Framed for the Crime

Last season of Only Murders in the Building ended with a shocking cliffhanger. The crew had just solved their first case and closed out their podcast, only to end up right smack in the middle of a second case, with Mabel covered in blood, the body of the building’s board president, Bunny, dead in front of her. All three are then arrested for the murder, with everyone assuming (because they’d all hated Bunny) that our three protagonists had done the deed. On the list of television cliffhangers, this first season certainly ranks high.

Anyone that wondered how Only Murders in the Building could stretch its concept to fit more than a single season of story had their answer with that cliffhanger. The first season was tied tightly to the characters and the setting and it seemed like any further extension would be precluded by the fact that the case was solved and there was no way to continue it. It’s a solid choice, ending the case after a single season instead of drawing it out over multiple seasons of story, but it meant that a new case was needed for the show to have any legs. Legs it does, indeed, have as the second season comes out running and shows that so long as there’s a murder nearby, the show’s conceit will continue.

The series picks up in its second season right after the arrest of our main characters. Everyone naturally assumes Mabel murdered Bunny, since she was there, kneeling over the body, covered in Bunny’s blood, with her own knitting needle sticking out of Bunny’s chest. But as it’s revealed, Bunny was stabbed multiple times with a knife, and the murder weapon is nowhere to be seen. Mabel, Charles, and Oliver might have had motive to kill Bunny (since, for most of the previous season, Bunny was actively trying to kick the three of them out of the building), but opportunity and means were more sketchy. It was hard to pin the murder on Mabel without more hard evidence.

But then, over time, the evidence starts to crop up. Bunny’s prized painting ends up in Charles's apartment. The blood knife shows up in his kitchen knife block. Someone, it seems, is trying to frame the three of them for the murder. But why? Could it be Mabel’s new girlfriend, Alice Banks (Cara Delevingne), who seems far more interested in Mabel’s social media presence, as “Bloody Mabel”, than her personal life. Or maybe it’s the podcasting queen, Cinda Canning (Tina Fey), who immediately launches a true crime podcast, Only Murderers in the Building, following the case and seemingly having it out for our three podcasting heroes. Or there could be someone in the building, someone that knows its secrets, someone that wants to frame the trio so as to hide their own vengeance upon Bunny. The only way to be sure is to solve the case (and podcast about it after).

The best and worst thing about season two of Only Murders in the Building is that it stays very true to the formula of the first season. The murder happens in the Arconia, the apartment building all three of our protagonists live in. The murdered person has a connection to Mabel. The same cast of characters continue to show up, even when their stories are essentially wrapped in the previous season and there isn’t all that much for them to do. This season feels, in many respects, like a retread of the themes of the previous season. New mystery, new twists, but same setting and vibe.

Now, in fairness, that is how a lot of mystery shows work. Murder, She Wrote took place in Cabot’s Cove (a fictional town), and sweet old mystery writer Jessica Fletcher saw some shit in that town, with a crime rate that would mark the Cove as the murder capital of the universe. You lived with the artifice because the premise was “murder writer solves murders”, and there were only so many times you could send Jessica on a trip to promote a new book. The same is true of Only Murders in the Building. You have to have your cast of characters. You have to have your setting. The artifice of the series has to be maintained because, otherwise, would it even be the same show?

I understand that, and I’m even willing to accept it here, for a second season, but I do feel like that works against the series a bit. With (nearly) all the same characters showing up, in the same locations, continuing the petty struggles of their day-to-day lives, a lot of the second season feels like needless extensions of the first season. Did we need to have Nathan Lane’s Teddy Dimas back so he could wrap up his story with Oliver? Did Charles have to visit Amy Ryan’s Jan Bellows in prison after she tried to kill him in the first season? In both cases, no. It is fun seeing the characters again, but they don’t add anything to the overall A-plot of the series. It’s character padding, fun but superfluous.

It’s clear the writers of the season fell in love with the characters and the setting, so they brought back as much as they could even when it didn’t really add that much to the season’s story. And that doesn’t even get into the storylines that are raised here and never resolved. Amy Schumer shows up (as herself), wanting to buy the rights to Only Murders in the Building so she can develop a TV series based on it. She cameos a few times, starts to develop this story, and then it’s dropped and never revisited. The same goes for a storyline about the new building president, Christine Ko's Nina Lin, who plans to add a modern (eye-sore) expansion to the top of the building. This, too, is left unresolved, seemingly dropped with only a side comment and never mentioned again. It’s uneven storytelling, which stands out the more you think about it.

What this season needed was an extra editing pass to take out a lot of the fluff. Instead of spending time with characters and storylines that don’t revolve around the murder plot, the show should have focused down on a set of characters that all could have been the murderer. We needed more suspects, more people that could have done the deed, so we can study the case more and get more involved. The case itself is interesting (and I won’t spoil it here) but it would have been nice if we could have gotten something more involved and interesting to really tease our brain while we’re laughing along with the show. The central mystery is a tad threadbare once it all comes together.

What saves the season, of course, is the fact that it’s still uproariously funny. Steve Martin and Martin Short are, once again, the treasures we expect them to be. I really enjoy the dynamic between their two old guy characters, and Mabel is integrated well in there as well. She can be the young gal / straight woman of the group, enhancing the dynamic and making a lot of their bickering play. When you throw in Jane Lynch as well, continuing to cameo as Charles’s stunt double, that just adds to the fun.

Only Murders in the Building is a whip-smart, hilarious comedy. It puts the comedy first, and makes sure to work humor into every scene. While the mystery of this season might not have been as strong, the comedy never feels flat. Honestly, I’lkl take great comedy for this series any time and as long as it keeps that high bar set, I’ll continue to show up season after season.