Surprise! I was going to cover The Cider House Rules, and I will soon, but life found a way to let me talk about this show I love again! So enjoy this bonus Ruddtrospective.
Spoilers for the fourth season of Only Murders in the Building, which has just wrapped up. At this point the show has been going for four years, so either you’ve been following along or you’re probably not going to watch it and won’t care if I spoil things. Also spoilers for every other season before this one. Let’s do it!

Only Murders in the Building has been airing on Hulu since the fall of 2021. It stars Steve Martin, Martin Short, Selena Gomez, Michael Cyril Creighton, and Jackie Hoffman. In the past it has featured cameos and guest appearances from the likes of Nathan Lane, Sting, Amy Ryan, Tina Fey, Jane Lynch, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Shirley Maclaine, Cara Delevingne, Michael Rapaport, Amy Schumer, Meryl Streep, Paul Rudd, Matthew Broderick, and Mel Brooks.
This season ups the ante with the largest cast yet: Meryl Streep, Zach Galifianakis, Eugene Levy, Eva Longoria, Richard Kind, Kumail Nanjiani, Catherine Cohen, Siena Werber, Molly Shannon, Jin Ha, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Lilian Rebelo, Desmin Borges, Griffin Dunne, Melissa McCarthy and Téa Leoni, with cameos from Scott Bakula and Ron Howard as themselves. Whew! Oh, and why am I doing this for Ruddtrospective again? Paul’s character died last season. Because I didn’t mention. Paul Rudd is back, everyone. How? Why? Let’s get into it.

The Story Thus Far
Charles Haden-Savage (Steve Martin), Oliver Putnam (Martin Short), and Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez) live in a fancy apartment building in New York. The three of them came together, despite their differences, due to their love of murder podcasts, when their neighbor and Mabel’s childhood friend Tim Kono was murdered mysteriously. At the end of season one, Mabel, and by proxy the others as well, was framed for the murder of their grouchy landlord, Bunny Folger. Once they figured out who was behind that debacle, Martin Short went back to the theater, only for his play to suffer a massive setback on opening night: The lead actor died on stage. Then the writers went away and realized he needed to die in the building, so he miraculously survived, only to get murdered in the building.
The show went on, Martin Short reworked the play, Steve Martin got engaged and then wasn’t, the writers forced Selena Gomez to fall for another love interest who was gone at the end of the season, Martin had a heart attack and fell in love with Meryl Streep, and another murder was solved just in time for tragedy to strike again. Charles’s beloved stunt double and lifelong friend (It feels like the gag of her always being cooler than him and stealing his girlfriends got shuffled away to emphasize their friendship, which I don’t mind) Sazz Pataki, was murdered at the end of season three.

The Basic Plot of Season Four
Sazz was murdered. And her death is somehow connected to the mysterious happenings across from the Arconia, in the poorer subsidized section, as well as a Hollywood movie that’s being made about our podcasters. The actors playing Oliver, Charles, and Mabel help them investigate and interrogate their kooky suspects; a fitness guy named Rudy who has Christmas stuff up all the time, a man named Vince Fish with pink eye and an eye patch, and a family who keep ham in their bathroom. They’re red herrings, unrelated people that Sazz only knew about because she was doing research for a Only Murders screenplay. Our trio investigate, almost get shot at, and escape to Long Island to see Steve Martin’s sister, Melissa McCarthy.
They come back and get Ron Howard to tell them who killed Sazz. An insane idiot stunt guy named Rex who wanted to be a screenwriter but had no talent and burned off Ron Howard’s eyebrows. He stole Sazz’s screenplay and created a fake identity for himself, Marshall P. Pope, and shot her from the apartment across the way to stop her from telling people it was her screenplay. Which is sad. I don’t love that we got the reveal in the last two episodes and we didn’t get to see his villainous tendencies until now. Michael Rapaport and Linda Edmond both got to have fun with their scumbag characters beforehand. But Jin Ha did a good job. It just bums me out that we had to say goodbye to Sazz. Jane Lynch was used sparingly, but she was one of the best characters in this show, and they didn’t truly develop her friendship with Charles until this season.

Why this Show Baffles me so
I just find the whole thing fascinating and hard to wrap my head around. The show itself, I mean. I shouldn’t, it’s completely plausible, in that it exists, but to recap: This is a cozy mystery show starring two of my favorite comedians and the former star of Wizards of Waverly Place, a childhood favorite. There has been four seasons of this weird comedy that has generated two new characters for my favorite actor of all time and dedicated two seasons to a touching love story between Martin Short and Meryl Streep, whose characters are now married. It feels very much like someone went into my brain and said “We’ll give him this team-up of all these actors and concepts he loves, but we won’t make the writing work perfectly and we’ll also have weird plot threads and ideas every season and distinctly give him the impression that we don’t always know how to just let people like Kumail Nanjiani, Paul Rudd, and Steve Martin be funny. Because if it was too good it would break his brain.” Essentially I think it’s a fever dream.

The Narrative Arc of the Three Main Characters
At the end of last season I suspected the murderer may have ties to Charles’s old show Brazzos and we would get a Charles-centric season. It didn’t, but he got a lot to do. I’ve always loved Steve Martin, since the first time I saw him sing King Tut on an SNL rerun. In his old age he’s become a different comedian, more subdued and less physical, more of a subtle straight man, and of course, an insult comic that only insults Martin Short. All the self-deprecation and self-doubt is still there, it’s just that the manic energy has calmed way down.
As much as I love him still, it’s hard to connect this guy to the man who made The Jerk and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Planes, Trains and Automobiles when he was the funniest man on Earth. At its worst, this show relies on “Look how old he is” jokes. But this season really gave him a great arc. He lost his friend and had to wonder whether he was the one who was meant to die. He faced his own mortality, his anger, his vanity and inadequacies, and the fear that his friend would leave him. In episode nine when he came to blows with Oliver about planning his bachelor party and had to be vulnerable behind a menu and tell his friend how afraid he was to lose him, I nearly cried. His comedic sense of timing is still there, but he’s not trying to make this character an over the top joke. It’s all so purposeful, and quiet, and beautiful. And this may be his best season yet. I’m going to miss Jane Lynch more because I loved their chemistry and how great their friendship was.
Mabel’s character arc this time around had no vast life revelations, or love interests, or conflict with the group. For once the writers didn’t use her as the young sexy demographic magnet and just let her exist, which made her character more interesting. Amidst all the chaos she is the anchor point, just a young woman trying to learn who she is. And ultimately she seems to realize she doesn’t know but also doesn’t need to. Which is really nice.
And Oliver gets jealous of his girlfriend, almost screws his relationship up, then gets engaged, then married. This is the weirdest arc for me. Not because it’s bad, Martin Short and Meryl Streep are still great together, but I still can’t wrap my head around that actor combo. It’s weird. Also because of Zach Galifianakis and the other two actors, they were all forced to confront their perceptions of themself and who they truly are in a really interesting way. Especially Oliver. I liked him in this season more than last time.

The Many, Many Cameos
People have turned on this season because of all the cameos. I think they largely worked. I think this season feels overstuffed because I think they had two partial ideas for season arcs that couldn’t work for ten episodes. But I also think it mostly works because it meant we mostly spent the right amount of time with the poorer Arconians and the weird actors, so neither weird concept could get too annoying. I’m a big fan of really specific jokes, and I loved the idea that Eva Longoria is essentially a weird psychopath who’s used her power as a soap actress to just cause chaos globally. I think the Zach Galifianakis stuff mostly worked too, I think he stood out weirdly because he’s played a weird ridiculous version of himself in Between Two Ferns for years.
Kumail Nanjiani is interesting. He stands out a bit because he plays a weirdo who has to love Christmas all the time for social media purposes but I don’t know that I could buy him as that kind of guy. Especially now that he’s super fit, his “off-center not fully likable nerdy weirdo” schtick that he did in Silicon Valley doesn’t work as much because he just seems like a nice fun guy. I don’t know who else they should have gotten for that role though. Richard Kind was a perfect pick for the guy with pink eye and an eye patch, he suits this universe so incredibly well. I love that guy. And the Melissa McCarthy episode was wonderful. She’s a great actress, mainly because when I see her in things I always forget she was wasted in multiple seasons of Mike & Molly. All actors are wasted in Chuck Lorre TV shows. She got one episode to just go broad and insane, hit on Martin Short, beat up Meryl Streep, have quiet emotional moments with Steve Martin, it all worked.
I do think the cardinal sin this season committed was a misuse of Eugene Levy and Molly Shannon. They were both funny and had good moments, but it was a mistake to throw them into this season. They went crazy trying to get big guest stars when current stars and character actors like Jin Ha and Desmin Borges that have been more quietly successful did great work. I’m saying if you can get those two, obviously you do, but Molly Shannon and Eugene Levy would be better with meatier, villainous roles, and more overall focus. Minor nitpick.

The Paul Rudd of it all
In an apparently controversial move (Many non-Irish people seem to be pissed about this, which I feel mainly has nothing to do with them and this is the lowest stakes reason to get outraged on someone’s behalf, but I am not Irish.) Paul Rudd returns with a bad Irish accent. He’s no longer Ben Glenroy, the clean-shaven Hollywood idiot known for his superhero cobra movies who died twice last year. No, in a season themed around stunt doubles, double lives, and the symbolism of two, (Our mystery crew and the actors. The rich Arconia and the poor Arconia. Charles and Sazz. The twin directors.) our crew find a familiar face in Sazz’s old stunt crew bar. The face of Ben Glenroy’s Irish stunt double, the drunk, bearded, and insane Glen Stubbins. This is a big surprise, one I spoiled for myself when doing my daily Paul Rudd news check. Fucking bullshit.
This might be the highlight of the season for me because it’s so incredibly stupid. He got underused last season, and this time around as well. They never made the most of Ben as a character, or let him really let loose with his comedy icons, beyond the cookie scene, because the character was mostly comedic but also just sad. This time he’s playing a live action cartoon. He gets one episode to really go for it, and he does. He’s bouncing around the place with his stupid Irish accent, getting hurt and acting dumb, wincing and running from invisible rats. And then he gets shot and fades into the background, until episode nine, when Glen Stubbins is murdered by Marshall.
I’m of two minds on this. For one, I’m bummed, because I liked cheerful Irish idiot Paul Rudd. This was a fun character. While I don’t think this show always nails the comedy or makes the right choices narratively, they have a wonderful opportunity here. He needs to come back as a third, weirder character. And he needs to get killed again. This is clear. I will be bummed if they don’t. As Tom Smyth, a Vulture reviewer recapping this season said: “This is nothing if not a show about killing Paul Rudd”.

Did I like this season?
Yeah, I did. I think it’s on par with season one if not betterish? I don’t think the mystery or the villain has been as good since season one. I think this show, which has been going for four years now, very much exists within two distinct periods, and you can split it with one defining moment: Before Paul Rudd and after Paul Rudd. The first two seasons are more building focused and have big name actors appearing, yes, but only two people who actually play themselves. Since season two we have not seen Nathan Lane again. We haven’t seen Lucy. This season was more building-focused, murder-wise, but it didn’t feel much that way, since it concerned a wholly new part of the building and the secret passages were mentioned mostly in afterthought. I don’t prefer either era over the other necessarily. I like the show through and through, yet consider season two the low point. And I think that while the glut of cameos and big names in this season in particular is overwhelming and distracts from the main three, it also keeps things feeling fresh.
And after two seasons centered around acting on stage and on the big screen, I think it’s fair to go back to basics and focus on the weirdos in the building again. I just want both eras simultaneously so it doesn’t feel like we’re forgetting things just because actors are expensive. Give me a scene with Nathan Lane and Richard Kind and I’ll be happy. Anyway. Good season. I was very invested because I was so bummed that Jane Lynch died. This show never pulls the punches in making the deaths as sad as possible. Bunny could have lived if one of them had come in to hang out with her. Ben could have lived if he didn’t trust the creepy incestuous theater producer’s creepy son wouldn’t push him down a gaping elevator hole. And Sazz would still be alive if she didn’t underestimate Rex, or if she went up to Charles’s apartment with him.
Also side note, one of my favorite parts of the last episode was the reveal that Rex/Marshall killed Sazz easily because he was a reluctantly good hunter and basically leaped his way across the ledge to get to Charles’s apartment. Jin Ha’s got some great sad comic timing.

What the Finale Means
Throughout the season they went out of their way to remind us of the loose threads from season one. The notes saying “I’m watching you” and Martin Short’s dog getting poisoned. And these could have been merely meta jokes about plot holes. But they actively showed that someone’s been watching them since season one. And the way the end of the season is framed makes me think we’re not getting to that yet and they want to try for a season six. Because rather than have them try to look ahead to solve what’s going on, we’re presented with another cameo, a non-murder mystery, and a murder, that are most likely connected.
Téa Leoni shows up and asks the crew to solve her mobster husband’s disappearance. He’s connected to the Arconia, she says. They say no. And then they find that Lester the Doorman has been murdered, laying in the beautiful fountain outside the Arconia. This could be connected to the secret villain. We’ll have to see. So going in to season five, we have a missing mobster, a dead doorman, and a mystery mastermind. Will we ever get another episode as interesting as the mostly silent one from Theo’s point of view? Will Theo and his dad come back? Are they ever going to do more with the secret passages in the Arconia? Because that’s the most interesting thing. Oh, and will we ever see one of Mabel’s love interests come back? Hard to say. I do hope next season has less cameos and more of a focus.

Overall Rating: 8.5/10 (Really fun stuff, what a cozy weird show. I didn’t think I’d be talking about this again, but I’m glad, I liked this more than season three.)
Rudd Rating: 8.9/10(Again, mileage may vary, and yes I’m biased, but I really liked his new Irish character in this season. Glen Stubbins > Ben Glenroy all the way. May we find ourselves back here next year to talk about an even crazier character he’s playing.)

Next Time: We return to our regularly scheduled programming with The Cider House Rules! That’ll be… well, we’ll see I guess.