Only Murders in The Building Season 2 Review: Amazes and Shows No Signs Of Wear

Cast: Steve Martin, Martin Short, Selena Gomez, Amy Schumer

Creator: Steve Martin, John Hoffman

Streaming Platform: Hulu and Disney+

Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

Only Murders in the Building Season 2 is back on Hulu/Disney+ with the second season available on June 28 and concurrent with the US release on Hulu. The series picks up exactly from the moment the first season ended. Charles, Mabel and Oliver are celebrating their recent success when returning Mabel is found next to the corpse of Bunny Fogel, the surly condominium manager. This time the trio is personally involved in the case.

Who killed Bunny? For the three protagonists, it is the right opportunity to give life to the second season of their podcast, although they seem to want to leave the world of crime, so crime does not leave them. Between the return of old characters and the arrival of new ones, such as the artist Alice played by Cara Delevigne, the extraordinary appearance of Amy Schumer ready to take the rights to their podcast and Shirley MacLaine.

Only Murders in The Building Season 2 Review: The Story

The open ending of the first season had left us with bated breath, with the discovery of a new corpse and with our protagonists stuck in all respects. This second season plays the relaunch, therefore, because if on the one hand, our trio will have to solve a murder case again, they will also have to try to exonerate themselves from the accusation. The murderer, however, seems to be a step ahead of us, constantly putting them in difficulty and proving to know their past and their secrets well.

Every TV series’s characteristic extends beyond the first season to deepen and develop the characters whose stories we see told. Only Murders in the Building Season 2 is no exception, going to fish in the past of the protagonists and at the same time laying the foundations for future stories, making the mythology that surrounds the Arconia and its tenants become more robust. The elegant building and the protagonists tell each other, and reveal themselves, through discoveries and revelations that make the story come alive, enrich it, and give depth with their stories and anecdotes. In this way Only Murders in Building 2 becomes a choral and dense tale, which is based on a thriller but which at the same time also bases on other plots, reinvigorating an already successful story.

Only Murders in The Building Season 2 Review and Analysis

Why choose between comedy or crime when you can have both? Contamination is now widespread in the world of seriality and Only Murders in the Building everything work perfectly. The crime part is not sloppy and superficial but coherent as if we were in a thriller series. Comedy is not a parody but naturally arises from people’s everyday life. They are characters perhaps for some traits a bit extreme, but they are all real characters. Even the new entry Alice by Cara Delevigne is an absurd and excessive artist but alive, realistic, and not a plastic character.

The TV series was a success with audiences and critics in its first season so in the second season nothing changes. leaving the magic of the series intact. Of course, there are new formulas, new characters, and new situations but the basic structure of the series has not changed, on the other hand, nobody would have wanted it. The series works precisely for the trio of absurd protagonists who populate the New York building: an elderly actor, an elderly director always in search of success and a millennial. What do they have in common? the passion for true crime.

The best moments of Only Murders in the Building are precisely those in which the 3 interact with each other or with other characters. Their exchanges of words never fast and frantic, always calm, and moderate to settle the dialogue, are the strong point of the series. The series works when the absurdities of the protagonists fit into reality. On the contrary, it loses vigor in the most absurd situations and when Tina Fey and her competitor podcast enter the scene. Her character and the whole context built around her is too exaggerated, constantly over the top. You have seen the first season, but also if you like TV series like Afterparty, The Flight Attendant. For the rest, we advise you to download the free TV Tips app and use the “Match” function with which you can discover the next series to watch, with advice related to your interests.

On the main and secondary points of the plot, it is better to overlook, that the time is not yet ripe for a third crime, this time behind the scenes. On the new characters, the considerations to be made are somewhat the same; mouths are sewn about the appearance of Shirley MacLaine, by Cara Delevigne it can be said that she is a British artist and that she crosses the step with Selena Gomez, while Amy Schumer makes a comeback, having fun, cynical and unbearable. For the rest, the humor goes in tandem with the gorier implications, the old-fashioned (and sweetly self-deprecating) charm of Martin and Short binds perfectly with the ease in step with the times, but punctured by the dark pages, of Selena Gomez. The series is, it remains, a mockery of loneliness and a sincere homage to friendship, especially the one that seems most unlikely at the starting line. An underlying lightness which is then the hallmark of the entire operation links laughter and crime, the romantic idea of ​​New York and its dark alleys.

The lightness of Only Murders in the Building 2 is a sophisticated attitude, the pleasure of not taking oneself too seriously, an escape TV with something to say about our inner self, and the complicated relationship between life and entertainment. The ingredients and the relative dosage change little, the intention is not to turn everything upside down, at least at the beginning, but to force the limits of the formula and see what happens. There is always the desire to have fun by making satire on the collective attraction for mystery and crime. There must be something out of place, in the morbid curiosity with which we approach to murder, but the human soul is like that and therefore what remains to be done but laugh at it?

We also laugh at the obstinacy with which the three protagonists stage their investigation, replicating with scrupulous minutia the attitudes, inclinations and postures that belong to decades of TV, cinema and literature. We laugh, without going too far. The dangerous proximity between good and evil, and the irresistible attraction of the human soul to the gray areas, are important themes that can be treated in many ways. Only Murders in the Building 2 remains so consistent with his intentions of lightness and evasion that he chooses to face them from the side, without ever sinking the knife into the wound (!). The ability to limit yourself is a sign of humility and intelligence. One cannot help but contest a little, from time to time, this humility, this intelligence. Without exaggerating, because the offer is top quality and as it gets older it also improves.

Only Murders in The Building Season 2 Review: The Last Words

The best moments of Only Murders in the Building Season 2 are precisely those in which the 3 interact with each other or with other characters. Their exchanges of words never fast and frantic, always calm and moderate to settle the dialogue, are the strong point of the series. The series demonstrates how fences stifle ideas, the contamination of age, and genres (in every sense), are good for the world of seriality often more interested in producing products for specific targets than in telling stories. And the season finale not only ideally closes the case of the season but opens the next one with a time jump of one year to get our protagonists back into action, grappling with a new case and we are already looking forward to it.