Warning: spoilers ahead.
When last we left our three heroes Charles, Oliver and Mabel (Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selina Gomez) they were celebrating solving the riddle of Season Three: who killed actor Ben Glenroy (Paul Rudd).
As in other seasons on Only Murders in the Building, however, the next season’s whodunnit was pre-teased. There in Charles’ stylish Manhattan apartment, a bullet appeared to claim the life of his long-time stunt double, Sazz Pataki (Jane Lynch).
If you’re as much of a fan of this series as I am, you’ve already seen the trailer for Season Four. If you haven’t, don’t, because it gives away almost every delicious morsel from the first episode of the new season, which is now streaming at Hulu in the U.S. and on Disney+ in Canada.
Even if you haven’t seen that trailer, you’ve probably already heard that the new season finds our three podcasters in Hollywood. That’s where Paramount executives have already given a “soft green light,” in the words of a weasel-y studio exec played by Molly Shannon, to a feature film based on their exploits.
They’ve even gone so far as to cast the leads, with Eugene Levy, Zack Galifianakis and Eva Longoria standing in for Martin, Short and Gomez.
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The silliness of those three wearing the exact same clothes as they are introduced to the overwhelmed originals is spoiled by the trailer (as well as, well, here). Still it is fun to see the reactions in the context of a phony baloney Hollywood roof-top party. Levy’s character even works in a Canadian joke.
Guest stars from past seasons are part of the new plot. Meryl Streep’s struggling actress character, Loretta, is also on the Best Coast shooting the new series “Grey’s New Orleans: Family Burn Unit.” She and Oliver have a quick smooch and stir the embers of their relationship, although Oliver seems wary.
Charles, however, is worried about Sazz. She never returned from fetching his wine in his apartment at the end of Season Three, and won’t return his calls — until she does, and the messages seem off. In LA, Charles runs into Scott Bakula — Sazz was supposedly off to LA to double for him next — and he tells Charles he hasn’t seen her either.
The three race back to New York and the Arconia to confront a bullet hole in Charles’ apartment and what the dog of neighbour Howard (Mitchell Cyrill Creighton) has already sniffed out — that Sazz was murdered. In the building!
This episode had plenty of Steve Martin touches. Scenes from the classic 1968 spaghetti western “Once Upon a Time in the West” (also the title of this episode) were juxtaposed with the Arconia crime scene images. Both told a story without the use of words. At the start of the episode, actual home movie footage of the three leads in their youth — both 8mm film and, in the case of Gomez, home video — were also used to illustrate a point. As far as looking at movies go, “Is that how I used to be?” asks Charles, “or at least how I want to be remembered?”
As always, the main fun is in the interaction of the three leads, which, Longoria’s suggestion about their age differences to the contrary, is never “creepy.”
The movie theme continues with next Tuesday’s episode, titled, “Gates of Heaven.”
