Warning: Spoilers for Only Murders in the Building season 1.
Only Murders in the Building‘s co-creator explains why series star Steve Martin insisted on solving the case by the end of season 1. Premiering on Hulu in August, the murder mystery focuses on three strangers (played by Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez) that live in the fictional Arconia building and share an obsession with true crime. Shortly after bonding over their love of a popular podcast, the trio unexpectedly finds themselves investigating the murder of Tim Kono (Julian Cihi) and making a podcast of their own to chronicle each subsequent discovery.
The Hulu original has managed to pack in both creative and narrative surprises from that relatively simple premise. In the nearly silent episode of Only Murders in the Building, it seems that the protagonists have solved Tim’s murder. But they’re quickly met with the realization that their prime suspects were nowhere near Tim at the time of his death. Complicating matters even further is that Jan (Amy Ryan) might have been killed after taking an interest in Tim’s case. With two more installments of the mystery to go, it might seem like there’s not enough time to wrap up the central plot in a satisfying way. But, for his part, Martin pushed for an unambiguous ending.
John Hoffman, who co-created Only Murders in the Building with Martin and serves as showrunner, spoke with The Los Angeles Times and explained that his collaborator didn’t have any absolutes when it came to the project. Except for one. “We have to solve the case at the end of the season,” Hoffman recalls Martin insisting. In the quote, which you can read below, Hoffman indicates that this insistence was influenced by Martin’s love of true crime.
“He is a big true-crime aficionado. He really does listen to podcasts all the time. And he’s the king of one-sentence emails. I’ve been telling somebody I need to make a book of the emails I’ve gotten from Steve Martin in the last year and a half because they’re genius, or very funny. Just idea tossing. But the main thing — he had very few specific absolutes, but one of them was: We have to solve the case at the end of the season. He was like, “I don’t want to carry it over. I don’t want to be ambiguous. I want to have the satisfying ending.”
Even if the show does wrap up Kono’s saga with the finale, which could very well be likely given Martin’s views, there will be plenty of other storytelling avenues to explore. Only Murders in the Building season 2 has already been announced by Hulu, and it will likely follow the dark ending teased in episode 4. It will also probably tie into the chaotic scene glimpsed during the very first scene of the series, which shows Mabel, Gomez’s character, in a potentially suspicious position as a SWAT team swarms The Arconia.
Still, while that does sound intriguing, and while Martin’s insistence is an encouraging sign, the main draw of Only Murders in the Building has been the comedic chemistry between its three leading actors. And so long as that remains the focus, fans of the show might not object to a few cliffhangers. If anything, given how popular murder mysteries have become on the small screen, audiences may appreciate the opportunity to solve a few dangling threads between seasons.
Source: The Los Angeles Times