Few series these days put out new seasons as consistently as Only Murders in the Building does, and the consistency isn’t limited to its release schedule.
Reviews for Season 5 — the first three episodes of which just debuted on Hulu — largely praise the comedy for keeping the quality high and making for one of the era’s most comforting watches.
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“Between its witty dialogue and plotting, and the peerless performances of [Steve] Martin and Martin Short (paired perfectly with Selena Gomez), Hulu’s comedic mystery is a ray of sunshine in today’s streaming landscape,” writes the Daily Beast’s Nick Schager. “As it’s continued to integrate guest stars into its mix, its warm and inclusive humor has grown. Simply put, there’s no television series that’s as consistently apt to bring a smile to one’s face.”
Once again, much praise is being heaped upon leads Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez, who remain as charming as ever as Charles, Oliver, and Mabel.
“The series has become less and less the unique true-crime satire it started out as and more a show that coasts along on vibes and the strong chemistry of its leads,” writes AV Club’s Saloni Gajjar. “The hook here isn’t the whodunit; it’s spending time with Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez), Oliver Putnam (Martin Short), and Charles Haden Savage (Steve Martin). Any narrative flaws as they go around confronting killers and recording a podcast about it are easy to forgive amidst all of their banter. And the murder mysteries really serve one main purpose: to probe into the protagonists’ deep friendship, individual psyches, and interpersonal relationships.”
But that consistency also means that Only Murders’s shortcomings mostly remain the same, with several reviews calling out the relative weakness of the mystery plots.
“I’ve long maintained that Only Murders is almost comically bad at the mystery part,” writes The Washington Post’s Lili Loofbourow. “There are too many characters, twists show up out of nowhere and the solutions feel less like logical outcomes than the end of the 1985 movie Clue, which offered up three equally plausible endings. But the show excels at switchbacking (without apparent contradiction) between tragic and comic registers, and the new season reaches new heights on this front.”
Some critics, however, are beginning to see cobwebs developing on the concept, which — five seasons in — could be accused of overstaying its welcome.
“With season five, the centre is failing to hold,” writes The Guardian’s Lucy Mangan. “But they feel randomly scattered rather than meaningfully laid. The podcast element falls by the wayside, the proportion of red herrings to genuine progress is off, the action is too often located outside the Arconia, and the core team are too often split up — not least by the return of [Meryl] Streep as Oliver’s now-wife, Loretta. I know that I am probably in a minority in feeling that: a) a little of Streep goes a long way; and b) she should, wherever possible, be kept away from comedy.”
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