Fans of cosy crime rejoice: Only Murders in the Building will soon return for a fourth season.
The Disney+ show, which sees three amateur sleuths (played by industry heavyweights Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez) try to solve murders in and around their block of flats, launched in 2021. It has garnered a loyal fanbase for its twists, plotting, one-of-a-kind characters and knockout performances.
This season will see Charles, Oliver, and Mabel travel to Los Angeles to investigate the death of Charles’s stunt double Sazz Pataki. Oh, and the podcast they launched in season one is now being made into a Hollywood blockbuster. To cap it off, the Arconia residents of the weird, unexplored West Tower are also hiding secrets.
With all that to look forward to, we thought now was the right time to look back at the best moments from the series so far. Strap in.
The Boy from 6B
One of the things that Only Murders does so well is devote time to examining the lives of the Arconia’s other residents, apart from Mabel, Oliver, and Charles. And of those moments, one of the best has to be the episode where we follow Theo from flat 6B. Theo is deaf, and the episode correspondingly has only one line of dialogue; for the rest, we’re immersed in his silent world as he fights with his dad, sneaks around, and otherwise does a day in the life.
Charles and his monologue
Raise a glass to Amy Ryan’s fantastic villain Jan — and her first-season antics. In the finale, she drugs Charles to keep him from helping his friends. While the situation is eventually solved, we are treated to the sight of Steve Martin being strapped into a pram and thinking he’s been cured. In his mind, his monologue to Jan (telling her that she’s doomed) is heroic; in reality, he’s speaking absolute gibberish.
Oliver’s dips
Why does Olivier love those dips so much? Who knows, but it’s a funny comedy bit that Martin Short leans into throughout the series. In the second episode of season one, Oliver boasts that the only things he’s eaten for years are dips from Leo Dimas’ diner: onion dip, tzatziki, and hummus. Come season three he is tragically forced to give them up for health reasons.
Bunny’s episode
The legend that is Jayne Houdyshell finally gets a chance to shine in this standalone episode dedicated entirely to her love-to-hate-her character Bunny, who bites the dust in season two.
Before episode three, we saw Bunny only from the point of view of her tenants, who all thought she was cold and mercenary. But this shows us that she’s a true citizen of Old New York, who loves going for lunch at her favourite diner; fights to protect the Arconia from being taken over by developers; and takes the time to know the building’s inhabitants personally.
Poppy goes down
Is there anything quite as satisfying as watching a baddie get their comeuppance? In this pivotal moment from the season two finale, the trio (with help from some outsiders, of course) team up to help expose Poppy as the true killer of Bunny.
In addition to Martin and Short’s electric chemistry, there are plenty of laughs in this scene as they work off each other to get Poppy to admit that she was at fault — partially by blaming it on her boss Cinda Canning, aka Tina Fey. This moment sums up Only Murders perfectly.
Oliver babysitting
It doesn’t get much more wholesome than this. Whereas season one portrayed Short’s Oliver as more obsessed with fame-chasing than building a meaningful relationship with his son Will (Ryan Broussard), season two let him mellow more and explored who he was as a dad.
This culminated in his offering to help Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s Detective Williams settle her gassy baby by doing a dance routine with him: specifically the can-can dance routine. Cue an utterly delightful few minutes of Oliver dancing around with a baby until it farts. “You'll do anything if you think it'll help your kid,” he tells Detective Williams afterwards; aww.
Finding out the truth behind Mabel’s blackouts
Mabel’s blackouts are often brought up but not always explained throughout the show — but this does lead to her being implicated in a fair few crimes. Plus, we don’t know that much about her as a person.
However, season two’s episode Flipping the Pieces helps put some of that into perspective. After stabbing a glitter-covered man with a knitting needle at the end of the previous episode, we find out (via flashback) about her painful past and that her blackouts are due to her disassociating because of childhood trauma. It’s a deeply sad episode, but handled carefully — and as a result, we get to know Gomez’s steely Mabel much better.
Only Murders in the Building S4 will stream on Disney+ from August 27
