segment that the three friends put the pieces together that Sazz had been killed. Before then, dramatic irony ruled the stage, as Charles, Mabel and Oliver failed to pick up on the clues Sazz left behind. In their defense, the biggest clue, Sazz’s body, was mysteriously missing from the apartment.
While their obliviousness to Sazz’s murder was frustratingly long at face value, I learned to appreciate their prolonged ignorance given the show’s comedic intentions. It was then that I realized the suspense of episode one depended more on the discovery of the victim rather than the murderer. Looking at it from this new perspective, this episode kept me on my toes for when their situational awareness would come around.
As part of a subplot, the trio took a trip to Los Angeles to meet with a team of marketing executives who were looking to adapt their podcast into a movie. Since Sazz just so happened to have an apartment in the City of Angels, the crew decided to stop by to see if she was home. However, they were met with a dark empty room. With the glitz and glamor of Hollywood so tantalizingly close, their concern for Sazz’s disappearance soon pulled them away from the deal of a lifetime.
The disappointment at seeing them lose their chance at fame was overshadowed by my excitement to see their long-awaited reactions to Sazz’s death. Back at the Manhattan apartment, their conclusions about her disappearance led them to the apartment’s incinerator where they finally found Sazz — or at least what was left of her. As Charles held the ashes of his friend in his hand and looked in stunned silence at his friends, there was a grief in that moment that was tangible, even through my computer screen.
Overall, while it took awhile to sell me on the characters’ ignorance, “Only Murders in the Building” made up for it in the meantime with both the characters’ unintentional humor and the the mystery surrounding Sazz’s body itself. The first episode was also able to continue to successfully pull off the murder mystery theme through a classical lens. If you’re looking for a worthwhile comedy with a bit of action, this show is as unserious as you can get while still managing to maintain the characteristics of a fun thriller.
I’m looking forward to seeing what they’ve come up with in their next episode. You can watch the series here on Hulu.
