Does Only Murders in the Building continue its strengths in season 3? Yes, and no.
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The first season of Only Murders in the Building was a revelation. Season 2, while good, did lose just a bit of its stride. And that brings us to season 3. Shows generally have diminishing returns the longer they go on, but, thankfully, this one diminished only slightly in season 2 and seems to have leveled off there.
Season 3 picks up where we left off with the opening of Oliver’s (Martin Short) new play, and Ben Glenroy (Paul Rudd) dying on stage. Mabel (Selena Gomez) immediately suspects murder, while Oliver and Charles (Steve Martin) aren’t so quick to go down that road.
Much like the previous seasons, the new episodes have the trio working on solo issues about their personal lives and coming together from time to time as they discover new clues. The podcast takes even more of a backseat this time around due to the various personal issues, but it gets brought into the plot eventually.
The biggest issue for Only Murders in the Building season 3 is that it is constantly competing against itself. The show has been so good so far that you constantly find yourself comparing it to what has come before. That is definitely not a bad position for a show to occupy, but it is a fact.
What is getting slightly tiresome is you pretty much know the beats of how their stories will go, and Charles even makes a reference to that very early on. The writers are aware, but they don’t seem to be doing much to address it.
Luckily, the cast is as charming as ever, and the characters feel more fleshed out. Gomez continues to delight as Mabel and delivers some of the most emotional scenes of the series. Martin and Short are always spectacular, but Gomez is being severely overlooked for what she delivered in this series.
We should note that each year Hulu only gives us the first eight episodes of the season. Our thoughts are based solely on not knowing the conclusion of the season. If we had seen the conclusion of the second season before we wrote our review, it probably would have received a 10 as opposed to an eight. The solution of the case was such a delight and wholly unexpected. The same thing could happen here. So our score is based on the first eight episodes alone.
Despite a few misgivings based entirely on following up such strong earlier seasons, we can’t help but recommend Only Murders in the Building season 3.
Disclaimer: Hulu provided The Nerdy with eight episodes of season 2 for the purposes of this review. We watched them to completion before beginning this review.
