Only Murders in the BuildingReview: Melissa McCarthy, Eva Longoria and Other A-Listers Add Energy to Season 4

Mar. 15, 2025

From left: Steve Martin, Selena Gomez and Martin Short.Photo:Eric McCandless/Disney

Eric McCandless/Disney

Charles, Oliver and Mabel head to Hollywood in the star-studded season 4 premiere ofOnly Murders in the Building!

“You get one shot at a biopic,” he quips. “Maybe two, if you’re someone special, likeMarilyn MonroeorJeffrey Dahmer.”

There’s nothing wrong with havingMurdersbecome a kind ofLove Boatdocked on the Upper West Side, not when the cast list is this stacked.Melissa McCarthyturns up this season, too, as Charles’ sister out on Long Island, andMeryl Streepreprises her season 3 role as actress Loretta Durkin.

Shannon is wonderful as the producer, who is hilariously pushy and punctuates every gesture with a wildly electric energy. Additionally, McCarthy hasn’t lost her lovely gift for bringing out a role’s absurd humor, then giving it a light dusting of pathos. And Longoria, Galifianakis and Levy add a nice effervescence, just as you’d expect from the talented trio.

From left: Zach Galifianakis, Eva Longoria and Eugene Levy inOnly Murders in the Building.Hulu

Hulu

“A great movie moment can live in your head forever,” Charles says, using a clip fromOnce Upon a Time in the Westto illustrate his point. This is irrelevant, and it ignores the fact that a bad movie can live in your head forever, too. (SeeShowgirls.)

(And, please, no more ghosts of recent murder victims weighing in with theories about how they met their demise. Anyone who lives in Manhattan is too busy and preoccupied to listen to spirits, even on matters of life and death.)

The show remains at its best when the core trio gets down to mapping out the mystery, which will remain under wraps here. It can be said, though, that the renters in what’s referred to as the Arconia’s West Tower are a suspicious batch of misfits. Among them are Vince (Richard Kind), a grump with chronic pink eye (although his eyepatch is constantly shifting), and Rudy (Kumail Nanjiani), who never takes down his Christmas decorations.

Melissa McCarthy onOnly Murders in the Building.Hulu

As to the performances of the central stars (all Emmy-nominated this year), Short, 74, is delightful and Martin, 79, is somewhat less so — you might describe his delivery as deadpan, but another word would be leaden. By consistently underplaying the show’s hijinks, Gomez, 32, is more intriguing than either of them.

The show still doesn’t make enough use ofDa’Vine Joy Randolph’s Detective Williams, who has a thing for Galifianakis. With a slow, savoring smile, she refers to him as “that scrumptious, f—able baklava.”

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Only Murders in the Buildingseason 4 is now streaming on Hulu.

source: people.com