Only Murderers In The Building season 2 is seriously funny

For crime out loud! Whoever thought of making murder mirthful in this series, deserves all the accolades of the world. Only Murderers In The Building on Hulu in ten episodes, works and works so wonderfully well largely because of the primary casting. Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez have nothing in common except that they are big names in the entertainment industry. How did they end up together in this kooky whimsical whodunit-comedy where they are thrown together in Season 2 as primary suspects in a murder that takes place in their posh New York suburban apartment block? The murdered woman Bunny Folger is played with splendid exactitude by veteran actress Jayne Houdyshell. Bunny shown in a string of well-executed flashbacks is the kind of lonely unloved ageing woman who invests all her emotional energy in her job as the secretary of her apartment block giving herself undue importance. For example, she tells a 9-month pregnant woman that if her water breaks, she knows where to find the mop. Bunny is about to hand over charge to that very same younger pregnant woman when she is killed. Ms Houdyshell’s studied portrait of satirical solitude is the show’s backbone. I did feel the three lead actors’ nervous energy running all over the place. Chunky portions of the storytelling, especially the elaborate sequences in the elaborately constructed tunnels that run through the apartment block, are dreary in mood. In spite of the wide open spaces that the ten episodes occupy many of the inter-relationships are undeveloped. Martin Short’s Oliver’s uneasy rapport with his son looks so hastily done, it almost appears to be an afterthought in a series that shakes hands with quirkiness and turns up its nose at all conventional attitudes and creative tropes. To say _Only Murderers In The Building_ is eccentric in design and execution would be an understatement. It treats murder as a joke and gets away with it. The airy attitude to death is refreshing especially where two of the three protagonists are in their 70s and a lot of their nostalgic memory-talk are from the 1990s. And then there is the legendary Shirley MacLaine, looking unrecognizable under her powdery ghostly (please note, not ghastly) makeup but still a force to reckon with. She plays a fey mysterious woman with a mistaken identity who is deeply connected to the murdered woman. There are young, old, middle-aged, gay, deaf, psychopathic, self-important, self-preserving characters. Miraculously, the storytelling never becomes leaden with tokenism. Although admittedly the going gets too flightly and airy at times, this is a series that glows and gurgles in its self-created mire of mysterious happenings. Rightly and without any apology, the crux of the plot are the three protagonists, Mabel (Selena Gomez), Charles Savage (Steve Martin) and Oliver Putnam (Martin Short) are delightfully diverse in their togetherness and perhaps so compatible for this very reason.

Characters even in the smallest role are written so emphatically they seem to have been engraved into the plot. Special mention must be made of Amy Ryan as Jan, Steve Martin’s psychopathic neighbour whom he once dates. Now in jail, Jan wants to renew her relationship with Savage. He is understandably reluctant. “Why? Because I once tried to kill you?” Jan is bewildered by the rebuff. The laughs come in un-italicized welters. Don’t look for any specific emotion or story twists and you will not be the least disappointed. The funniest encounter in the entire series is in an elevator between Martin Short and the seriously funny Amy Schumer who has moved into an apartment previously occupied by musician Sting. Short chattily brags that he knows Sting from his days Of The Police. “Oh, he was in the police force?” Schumer deadpans. Then there is a Russian waiter Ivan ( a superb cameo by Ariel Shafir) who admits the murdered woman would leave him insanely large tips every day.. “I would like to think she thought of me as her grandson. Whether it was something else I do not know,” Ivan declares demurely. Between the two extremities of maternal love and eternal lust, there lives a wealth of giggles that this splendid series drills out for some serious offshore humour. Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha. Read all the  Latest News,  Trending News,  Cricket News,  Bollywood News,  India News and  Entertainment News here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram