Only Murders in the Building, the Hulu series, sees two experienced comedians act out their most well-defined and well-known personalities. Steve Martin is known for his self-impressed, pompous, and uptight men. Martin Short is the stereotypical smarmy phony.
Only Murders In The Building Shows The Humorous Side Of Podcasting
In Only Murders In The Building, Martin plays Charles – an out-of-favor actor whose only income is the royalties that he gets from his role in an ancient cop show. Short plays Oliver, a theatre director without any hits in several decades. Both of them get infatuated when they hear a podcast on true crime. Then an inexplicable death happens in their apartment building in the Upper West. This prompts them into starting their podcast on true crime.
Going by that premise, viewers may expect something more manic and broader than what the series is. The starting minutes do meet the expectations. However, in the middle of the episode, viewers will realize that the opening monologues are an exaggerated narration mimicking that seen in podcasts on true crime.
Then viewers will be given several more clues that Only Murders In The Building is playing out the joke better than expected. Charles, played by Martin, is uptight and arrogant but he is more a loner and has trouble connecting with people. Oliver, on the other hand, is a phone in show-biz but he is not exaggerated at all. He locates the joke and does not lunge at them.
Only Murders In The Building may make conceiving and launching podcasts comically easy. However, the mistaken particularities are only to help the story and are thus worthy of being forgiven. As the amateurs dig deeper into the murder investigation, more and more twists will crop up. When it ends, viewers will be pleasantly surprised that Only Murders In The Building is not just a wacky farce.
