Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Only Murders In The Building’ Season 2 On Hulu, Where Steve Martin, Martin Short And Selena Gomez Try To Clear Their Own Names In A New Season Of Their Podcast

It’s strange to say that a show starring Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez snuck up on people, but Only Murders In The Building sort of did just that in its first season. It wasn’t just funny, but the three stars had great chemistry and its season-long murder mystery was full of great twists and turns. The trio are back for a second season. Can they keep up the momentum?

ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING SEASON 2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Over the strains of the “I Love New York” jingle and sites like the Empire State Building and Lincoln Center, Charles-Haden Savage (Steve Martin) intones: “New York City. Who doesn’t want to become the talk of the town here?”

The Gist: While Charles fantasizes that he, Oliver Putnam (Martin Short) and Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez) are being praised all over town for solving the murder at the Arcania via their podcast, the reality is different. They’ve been brought into the local precinct after the murder of Bunny Folger (Jayne Houdyshell), the board president that wanted all three out as they were looking into the murder. Their picture is splashed all over the news; Mabel is nicknamed “Bloody Mabel” because of the massive blood stain on her sweater.

After they are each questioned by Detective Williams (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) and the somewhat dim Detective Kreps (Michael Rapaport), they’re released back to the Arcania as persons of interest. Williams warns them not to podcast about this murder, but Oliver in particular can’t seem to resist the urge to start recording clever things he and the others are saying.

For her part, Mabel just wants out; she’s sick of being around so much death. In fact, she gets inspired when a gallery owner named Alice (Cara Delevingne) slides into her DMs, praising the mural in her apartment and inviting her to an opening. There, she feels like an artist for the first time ever, despite everyone staring and taking pictures of “Bloody Mabel.”

Charles gets an offer to star in a reboot of Brazzos, but his character is now the uncle of a next-generation Brazzos, so he also wants to clear his name. So when Cinda Canning (Tina Fey) starts a podcast called Only Murderers In The Building, intent on investigating Bunny’s murder and pinning it on Charles, Oliver and Mabel, they all dive back into Season 2 of their podcast, intent on using it to clear their names and finding Bunny’s real killer.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Only Murders In The Building Season 1, of course. Nothing has really changed as far as tone is concerned, though there’s a bit of a shift in focus.

Our Take: One of the things we noticed as we watched the first handful of Season 2 episodes of Only Murders In The Building, created by Martin and John Hoffman, is that the opening credits now just list Martin, Short and Gomez as regulars. Everyone else is a guest star, and that makes sense, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the success of Season 1, combined with the pull of all three stars, have led to a lot more big names popping in and out of the trio’s lives. But it also points out that the success of the show came down to the chemistry among its three stars, and that focus is even more sharp in Season 2.

All of what made Season 1 such a creative success is there in Season 2, now just in a more warm, familiar way. We know the trio’s rhythms and we also know that the experience of solving the first murder has bonded Charles, Oliver and Mabel forever, so even though she still makes fun of how old they are, and Oliver still tries to ignore Charles’ TV career and self-aggrandizes his role in the group, there’s an affection among the trio that’s palpable.

It helps that Martin and Hoffman have found a murder that’s even more intriguing than the first season’s case, mainly because we know the history all three have with the “raging bitch” that is Bunny Folger. We do find out in a later episode that follows Bunny around on her last day alive that she was much more than her tough exterior showed, and it’s really fun getting to get a bigger picture of her, as well as other neighbors like Uma Heller (Jackie Hoffman) and Michael Morris (Michael Cyril Creighton), as well as new ones like Nina Lin (Christine Ko), who is looking to take over the board.

There also are now some established in-jokes, like the celebrity penthouse resident. Last year it was Sting; this year it is Amy Schumer, playing an amped-up version of herself. Throw in none other than Shirley MacLaine as Bunny’s mother, and Delevingne as Alice and you’ve got a lot of fun direction for everyone to go in. And, as far as we can see from the episodes we’ve watched, the additional guest stars haven’t distracted from the central case at hand or Martin, Short, and Gomez’s screen time together.

Sex and Skin: None, except for a very strange painting that was in Bunny’s apartment and apparently worth a ton of money.

Parting Shot: Somehow, the painting finds its way from Bunny’s apartment to Charles’, and the three of them look at it and are shocked when Charles says, “That’s my father”.

Sleeper Star: Rapaport, just for the speech he gives Mabel about how Howard Stern isn’t as good since he got therapy and Baba Booey fixed his disgusting huge teeth. Knowing how much of a fan he is of Stern’s, it feels like he ad libbed that bit himself. But also being a longtime Stern fan, we laughed hard in recognition.

Most Pilot-y Line: When Alice invites Mabel to join her artists’ colony, Mabel says, “It’s not a cult, right?” Alice replies, “Just bring your paints.” Mabel comes back with, “I need to hear you say it’s not a cult.” It’s funny because of Gomez’s dry delivery, but it certainly is a throwaway line if there ever was one.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Only Murders In The Building, unlike the true crime podcasts the show satirizes, doesn’t go into a sophomore slump after a great first season. Now that its comic rhythms are well-established, it actually feels like the show may be even better in Season 2

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.