‘Only Murders in the Building’ Is Cozy Mystery at Its Best

The Hulu series joins a new wave of satirical mysteries that have all the comforts of the genre, but also a critical self-awareness of its tropes.

Every few months, I get a certain kind of text message from my dad. It might be a meme he found on Facebook of a picture of Bill Gates with the caption, “Don’t take health advice from people who think the world is overpopulated.” It might be an article about the murders that Hillary Clinton commits to cover up her past. It might be a 30-minute YouTube documentary about the impending one-world government under the New World Order. Responding to his texts is a lose-lose: Either I dispute the conspiracy, and we argue, or I leave it be and implicitly condone it.

My dad isn’t just mildly susceptible to conspiracies about election fraud, or why the media can’t be trusted. Conspiracies are his information, his entertainment, and his worldview. (When I remind him that I’m in the media, he says that I’m different.)

When I was growing up, my dad would listen to AM talk radio on every car ride—either sports, or political hosts like Eric “Mancow” Muller, Michael Savage, and Rush Limbaugh. When we’d arrive home, those pundits would resume talking on his Bose Wave radio, playing loud enough to fill the house. When he would doze off, my brother and I would scheme to lower the volume one decibel at a time until we turned it off completely, but dad would notice—every time, somehow—and tell us to turn it back on.

I remember watching an episode of the TV series 24 one day, and inviting my dad to watch it with me. “I don’t know how you could watch that show; it’s so unrealistic,” he said, before pausing to reconsider. “It gets one thing right, though—all the government does is lie.”

My upbringing with a conspiracy-minded father is at least partly why I struggle with enjoying the mystery genre. I find most twist endings more frustrating than thrilling. I’m annoyed by storytelling that’s meant to deceive, because I don’t like the kind of thinking it provokes in me: I know that by design, the perpetrator of a crime in a mystery will be someone I least expect, so my guesses are based on a search for theories with as little evidence as possible. Solving the mystery becomes an exercise in anti-logic, in trying to outsmart the story’s subterfuge with as much conspiratorial thinking as I can muster.

But I’ve found joy in a new wave of satirical mysteries like Netflix’s American Vandal, the movie Knives Out, and most recently the Hulu series Only Murders in the Building. They have all the comforts of a standard cozy mystery—characters sleuth to unravel a whodunit that they need to solve before it’s too late—but with a critical self-awareness of the tropes, devices, and fandoms of the genre.

Only Murders in the Building pokes fun at the true-crime genre in particular, a genre that raises its own ethical questions about reducing a real person to a thrilling mystery about their death. If you haven’t already, you have just enough time to binge Season 1 of Only Murders on Hulu before its second season premieres this Tuesday.

The first season follows an unlikely friendship between acquaintances: Charles-Haden Savage (Steve Martin), Oliver Putnam (Martin Short), and Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez) don’t have much in common but a shared love of true-crime podcasts, and they start their own podcast that follows them trying to solve the mystery of a murder committed inside their large, upscale, Upper West Side building, the Arconia. In Season 2, there’s another murder in the building—but this time, the killer is trying to frame the trio, and the entire building thinks they likely committed the murder themselves.

Craig Blankenhorn / Hulu

I watched the second season early, and while the plot is messier than Season 1 and the season wears a bit thin after the unexpected success of its predecessor, Season 2 compensates by relying more on a self-awareness that analyzes and critiques the genre while continuing to honor its format.

“You know, it’s very rare for a true-crime podcast to do a sequel,” Charles says to Oliver and Mabel at the start of the second season. “They usually move on to a new case that never hits like the original.”

Oliver and Mabel agree, but then the twisty-turny true-crime shenanigans continue, with the show embracing its the-real-treasure-is-the-friends-we-made-along-the-way ethos. It’s hard to even want to try to solve the season’s mystery. The show pokes fun at the unhinged mystery fans who follow Charles, Oliver, and Mabel in hopes of solving the puzzle, like someone insisting on playing a carnival game that is rigged for them to lose. The best way forward is to set the mystery aside and focus instead on the real gem of the series: Only Murders draws its strength from the charm and evolution of its three main characters, who start as disinterested acquintances and become the type of friends who share a three-way hug when they survive the latest twist. Chasing murder mysteries fills a certain void in their lives, and the real draw for viewers is seeing what Charles, Mabel, and Oliver learn about themselves throughout the adventure.

Their wacky conspiracies are far enough from reality to be entertaining, and also to merit a text to my dad, recommending that he watch the show. At my most hopeful, I like to imagine that he would recognize the satire, and that it would set the stage for us to discuss his view of the world more openly. But even if that doesn’t happen, at least we’d bond over fictional conspiracies. It’s better than fighting over “real” ones.

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Thanks to everyone who responded to last week’s Humans Being about “table families” and “TV families.” My favorite response came from Devin, who wrote: “I grew up going back and forth between the two homes of my divorced parents and, thanks to you, can now identify myself as bi-tabular … Today my proclivities lean toward TV family (there’s just so much great stuff to watch), though I remain grateful for all the early dichotomies that contributed to my eclectic cultural literacy.”

There was also a great email from Lisa, which included, “I think both types of families are fine, as long as some conversation exists … The key is to keep talking and staying connected to each other.”