Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building Is Simply Delightful

After 35 years of sharing stage and screen, it’s still a delight to watch Steve Martin and Martin Short work together. Now, along with Selena Gomez, they find themselves embroiled in a murder mystery via Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building, a 10-episode series co-created by Martin and John Hoffman (Grace & Frankie, Looking). The endearing but sometimes cheesy comedy follows the trio of true-crime obsessives as they try to crack a case in their shared apartment building.

The neighbors make an unlikely gang: Charles-Haden Savage (Martin) is a washed-up actor who used to star as a TV detective, and the overconfidence he has in his residual investigative skills thinly masks a deeply insecure man; Oliver Putnam (Short) contrasts Charles as a flamboyant former theater director with a big personality and even bigger debts; Mabel (a well-cast Gomez) is a stylish and quietly mysterious young woman who has more of a connection to the case than she initially lets on. But when they find out they share a suspicion that a tragic suicide in their building was actually a homicide, they decide to try their hand at uncovering the truth—and start a podcast to follow their investigation.

Though Only Murders in the Building is mostly a lighthearted show, there are still effective dark moments, like when the bloody murder scene is first revealed. But they’re always played for laughs, and the farcical investigation takes amusing turns throughout the eight episodes provided for review. Often toeing the line between silly and corny, Only Murders keeps you invested in the central mystery while playing with quirky possibilities that can hardly be believed. But it also features a few great cameos along the way: in addition to our primary detectives, Amy Ryan and Nathan Lane make excellent guest stars, and the overall group of Arconia’s (primarily) elderly residents are a comical selection of possible suspects.