Only Murders In The Building season two has drawn to a close but the finale is a brilliant example of what makes a great series, according to one Stylist writer.
Warning: this article contains spoilers for season two of Only Murders In The Building.
You may be forgiven for thinking that the only things worth watching on TV right now are BBC dramas, Netflix documentaries and House Of The Dragon. Like we said, you’re forgiven. While I have been avidly tuning into the former, I’ve also been thoroughly enjoying Disney+’s standout comedy drama, Only Murders In The Building.
I was a latecomer to the first season and binge-watched it in the comfort of my bedroom while in pre-Christmas Covid isolation. So I was more than happy to find out it had been renewed for a second season. This time around, I was somewhat sceptical to see if the magic of that first series could be recreated for a second time. While the first series nursed me back to health with belly laughs, lovable characters and plot twists galore, the second promised to pick up on a brand-new case with the same trio of beloved leads – Mabel (Selena Gomez), Charles (Steve Martin) and Oliver (Martin Short).
The first series ended with the kind of cliffhanger that makes you angry at the fact you have to wait longer than a couple of months to find out more. Yes, you can call me impatient.
When Bunny Folger (Jayne Houdyshell), the board president of the Arconia – the building where Mable, Charles and Oliver live – is found dead, all eyes are on the true-crime loving trio. Did they actually kill her? Throughout the first episodes of the second series, we know it can’t be true but we’re inclined to believe the theory that one of them may have been involved due to the amount of evidence that keeps turning up in their homes.
But like any well-paced series, our thoughts at the beginning of the season quickly transform by the time we reach the anticipated end. What this series manages to do well is blend the comedic with elements of real life that are relatable, may make you squirm and will definitely hold a light up to our own true-crime habits.
In this season, we’re not only dealing with Bunny’s death but topics like fatherhood, chosen families, sexuality and workplace bullying, which all seamlessly mix in with moments of sheer comedy delight. We finally discover the truth of Oliver’s DNA test, determining whether he is the biological father of Will (Ryan Broussard). We also learn more about the coveted expensive painting that Bunny owned and how it, rather bizarrely, involved Charles’s own father. But, of course, we’ve been tuning in for 10 weeks to find out one thing and one thing only: who killed Bunny?
And much like Cluedo, Only Murders In The Building delivers the kind of confrontational, dramatic unveiling of the murderer that we weren’t quite expecting – but are still in awe of. Dubbed “the killer reveal party”, the trio get the help of fellow Arconia residents and Alice (Cara Delevingne), Mabel’s suspicious love interest.
But like a tower of falling dominoes, details start spilling out in the final moments of the episode that leave you with mouth agape. Tears even pricked my eyes when Alice stabs Charles and they cover his body. But while it’s here that you may want to mourn one of the series’ lead characters, it’s actually when you need to pay the most attention. You see, when coveted true crime podcaster Cinda Canning (Tina Fey) bestows Mabel with all the praise for cracking the case, her young protégé Poppy (Adina Verson) grows red with anger.
As she finally tells her boss her true thoughts and unleashes her fury at Cinda, Poppy starts sneezing – a telltale characteristic of Bunny’s murderer. Poppy is revealed as Bunny’s murderer but with it comes a telling underlying message. Poppy – in a bid to create a popular new true crime podcast – seduced Detective Kreps (Michael Rapaport), planned to kill someone (not specifically Bunny) and hoped to frame Cinda for it. The reason? All so Kreps could be promoted and Poppy could get the podcast she thought she deserved.
But Poppy herself was also unveiled as Becky Butler, the well-known teen who went missing from Oklahoma and was supposedly murdered by the mayor. So why did Becky fake her own disappearance? Similarly, to take the podcast idea based on her own story (All Is Not OK In Oklahoma) to Cinda to leverage a job offer under a fake identity.
While it was the plot twist we certainly didn’t see coming, the puzzle pieces of Only Murders In The Building slotted perfectly together to provide one hell of a finale. It had all the elements we wanted from a great murder mystery – shock, tension, suspense and even Charles’s own fake death.
But it also holds a mirror up to our own true crime consumption, something that the series has done effortlessly since its initial premiere last year. When true crime fans delight in the outrageously shocking, the second series has shown the dark depths some can go to (both in the series and real life) in order to create a story and social media buzz that’s worthy of going viral. But Only Murders In The Building manages to leave us thinking about all of this while we’re still laughing our heads off or gushing over its cast of charming characters – and that’s what makes the finale one of the best hours of television you’ll likely watch this year.
Only Murders In The Building series one and two are available to stream on Disney+ now.
Images: Disney+
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