Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building is a charming true-crime parody

Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building is, as the title suggests, a murder mystery, but one in which the central death is actually the least interesting part of the show. It’s possible that was always going to be the case for any series that stars Steve Martin and Martin Short, who aren’t exactly what you’d call subtle performers. But the fizzy fun of this drama truly has little to do with the specifics of the crime that may or may not have taken place, which makes it a gift for those viewers tired of typical paint by number procedurals .

While we already knew that Martin and Short would be great together – we’ve seen it before, after all – the true surprise of Only Murders in the Building is Selena Gomez, whose dry, deadpan wit adds a necessary bite to the often outlandish tale, and who serves as a particularly effective straight man to her more well-established comedic scene partners.

Set in the fictional Arconia, an Upper West Side co-op that’s exclusive enough for Sting to live in, but that’s run-down enough to be something slightly less than A list, Only Murders in the Building follows a trio of  noisy neighbors (Martin, Short, and an impeccably cast Selena Gomez) who initially bond over the final episode of their favorite true crime podcast.

So, in a twisted way, it makes sense that all three immediately assume that there’s more to the seemingly tragic suicide that takes place in their building – after all they ran into the young man on the elevator the night before he died and he seemed as though he might be having a shady phone conversation. They decide to investigate, and, thus, the “Only Murders in the Building” podcast is born.

Viewers who spend a lot of time listening to podcasts like Serial or Up and Vanished will likely enjoy the arch way that the Hulu mystery series pokes fun both at the genre and those it turns into stars. From the recognizable comedy icon playing a Sarah Koenig look-alike producer to the hardcore fans who camp outside the Arconia hoping for a glimpse of their crime solving heroes and opening credits that are laid out like an episode might appear in your podcast app, there are tons of on-the-nose references to enjoy.

Though the show has a blast making fun of familiar podcast trends and tropes, Only Murders in the Building has a lot more in common with British murder mysteries than American procedurals. The Arconia makes for a perfect stand-in for the bucolic but insular British village where people keep mysteriously getting killed and the show is full of intriguing and often hilarious supporting characters, all with its own distinctly “isolated even while in a large group” charm that is particularly New York. (The image of Martin’s Charles playing an instrumental duet with a basoonist in the building, through their open courtyard-facing windows is perhaps one of the best representations of the loneliness its possible to feel even among people that I’ve seen in ages.)

Part of the series’ charm is the trio of unlikely crime solvers who become even unlikelier friends at its center. Charles-Haden Savage (Martin) is a veteran TV actor whose only real claim to fame is spending seven years starring in a fairly forgettable police procedural. Oliver Putnam is a flamboyant, washed-up Broadway producer whose hits are well behind him but whose debts are still very much with him. And Mabel (Gomez) is a stylishly mysterious young woman with more of a connection to the case at the center of the series than she lets on.

Each is lonely and broken in their own specific ways, something that draws them all to the world of true crime and,eventually, to one another. The friendships that develop between and among the group are charming and sweet and lead each of them to open up their lives in ways they hadn’t managed to do in a long time. The series deftly switches narrators between the group for each episode – and even uses a couple of guest stars I won’t spoil here  – but rather than being a pointless gimmick, it allows us to delve further into the interior lives of the people that podcasts most often ignore: The ones telling the story.

Only Murders in the Building isn’t a story that breaks a ton of new ground – the mystery isn’t especially compelling and I’m not sure any of us really care who actually killed Tim Kono beyond the fact that the search for his murderer lets our three leads do increasingly ridiculous things. (Steve Martin discovering a dead cat in a freezer! Martin Short holding auditions for murder suspects in a Broadway dream sequence! There’s a weird car chase that leads to Long Island!) But its free-spirited approach to storytelling allows the show to really invest in its oddball characters in a way that most murder mysteries either don’t have the time or interest to do. Oliver, Charles, and Mabel may not be the world’s best crimesolvers, but I’d be happy watching them do pretty much anything together – as long as it was with one another.

Only Murders in the Building is now streaming on Hulu, with a new episode premiering each week.