At the beginning of the second season of Hulu’s “Only Murder in the Building,” Charles Haden Savage (Steve Martin), one of the trio of amateur detectives and podcasters, pointed out the pitfalls of the murder. I am. “It’s very rare for a crime nonfiction podcast to make a sequel,” he says. “They usually move to new cases that don’t hit like the original cases.”
This is just one of some meta “second season” references that you come across half as you know the joke, half as a preemptive confession. “You guys are really struggling this season,” says one character, but the Greek choir of podcast fans moans about the pace of the season within the season: “The entire five episodes of Vamping.”
“Only Murders” is a smart show, and as the New Yorker-inspired opening title suggests, you need to know what the brand is and what you’re doing here. It talks not only about the murder podcast, but about itself.
Instead, returning on Tuesday, the series, whose first season was the understated joy of 2021, is one face of the curious modern TV lineup. Diminishing returns.
We are living more in the television era. It’s no longer a rare miracle for a canceled series to find a new home. Thanks to the abundance of deep pocket outlets, it seems that the fan-based vintage show can be revived. Today’s philosophy is can Give people more of what they like and you should do it..
This also applies to the series that told the complete story in the first season. Based on Liane Moriarty’s novel, “Big Little Lies” is back in Angkor. Performance has increased, but the rewards have decreased.Showtime’s judicial thriller “Your Honor”, which seemed to end with a deadly finality Get retries.. “13 Reasons Why” is now “Four Seasons, why not”.
And for the past year or so, there’s a lot of evidence that many aren’t always good. “Made for Love,” also based on the novel, is mysteriously duplicated. Cancel immediately.. The amateur spy comedy “The Flight Attendant” concludes the enthusiastic story of self-destruction and self-discovery in 2020. Season 2 of this year was devised to keep Cassie Bowden (Kaley Cuoco) in the spy game and had a good time. For a nervous hangover.
“Russian Doll” was originally intended as a continuous series, but its first season was a completely full-feeling “Groundhog Day” crystal and dirt bag poetic downtown version. This year’s Time Travel Season 2 introduced more of the wise cracking of old souls that pleases the Natasha Lyonne crowd, but its baggy story is less effective in building on the original existing themes. There was not.
Of course, it’s not a sin to repeat television. That was the purpose for decades. Sitcom and drama are similarly reset to the status quo for each episode and should be run indefinitely. No one complained that “Law & Order” encountered a series of high-end murders. That’s because we aren’t developing the character.
But as television became more continuous and ambitious and focused on character change and evolution, the question of how long the series needed to run became complicated. Once designed to keep working until network accountants say “stop,” television novels now create different types of stories and are best told in different lengths.
Some of them were still suitable for long-term practice in old schools. “What we do in the shadows” requires less expiration than undead characters. The American version of The Office had the arc and breadth that supported it for years, while the darker British Office focused on its core villain. So I grated it for more than 2 seasons.
But other creators use television to tell stories that are longer than movies, but still require a clear end. Among the number of episodes you can count with your finger. Damon Lindelof may have disappointed many fans (and a few executives) by saying that his epic “Watchmen” took place a season later, but that was the right call. Elizabeth Meriweather’s “New Girl” was a natural multi-season series, but she describes it as Elizabeth Holmes’ documentary drama “Dropout.” The second season should not be forced After the first one is completed.
“Murder” is, after all, a detective story, a genre set up to deliver cases one after another. (In another meta element, actor Charles has appeared in one such procedure, “Brazos,” for years, playing a detective with the catchphrase “This takes the investigation in a whole new direction.” rice field.)
But it’s a detective story with some differences. The first season began with a light and eccentric transmission of true crime and its obsessions. Selena Gomez played Millennial deadpan Mable Mora and was performed in the comic chemistry between Martin and Martin Short.
But in the middle of the incident-the murder podcast fans turn into murder podcast makers killed in their Upper Westside Cooperative-the season shifts gear from a teaser about strange detectives to a bittersweet comedy about loneliness and voyeurism. Manhattanite who lives on the cheek to make a joke with his neighbor.
Each of our detectives is a puzzle that lacks pieces of lovers, children, friends, etc., and as the season progresses, so does its human range. The group’s building buddies are irritated, greedy, and suspicious, but gradually revealed villains (including the dubious Deli Kingpin played by Nathan Lane) and even the trio’s podcast group. , Driven by the need for connections.
Before the few minutes of setting up the Cliffhanger to drive the Season 2 plot, it tells an influential story that would have stood wonderfully alone. The challenge now is how to continue the misery of amateurs. It is possible to do this.See “Search Party” justifying that 5 seasons performed by Much more evolved From the premise of that first mystery.
Instead, Season 2 of “Only Murders” is just as interesting as Season 1 and has both advantages and disadvantages. Laughter is still reliable. Oliver still lives entirely on dips and the power drink “Gut Milk”. Charles is chasing a career revival, playing the older “Uncle Brazzo” on a reboot of his old show. Like Tina Fey as a ruthlessly competitive podcaster, the role of eccentric side characters is expanding (think Sarah Koenig as a supervillain).
But as Season 1 was built and deepened, Season 2 proceeded primarily by inertia, with a new screwball mystery plotted more loosely than the first episode, with 10 eight episodes screened for critics. In, hit different versions of the same emotional beat of the central trio. (The three are assembled for the killing of the former co-operative president.)
If this was “Brazos”, returning to the official is not a crime. But here, half of the “Only Murders” procedurals who want to provide the familiar thrills rank in half of the ambitious character dramas that need to evolve and change to prosper.
The new season is a good time if all you want from “Only Murders” is to see the character do more of the same thing that made him laugh at the beginning. But like many attempts to turn what the television felt like a complete story into a multi-season story, it doesn’t take a whole new direction of research.
