Early in the second season of Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building,” Charles-Haden Savage (Steve Martin), one of a trio of amateur sleuths and podcasters, points out a murder show trap. “It’s rare for a true crime podcast to make a sequel,” he says. “They usually move on to a new case that never becomes as popular as the original.”
It’s just one of many “Second Season” meta-references, which come across as half knowing jokes, half preemptive confessions. “You guys are really struggling this season,” says one character, as a Greek chorus of podcast fans grumbles about the pace of the season within a season: “Five full episodes of vamping.”
“Only Murders” is a smart show — smart, as the New Yorker-esque opening titles suggest, is the brand — and it needs to know what it’s doing here. It’s not just talking about murder podcasts, and it’s not just talking about itself either.
Instead, this series, which returns Tuesday and whose first season was a low-key 2021 delight, is one face in a curious modern TV series: programs that tell a satisfying, complete story in one season, but then carry on, often with diminishing returns.
We live in the TV age of more. It’s no longer a rare miracle for a canceled series to find a new home. Seemingly, any vintage show can be revived with a fan base, thanks to a wealth of deep-pocketed outlets. Today’s philosophy is that if you can give people more of what they liked, then don’t waste time thinking or you? should†
This also applies to series that told complete stories in their first seasons. “Big Little Lies”, based on a novel by Liane Moriarty, returned for an encore, with bigger performances but smaller payouts. Showtime’s judicial thriller “Your Honor,” which appeared to have a fatal outcome, is getting a new trial. “13 Reasons Why” became “Four Seasons, Why Not?”
And the past year or so has been packed with evidence that more isn’t necessarily better. Also based on a novel, “Made for Love” was inexplicably made in duplicate and was soon canceled. The amateur spy comedy “The Flight Attendant” concluded a spirited tale of self-destruction and self-discovery in 2020. Season 2 conceived this year to keep Cassie Bowden (Kaley Cuoco) in the spy game, and a drunken good time turned into a tense hangover.
“Russian Doll” was meant to be an ongoing series from the start, but the first season was a crystal-clear, dirty poetic version of “Groundhog Day” downtown that felt complete on its own. This year’s time-traveling season 2 showcased more of Natasha Lyonne’s crowd-pleasing, old-fashioned prankster, but the baggy story didn’t do much to build on the original’s existential themes.
It is of course no sin if the TV repeats itself. That was the goal for decades. Both sitcoms and dramas would go back to the status quo with each episode, all the better indefinitely. No one complained that “Law & Order” ran into one luxury murder case after another because that – not promoting its character development – was what it was built for.
But as TV became more serial and ambitious, more focused on the change and evolution of characters, the question of how long a series should run became more complicated. TV fiction, once a machine designed to run until network accountants said “Stop,” now made many different kinds of stories, best told in different lengths.
Some of them were still suitable for old-school long runs. “What We Do in the Shadows” doesn’t need an expiration date any more than its undead characters. The American version of “The Office” had arcs and broad character that lasted for years, while the dark British “Office”, more focused on its central miscreants, is said to have grated over two short seasons.
But other creators use TV to tell stories that are longer than movies but still demand a definitive ending, within a few episodes you can count on your fingers. Damon Lindelof may have disappointed many fans (and a few executives) by saying his spectacular “Watchmen” was finished after one season, but it was the right decision. Elizabeth Meriwether’s “New Girl” was a natural multi-season series, but she has said her docudrama “The Dropout” by Elizabeth Holmes shouldn’t force a second season after the completed first season.
As for ‘Murders’, it’s a detective story after all, a genre set up to deliver case after case. (In another meta-element, Charles, an actor, starred for many years in one such proceeding, “Brazzos,” which played a detective with the tagline, “This steers the investigation in a whole new direction.”)
However, it is a detective story with some differences. The first season started out as a light-hearted, quirky episode of true crime and its obsessions. It revolved around the comedic chemistry between Martin and Martin Short (in the tailor-made role of vain but washed-up theater director Oliver Putnam), with Selena Gomez playing their deadpan millennial foil, Mabel Mora.
But halfway through the case — a murder at their Upper West Side co-op that turns murder podcast fans into murder podcast creators — the season turned from a farce about strange sleuths to a bittersweet comedy about the loneliness and voyeurism of Manhattanites who live cheek to cheek. live with neighbors.
Each of our detectives is a puzzle with a piece missing – a lover, a child, a friend – and as the season progresses, so does the human scope. The group’s construction mates, no matter how obnoxious, greedy or suspicious, are also driven by a need for connection, as are the gradually revealed villains (including a seedy deli boss played by Nathan Lane) and even the trio’s podcast groupies. .
Before it ended for several minutes, leaving a cliffhanger that drives Season 2’s plot, it told a full, gripping story that miraculously could have stood on its own. The challenge now is to plausibly sustain the amateurs’ setbacks. It is possible to do this; see “Search Party”, which justified its five-season run by evolving far from its original mystery premise.
Instead, Season 2 of “Only Murders” is entertaining in much the same way as Season 1, which is both its strength and weakness. The smile is still reliable. Oliver still lives entirely off dips and the power drink “Gut Milk”; Charles is chasing a career revival by playing the elderly “Uncle Brazzos” in a reboot of his old show. There are elaborate roles for the eccentric side characters, such as Tina Fey as a relentless competitive podcaster (think Sarah Koenig as the super villain).
But where Season 1 built up and deepened, Season 2 mostly kisses, hitting different versions of the same emotional beats for the central trio, within a new screwball mystery that, screened for critics in eight episodes out of 10, is more loosely plotted than the first . (The three are charged with the murder of their former co-op board chairman.)
If this was “Brazzos,” returning to a formula wouldn’t be a crime. But here, the procedural half of “Only Murders,” which aims to deliver familiar suspense, takes the ranks of the ambitious character-dramedic half, which must evolve and change in order to thrive.
If you want “Only Murders” characters to do more of the same things that made you laugh the first time, then the new season is a good time. But — like many TV attempts to turn what felt like a completed story into a multi-season story — it doesn’t take its research in an entirely new direction.