Meryl Streep tops the hit list for a new season of ‘Only Murders In The Building Season 3’ murder podcast comedy from Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez.
In the season 2 finale, Only Murders in the Building loudly announced its intentions for season 3: Intrepid true crime podcasters Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez had to solve another crime mystery, in which Paul Rudd played the role of a corpse played.
Aside from the stunts, The New Case marked another significant advancement for the comedy on at least two fronts: the murder took place a full year after the events of seasons one and two, and the murder took place in a building outside of the Titanic. OK, build. Or so it seemed.
Only Murders In The Building Season 3, titled The Show Must, released on Hulu amid the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes (which is why you won’t see any actors doing press work this season), brings the death of Ben Glenroy (Rudd), if only for a while.
Rudd, a nerdy actor whose star highlight role includes projects like “Kobro” and “Girl Cop,” avoided his apparent stage life in the season two finale of “Glenroy” when he died in front of a packed theater. Seems to have happened. On the premiere night of the new play “Death Rattle”.
Technically, Glenroy is dead, but only for an hour. His resurrection is also short-lived, as none other than Charles-Hayden Savage (Martin), Oliver Putnam (Short), and Mabel Mora (Gomez) appear in the elevator at the end of the premiere whose Whodunit podcast series is officially back and has a new mystery to solve.
In the first two episodes of Only Murders Season 3, viewers are introduced (and reintroduced) to a series of people who have little motive or opportunity to kill a cookie-loving monster named Ben Glenroy. Who did that?
At the start of the ten-episode season, let’s ask the suspects:
Only Murders In The Building Season 3
Loretta Durkin
Paul Rudd isn’t the only A-star to appear on Only Murders this season. The legendary Meryl Streep joins the cast this year as Loretta Durkin, one of the stars of Oliver’s new Broadway show Death Rattle. In a major twist against type, Streep’s character is a struggling actress who has long been rejected by the industry and is finally getting her shot at success.
The season begins with Loretta and her backstory, establishing her as Oliver’s new girlfriend and clarifying the tensions between her and Ben. With Ben dead, the drama is believed to be over, meaning Oliver’s no-romance-at-work rule may finally be lifted. Did Loretta kill Ben to open the door to romance with Oliver? It feels a little lighter. Plus, we’ve been here before about Charles-Hayden’s dysfunctional relationship with serial killer Jan (Amy Ryan).
Still, she remains the prime suspect, if not for her motive then at least for some important dialogue. (“Oliver tells me you’re one of those people to watch out for,” Ben says at one point, and later Loretta also says, “Oh my god, it’s me! It’s me, isn’t it?”)
Dickie Glenroy
Jeremy Shamos, aka the former Mr. Kettleman, starred in Better Call Shawl, Dickie, Ben’s brother and manager. He is responsible for Ben’s diet, which must be strictly followed due to the actor’s commitment to playing the superhero Cobro. With direct access to Ben’s food, Dickie could easily poison Ben.
This was the first assassination attempt that ultimately failed. Just before Ben’s final death, Dickie calls his brother aside for a very important phone call. Was that a real phone call, or was an arrangement made to move Ben to a more private place – maybe an elevator shaft?
Documentary Tobert
Also known as “Robert with a T”, starring Jesse Williams. Tobert is Ben’s documentary filmmaker set to film the hit actor’s Broadway debut. Williams is a big name in the new cast of Only Murders, and one of his key That Is the Killer lines in the premiere is: “Hey Broadway, I’m just an observer.
This is the last time you.” “I’ll hear my voice.” (Exactly what the killer would say.) Season two has already taken a meta path by casting a podcaster as the killer; casting a filmmaker in this role is a natural next step for season three will be.
Donna and Clifford DiMeo
On the other hand, the producers of “Death Rattle” are always the mother-son duo Donna and Clifford, played by Linda Emond and Wesley Taylor. Right from the start, the two exude great criminal sentiment, with an incredibly inappropriate kiss that no mother and son should share, for whatever reason.
Additionally, Ben’s prima donna demeanor misled the producers; Ben doesn’t even remember Clifford’s name, just calls him “boy”. The two are brought up as possible suspects on several fronts early in Season 3. First, “Clifford” is the same name as Martin Short’s most monstrous alter ego, perhaps to subtly deny Clifford’s murderous tendencies. Second, two producers killed an actor and got the show canceled. Seems quite familiar to me…
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Howard and the Arconian
When considering who murdered in a building, you always suspect the occupants of that building. This season, there’s no better ambassador for the top internal suspects list than Howard, played by Michael Cyril Creighton, promoted to series star for season three.
While the great importance may be mentioned, he also has an incentive to ruin the show since he auditioned for Oliver’s play and was cast as Oliver’s assistant instead. Are there enough excuses to kill? Probably not. It’s going to be a bitter pill even for fans who are dear to the late, great cat dad Evelyn. However, at the beginning of the season – and the end of the series’ life cycle – everyone who lives in Arconia must come to the board.
If it wasn’t Loretta, Dickie, Tobert, Donna Clifford, or Howard, then who killed Ben Glenroy? Check back later in the season for another list of suspects ahead of the big reveal.
With Season 3, Only Murders in the Building no longer needs to establish itself or prove it can build on its success. Nor does it have to grapple with the moral dilemmas of the true crime genre it satirizes, in which terrible misfortune becomes hilarious entertainment.
Instead, the series is free to capitalize on its status among Streep-level stars and then incorporate those actors into a story that increasingly becomes an adaptable institution. It’s no surprise that Gomez enjoys such unlikely platonic chemistry with Martin and Short, or that Hoffman and Martin keep finding new ways to expand their characters’ island worlds.
It’s surprising and gratifying to see how this expansion is shaping up and who’s stopping by to help fill this space.
