Only Murders in the Building Season 4 Is Finally Doing Right by Mabel
Photos via Hulu
If there’s one thing that most can agree on, it’s that Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building is a consistent delight. Starring Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez as Charles-Haden Savage, Oliver Putnam, and Mabel Mora, respectively, this trio finds themselves in some wild situations as they investigate murders (conveniently in their building) for their titular podcast. Over three and a half seasons now, the trio has undergone quite a bit of growth. Well, Charles and Oliver have. On the other hand, although her character trajectory was astounding in the debut season, Mabel has not gotten the attention and focused writing she deserves in the last two seasons. Season 4 finally seems to be changing that.
In the first season of Only Murders, Mabel unexpectedly found herself languishing over long-buried trauma surrounding the mysterious death of her friend Zoe (Olivia Reis), the distance it caused between her and present-day victim Tim Kono (Julian Cihi), and their friend Oscar being falsely charged with killing his girlfriend. Finding the answers about Tim’s death gave her the answers about Zoe, while she and Oscar (Aaron Dominguez) finally gave into the romantic feelings that were burgeoning between them during their youth that they never acted on given his romance with Zoe. Though a decade later in life, this was fundamental for Mabel’s growth and helped both establish who the character was and where she was heading … and then the series lost sight of Mabel.
In the second season, there was a drastic shift in the story, specifically when it came to Mabel. Despite picking up immediately from the season-ending cliffhanger, Mabel suddenly wanted no part of the podcast, though she reluctantly gave in, given she was the one primarily implicated in Bunny’s (Jayne Houdyshell) murder. Additionally, her strong relationship with Oscar was suddenly tossed aside with an explanation that although their “trauma bond” was strong, but they were both waiting for an inevitable “let’s just be friends” text from the other.
Everything the series built for Mabel, and a path forward to deal with what she had experienced thus far in life, was tossed aside. She was thrust into a new romance with shady artist Alice (Cara Delevingne), she felt like she had no real purpose in life, and her interest in their podcast—and seemingly true crime in general—plummeted. At the very least, she dealt with unresolved trauma from her father’s untimely death when she was younger, but the connection between that and Bunny’s murder was a new twist that Mabel had been “losing” her memories when they were too much to deal with—something that felt like it likely should have come up during the trio’s investigation of the first season’s mysteries.
Then, in Only Murders in the Building season 3, Mabel somehow became the only member of the trio who did care about their podcast. This is certainly closer to who we learned Mabel to be early on, but she was still the same lost, tortured soul with no direction in life. She didn’t know how to move forward, especially as her off-screen aunt had decided to sell her apartment at the Arconia, leaving Mabel without a place to stay.