"Unfortunate Events," Year One

I always intended to watch Netflix's "A Series of Unfortunate Events," but I wanted to read the books first.  This took me much longer than I anticipated, and frankly about halfway through I stopped enjoying the experience.  However, I still wanted to have a look at the series, which has  an all star cast, and most of its installments are directed by Barry Sonnenfeld or legendary production designer Bo Welch.  "Unfortunate Events" author Daniel Handler is also credited as writer on roughly half of the episodes.

Fans of the series will be happy to learn that the show directly adapts all thirteen books, splitting most of the volumes into two episodes and adding some extra material.  Lemony Snicket (Patrick Warburton) narrates the sad tale of the three Baudelaire children, inventor Violet (Malina Weissman), bookworm Klaus (Louis Hynes), and bitey baby Sunny (Presley Smith), who are orphaned after a terrible fire.  They are sent by the ineffectual banker Mr. Poe (K. Todd Freeman), first to live with the evil Count Olaf (Neil Patrick Harris), who wants their enormous fortune, and later on to a series of other homes and guardians, though never for long.  Misfortune and misery seem to follow the Baudelaires wherever they go.

I liked the 2004 "Unfortunate Events" film starring Jim Carrey very much, which allowed him to play the over-the-top villain, Count Olaf, in a beautifully exaggerated, sinister storybook world.  Sonnenfeld and company have done the best they can to capture that same whimsy and  fantastical verve in their series, mostly to good success, but without Emmanuel Lubezki's cinematography, the difference is pretty clear just from watching the trailers.  Neil Patrick Harris is a good choice for Olaf, and especially handy with a song number, but wisely doesn't try to reach Carrey's level of physical flamboyance.  Harris's Olaf is sneakier, more weasley, and better at the wordplay.  Book fans can look forward to plenty of Easter eggs and the occasional meta commentary.

There are a couple of extra characters and subplots to keep things interesting, even if you have read the books.  Mother (Cobie Smulders) and Father (Will Arnett) get a scene or two in each episode, mid-secret mission, as they try to make their way back to their children.  Sara Canning and Patrick Breen play other agents of the mysterious organization that seems to be working behind the scenes, and keep popping up to try and aid the Baudelaires or their friends.  The ensemble is also pretty strong, with K. Todd Freeman being a particular standout as the exasperating, but likably dense Mr. Poe.  Some great guest stars show up for an episode or two, including Joan Cusack, Rhys Darby, and Alfre Woodard.

The trouble with the show, unfortunately, is the same one that I had with the books.  The Baudelaire children aren't very interesting protagonists, and exist in a world that forces them to go through some of the same dilemmas and difficulties again and again.  Nobody will listen to them, and the odds are always against them.  Their wonderful talents and refusal to give up always save the day,  but the repetitive structure inevitably gets tedious.  There are some characters who are allowed to be smarter, and some events set up better, so at least the writers were aware of the issues.  The show's faithfulness to the books, however, meant there was only so much they could do.  Neither of the main child actors do anything interesting with the mannered dialogue either, though I appreciate that the show's creators let them try.  The baby gets some of the best lines through subtitled babble.

"Unfortunate Events" worked better as a concept twenty years ago, when the YA genre was still getting off the ground, and Handler's subversions of typical juvenile fiction were still novel.  This kind of story doesn't have the same impact anymore, though I admire the commitment to bringing the whole series to the small screen.  I would have preferred seeing the movie series continued, but the Netflix version will do fine.  I'm in no hurry to finish it, so it may be a while until you see a review of the rest of "Unfortunate Events."

---

"The Diplomat," Year Two

Minor spoilers ahead.

"The Diplomat" returns for a second season that doesn't waste a moment.  When we last left the Wylers, a car bomb had gone off, leaving Hal and Heyford injured, and another of Kate's officers dead.  This year is still about trying to figure out who attacked the British destroyer and juggling too many competing interests.  Margaret Roylin (Celia Imrie), one of Trowbridge's advisors, ends up in CIA custody with most of the answers, but nobody can agree on what to do with her or the information.  Kate is also under consideration to be the replacement for the American Vice President, because the current one, Grace Penn (Allison Janney) is expected to be brought down by an impending scandal.  Hal thinks this is a great idea and Kate thinks it's a horrible one, which becomes a recurring argument between the two of them for the whole season. 

Ten episodes worth of story is somehow crammed into six (two fewer than last year), which I'm not complaining about because it makes each episode of "The Diplomat" feel so fast-paced and unpredictable.  This season actually improves a bit from the first because the main cast is settled into their characters and the writers are more willing to play up their little idiosyncrasies for humor.  Heyford gets a lot more comedy this year - stuck on crutches for several episodes, trying to get back into Park's good graces, and constantly reassuring everybody that he doesn't need to know the information that he's working really hard to suss out.  Trowbridge is given several reasons to be extremely upset, and is more hysterical the angrier he gets.  As for Kate, her PR skills have not improved, and she looks even more hopeless next to the effortlessly brilliant and poised Grace Penn, who shows up for the last two episodes.  Allison Janney is nothing short of spectacular in the role, and if she doesn't get to come back for a third season, I will be sorely disappointed. 

I continue to sing the praises of Keri Russell, who remains the frazzled, compelling, and wonderfully watchable center of the series.  Rufus Sewell's Hal is out of commission for a good chunk of time, and not able to be nearly as much of a thorn in her side as last year, but she has no shortage of other great scene partners and deftly handles the torrents of dialogue that can turn on a dime. I love her cringy exchanges with Trowbridge, her hero-worship of Grace Penn, and her genuine happiness at finding out that Heywood and Park are a thing - well, were a thing.  In a show that's all about hyper-competency, she's still so human and so fallible and so susceptible to the chaos around her.  This season gives her fewer opportunities to really be a nut, but she sure takes advantage of the ones that she gets.     

The writing continues to ride the line between a wildly exaggerated version of how foreign relations works, and a totally implausible political fantasy.  Time scales are massively compressed and everyone is way too good at their jobs.  However, the way that tiny interpersonal slights can end up having an outsized effect on policy issues rings true, and the show takes the time to highlight the absurdity of some of the political theater and the effort it takes to wrangle so many large personalities.  There's so much double-dealing and backstabbing going on, it's almost a relief when people actually come to physical blows.  And this is the sort of program where occasionally we do get people coming to physical blows.  I'm also grateful that while the pace is fast, the story remains very comprehensible throughout, which is not something I can say about other currently running shows with a lot of political maneuvering.         

 

Again, "The Diplomat" ends on another cliffhanger this year with not much resolved.  However, I'm optimistic that a third season is coming and I'm greatly looking forward to it.     

---

So, "Nobody Wants This"

I'm trying to be better about having a more balanced media diet, so I tried out the Netflix rom-com "Nobody Wants This."  Kristen Bell and Adam Brody play our central couple, Joanne and Noah.  Joanne is a brash podcaster who has never managed to have more than casual flings.  Noah is a Jewish Rabbi who has recently left a long-term relationship.  They both live in L.A. and meet through mutual friends.

Immediately, their lifestyles are incompatible.  Joanne and her sister Morgan (Justine Lupe) co-host the "Nobody Wants This" podcast, about their misadventures in the dating world  as single women, and talk openly about sex and intimacy.  Noah is part of a close-knit family that loves his ex, Rebecca (Emily Arlook), and Noah's brother Sasha (Timothy Simons) is married to Rebecca's best friend Esther (Jackie Tohn).  And that's not even getting into the difficulties of navigating Noah's role as a spiritual leader at Temple Hai, under Head Rabbi Cohen (Stephen Tobolowsky). 

It's been suggested that one reason why the romance genre has fallen out of fashion with many viewers is because romance is too easy for modern couples.  The big separators like class and race and means have lost a lot of their taboo, which means today's contemporary rom-coms are typically about pettier and less consequential relationship troubles.  Well, "Nobody Wants This" certainly doesn't make the romance easy.  Joanne can't step a foot into the temple without Noah's protective mother Bina (Tovah Feldshuh) raising her hackles over the possibility of her son being with a shiksa.  The podcast is on the verge of getting picked up by a bigger platform, and it's the worst time for Joanne to be getting into a serious relationship.  However, a happy ending is possible - the show's creator Erin Foster based "Nobody Wants This" on her own inter-faith relationship.  

Kristen Bell and Adam Brody are actors I like and have watched over many years and multiple projects.  The show plays to their strengths, positioning Joanne as the scrappy outsider faced with an uphill battle to win over Noah's family and friends, and Noah as the guy who's always followed a particular path in life, and struggles to put himself first.  You buy their chemistry immediately, and they have no trouble selling the sitcom hijinks happening around them, or the more heartfelt twists and turns of the relationship as it develops.  They're both inexperienced with love in their own ways, and surrounded by people with a lot of different opinions.  The supporting cast is great, but special kudos go to Jackie Tohn as the glowering Esther, who is instantly sympathetic and loveable in spite of her stubborn animosity.  

I also like that many of the characters in "Nobody Wants This" are emphatically Jewish, and the show gives us a chance to see what the modern Jewish-American experience looks like - well, in Southern California anyway.  We get the mix-ups and misunderstandings you'd expect, like Joanne accidentally bringing pork products to a family dinner, but the show also gently talks about the Jewish faith in relatable, everyday terms, and portrays Noah's family as very close-knit and loving.  The bat mitzvah of Noah's niece Miriam (Shiloh Bearman) serves as the climax of the season.           

"Nobody Wants This" delivers a breezy, fun ten-episode first season that was exactly what I was looking for.  It's very casual, but the stakes are high enough to deliver some real drama when appropriate.  It's funny and endearing, but also very well grounded with some strong writing.  It feels very personal, but also universal to anyone trying to navigate a culture clash.  The show's already been renewed for a second season by Netflix and I look forward to it.        

---

Watching TV at the Gym

I cut the cord ages ago, and subsequently really only watched any terrestrial or cable television when I was traveling.  However, since I got access to a fairly nice gym and their cable package a few months ago, television has become part of my routine again - well, in a limited form.

The channels I have access to are as follows:

• Local programming which consists of multiple local news channels, two PBS stations, two retro programming stations, and assorted foreign language channels 

• Two channels that only run infomercials.

• Two cable news channels, CNN and Fox News

• Two sports channels, ESPN and GOLF

• HLN, which is all "Forensic Files" all the time.

• BET, which mostly airs African-American 90s sitcoms

• VH1,which mostly airs African-American 90s sitcoms

• Bravo, which mostly airs "Real Housewives" and "Below Deck." 

• TBS, which mostly airs "Friends" reruns.

• TNT, which shows a lot of recent action movies, and sometimes "Supernatural."

• AMC, which can be counted on to occasionally show good movies.

I'm focusing on the cable channels today.  So, my experience is definitely skewed by the fact that I'm only watching half an hour of programming at a time, always in the early afternoon because of my schedule, and I have the sound off and closed captioning on.  However, this still affords me a fascinating glimpse at what cable television has become in the 2020s.

The first thing that jumped out was that this was almost all older content.  When I had cable in the mid-2000s, channels relied heavily on reruns, but they also had a good amount of original programming.  New shows would be aired multiple times after the initial broadcast.  I remember catching the prior night's "The Daily Show" and "Mad Men" in morning or afternoon slots regularly.  Of the programs listed above, it looks like only "Real Housewives" is actually current programming.  "The Daily Show" is the only currently running show on Comedy Central, and it's now followed by "Family Guy" reruns instead of Larry Wilmore or Jordan Klepper

I looked into the programming schedules for other channels - MTV, A&E, E!, Syfy, and USA and they're all like this.  Even for the most popular channels, there's maybe an hour of original programming in the prime time slots, and the rest is just reruns, often of the same two or three shows.  Lots of cheap reality programming like"Ridiculousness" on MTV or "PD: Police Patrol" on A&E.  Reruns of 90s and 2000s shows are particularly endemic - "The Office," "Modern Family," "Seinfeld," "Law & Order," and so much "NCIS."   Channel drift/network decay has also advanced to a point where many channels have given up trying to match their programming with the network branding.  Syfy is airing straight action films like "Wrath of Man" and blocks of "NCIS."  "VH1" is essentially all African-American programming.  

Of course, the channels that still do have original programming want you to know about it.  AMC is constantly running promos for its shows, and even recently added reminders to watch "Mayfair Witches" to its station ident bug.  On a recent vacation with small children, every episode of "Bluey" on Disney Jr. was followed either by ads for the latest "Miraculous" movie or "Descendents" movie until the kids were verbally reciting them as they aired.  Notably, a few channels are airing shows that premiered on streaming.  I spotted episodes of "Bel Air" on the USA Network schedule, and apparently other Peacock shows have popped up on Bravo.  However, this is far from a regular occurrence.     

As a result, watching cable television feels so strange now.  The format and the content all feels the same as it did twenty years ago.  The channels feel like they're running on autopilot, with barely anyone behind the scenes.  I checked most of the information in this post against listings on the TV Insider website (originally a sister publication to TV Guide), which provides up to a month of schedules for each cable channel in advance.  This has allowed me to confirm insane things, like "Ridiculousness" episodes being scheduled to air three hundred times in two weeks (which Andy Denhart noticed back in 2020).   And the fact that you can currently watch "Two and a Half Men" on four different networks.  And that "The 700 Club" is still running on Freeform.

Mostly, I stick to the movies or reruns of "Friends" when I'm on the elliptical machine.  Occasionally I'll find a movie I haven't seen, watch a chunk of it, and watch the rest later when I figure out how to track it down.  I wish AMC would make more of an effort to identify what I'm watching, instead of trying to get me to watch "Mayfair Witches."  I'm not going to watch any more of "Mayfair Witches."  Then again, I kinda like being able to stumble across something completely unfamiliar, and slowly figure out which Kyle Gallner horror movie I'm watching, or which Chazz Palmintieri crime movie I'm watching.  A well-programmed television channel still has its charms, and it's a little sad that there are so few of them left.

---

"The Apprentice" and "A Different Man"

Let's talk about  the Sebastian Stan double feature today.

"The Apprentice" is a villain origin story for Donald Trump, taking place in the '70s and '80s, mostly in New York City.  It's largely unflattering toward Trump, but often more sympathetic than I was expecting.  The ambitious younger Trump at the beginning of the movie is shady but tempered by recent failures and the influence of his father Fred Trump Sr. (Martin Donovan).  It's when Donald Trump hires the notorious Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong) to represent him in a discrimination suit, and comes into his circle of influence that he learns to really play dirty in his business dealings - blackmailing, bribing, and cheating his way to the top.  

Sebastian Stan is excellent in the movie, gradually transforming Trump from golden boy to unrepentant monster, adding his familiar physical and vocal  tics one by one.  He's charming in his scenes romancing a young Ivana (Maria Bakalova), and terrifying when the relationship turns sour.  Power and success corrupt him utterly, and it's to Stan's credit that this process is made to feel so tragic and feel like such a loss.  I don't think I've ever seen a more humanizing portrayal of Roy Cohn (with all my love to Al Pacino), whose later years are shown in counterpoint to Trump's rise.  He's introduced as this remorseless, venal, seemingly untouchable devil figure, and his downfall is well deserved.  However, it's also hard not to feel sorry for Cohn at the end of the film, who has to face the vile version of Trump that he helped to create.

For those of us who remember the era, "The Apprentice" also does an excellent job of capturing the feel of New York in the '70s and '80s, and reminding us of how Donald and Ivana Trump were viewed as aspirational figures and celebrities at the time.  Abbas resurrects and recreates a lot of '80s media, so we can compare the glossy coverage with the ugliness of the reality underneath.  For those viewers who are not familiar with the relevant events, please be warned that there is sexual violence in the film along with a lot of slurs being thrown around.  "The Apprentice" often feels like a crime or gangster picture, but with the crimes taking place on a scale that your traditional organized criminals couldn't imagine.  I was initially very reluctant about watching the film, but I'm glad that I did.  I can't say that I was very entertained, but I came away feeling much better informed, and appreciative of all the work that went into painting this disturbing portrait of Donald Trump.  

Now on to "A Different Man," a very personal, surreal black comedy about Edward Lemuel (Sebastian Stan), an actor who has extreme facial disfigurement due to suffering from neurofibromatosis.  Edward initially leads a very quiet, lonely life until a playwright named Ingrid (Renate Reinsve) becomes his neighbor.  When a new drug cures Edward and removes his deformities, he decides to become an entirely different person, Guy Moratz, and tells everyone that Edward died.  However, he can't forget about Ingrid.  She's created a new play, "Edward," about her brief relationship with his former self.  Guy tries to connect with her by winning the lead role and performing in a mask.  Ingrid, however, is dissatisfied.  And then another man with neurofibromatosis named Oswald (Adam Pearson) shows up in their lives, quickly becoming Guy's rival.                

Written and directed by Aaron Schimberg, "A Different Man" presents an insightful fable about identity and self-image, making great use of the talents of Adam Pearson, an actor it's impossible to take your eyes off of.  It's not often that you see a film so centered on a differently abled character that isn't the usual uplifting, feel-good film about them overcoming their disability.  "A Different Man" argues that Edward/Guy's deformity isn't what's holding him back in life, but rather his attitude.  And as the film goes on, it's his self-hatred and his unwillingness to share the truth with Ingrid that become his undoing.  Sebastian Stan is having a lot of fun playing a complicated character with all of these different layers and facets, whose deformity turns out to be as much internal as it is external.  And I love the decision to have the actor with the real deformity playing the happy, self-confident version of the main character.   

I admire the writing here more than the performances or the direction.  I like how acerbic the humor is, and the way that the relationships develop.  Edward's disfigurement is treated with minimal sentiment or schmaltz, and most of the people he interacts with either treat him normally or ignore him.  "A Different Man" is careful to portray Edward sensitively, and never makes light of his deformity, but at the same time it doesn't treat him with kid gloves either.  This makes him a far more compelling character than I was expecting at the outset.  The film won't be for everyone, existing in a very specific, very artsy New York milieu, but I was thoroughly impressed with what it accomplished.    

---

My Favorite Steven Soderbergh Film

I put off writing an entry about Steven Soderbergh for years because for the longest time I wasn't convinced that he was a great director.  I understood that he was an important, influential, innovative and unusually prolific director, but there was no single film of his that I could point to as a great film.  I watched an awful lot of his eclectic output over the years, but most of the individual films didn't stick in my memory.  I regularly forgot that he directed certain titles, because he worked in a similar style to Richard Linklater and Quentin Tarantino during the '90s indie boom. 

However, after rewatching some of his early work, I found the movie I knew I had to write about for Steven Soderbergh.  Based on an Elmore Leonard novel, it's a stylish ensemble crime comedy about a serial bank robber and a federal marshall who fall in love despite their conflicting goals.  There are some parts of "Out of Sight" I don't enjoy - certain characters, certain scenes, and certain choices do not work for me at all.  However, when the movie hits its stride, it's undeniable how cool and how sexy and how much fun it is to watch.  When I think of George Clooney as a movie star, it's George Clooney as he appears in Steven Soderbergh movies like "Out of Sight" and the "Ocean's Eleven" movies - this wry, charming, rough-edged trickster who will have you hanging on every word coming out of his mouth.  I love Jennifer Lopez just as much here - capable, persistent, and almost always perfectly placid in the face of constant disrespect.   

Amidst all the crime capering and cat-and-mouse games, "Out of Sight" is a movie about relationships, where the best set pieces involve conversations - some tense, some funny, and some very, very sexy.  The key scene is where Clooney's Jack Foster and Lopez's Karen Sisco are stuck in the trunk of a car together during a getaway, and get to know each other through lighthearted banter during what should be an unpleasant situation.  And when I think about the characters in this film, it's always in relation to other characters.  Steve Zahn's hapless Glenn works best in conjunction with Jack or Snoopy or Karen.  Dennis Farina, playing Cisco's father, has a small part but gets that one great conversation where he spars with Michael Keaton.  Many Soderbergh films have these big, sprawling casts with indelible actors who might only be there for a scene or two.  I couldn't believe who showed up here - Samuel L Jackson, Octavia Spencer, Albert Brooks, Luis Guzman, Catherine Keener, and even Nancy Allen in the third act.

I appreciate the lengths that Soderbergh went to in order to capture a particular mood and tone for the film.  He shot on location in multiple states - Louisiana, Florida, and Michigan most prominently.  The score is a seductive mix of Motown, soul, old Rat Pack standbys, and Latin music, with the romantic scenes wonderfully supported by slow, patient piano and bass compositions.  This unusual degree of authenticity and attention to detail is what really helps to set "Out of Sight" apart from the other stylish crime films of the era.  It's bombastic when it needs to be, and uses violence well, but we're meant to leave with the scintillating romance on our minds, and this is accomplished beautifully.       

Looking back through all of Steven Soderbergh's considerable filmography, I marvel at how many different kinds of movies he's made over the years, from slick studio fare to oddball experiments in form.  He tends to work with smaller budgets, character-driven stories, and interesting combinations of old and new talent.  "Out of Sight" had one of the first soundtracks by Irish composer David Holmes, and nabbed legendary editor Anne V. Coates her final Academy Awards nomination.  What I keep coming back to, however, is how well his films serve its actors - showcasing full-fledged, interesting performances in a way that is increasingly rare.  

In "Out of Sight," Soderbergh doesn't just let George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez make their case for being A-listers, but makes room for Farina and Cheadle and Zahn and Brooks to show their stuff.  And Michael Keaton as Ray Nicolette, popping in from Quentin Tarantino's "Jackie Brown."  I have more to say about Ray Nicolette if Tarantino ever makes his tenth movie and I get to write up "Jackie Brown" for this series.  Fingers crossed.          

 

What I've Seen - Steven Soderbergh

Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989)

Kafka (1991)

Schizopolis (1996)

Gray's Anatomy (1996)

Out of Sight (1998)

Erin Brockovich (2000)

Traffic (2000)

Ocean's Eleven (2001)

Solaris (2002)

Ocean's Twelve (2004)

The Good German (2006)

Ocean's Thirteen (2007)

Che (2008)

The Informant! (2009)

And Everything Is Going Fine (2010)

Contagion (2011)

Haywire (2011)

Magic Mike (2012)

Side Effects (2013)

Behind the Candelabra (2013)

Logan Lucky (2017)

Unsane (2018)

High Flying Bird (2019)

The Laundromat (2019)

Let Them All Talk (2020)

No Sudden Move (2021)

Kimi (2022)

Magic Mike's Last Dance (2023)

---

"The Devil's Hour" Year Two and "Only Murders in the Building" Year Four

I have quick reviews of the newest seasons of two very different series from two different streaming services today.  I'm trying to clear out my backlog of shows that I've been waffling over whether to write reviews for, so these are both a little late and not nearly as in-depth as the previous reviews of their earlier seasons.  Oh well.

Let's start with "The Devil's Hour," which released a five-episode second season on Amazon Prime in October, with a third on the way.  It's been a while since the first season, so my memory of it was pretty fuzzy.  Fortunately, it only took me about an episode to get myself properly reoriented, even though "The Devil's Hour" is one of those twisty genre stories where people are keeping track of multiple realities and chronologies.  The second season, fortunately, has drastically simplified its narrative so there's one big goal that everything is driving towards: identifying a mysterious psychopath who Lucy and Gideon know will plant a bomb in a toy store.  The opener does happen out of sequence, but it's also aiming at filling in a lot of the story gaps left over from the first season.  

We get a lot more Peter Capaldi this year, which is great, because Gideon is a really effective agent of chaos, and Capaldi's performance is highly entertaining.  There's really only one major addition to the cast, Saffron Hocking as Sam Boyd, who works with Ravi in law enforcement and becomes a major obstacle.  Other characters are much improved as they become more important to the story.  Isaac is slowly turning into a real boy and revealing strong attachments, even if true emotions aren't quite there yet.  His arc also benefits significantly from Lucy's mother Sylvia forming a connection with Isaac, and helping to voice some of the things that he isn't able to express.  Lucy remains a good lead character, and I appreciate that she has to deal with a steep learning curve and is clearly not good at being a badass.  She screws up several parts of the investigation and is woefully outmatched in almost every confrontation.

All in all "The Devil's Hour" is moving toward a more straightforward crime procedural model, and loses a lot of the atmospheric creepiness and existential dread that the first season had.  I don't think this is a bad thing, but horror fans might be disappointed if they came into "The Devil's Hour" for a certain kind of story, and ended up getting something different.  There is still a good deal of uncomfortable serial killer material in the story and the supernatural elements are retained, but I found "The Devil's Hour" altogether more watchable this year, even if the payoff wasn't as great.  I look forward to the third season wrapping up this story.       

On to our friends at the Arconia, who have come across their latest case just as Hollywood has come calling.  Charles' stunt double and dear friend Sazz Pataki (Jane Lynch) goes missing, likely the victim of foul play.  At the same time, "Only Murders in the Building" is going to be turned into a movie, produced by executive Bev Melon (Molly Shannon) and written by Marshall P. Pope (Jin Ha).  Charles, Oliver, and Mabel are going to be played by Eugene Levy, Zach Galifinakis, and Eva Longoria (all gamely playing themselves).  There are a lot more guest stars in the mix this year, including suspects played by Richard Kind, Daphne Rubin-Vega, and Kumail Nanjiani, Melissa McCarthy as Charles' sister, and Ron Howard as himself.  Meryl Streep is back as Loretta, to continue the romance with Oliver, and so is Paul Rudd, despite being killed two seasons ago, via a new character I will not spoil.  

It's a great season of "Only Murders in the Building," this time aiming its satirical barbs at the movie industry.  There are some diverting form-breaking episodes, including one that uses found footage and mockumentary techniques.  All the guest stars are great, though I'm sad that Melissa McCarthy only made it into one episode.  Her brawl with Meryl is one of the high points of the season.  In addition, each of the three leads gets their own subplot that mostly works this time around.  Charles is out to avenge Sazz, Oliver is struggling in this long distance relationship with Loretta, and Mabel is a little depressed and considering her future.  I don't think the season as a whole is quite as good as season three, because there isn't anything to match the joyous insanity of "Death Rattle Dazzle," but the pacing never dragged and I was more than satisfied with how everything played out.

Four seasons into any show, things tend to slow down, but "Only Murders" is still very much at the top of its game.  I love the humor this year, especially the movie production providing a chance for the writers to get introspective and acknowledge their own plot holes.  I love that there's a whole western section of the Arconia that nobody really interacts with, and a completely plausible explanation for why that is.  I love that the stunt community is portrayed as a bunch of deeply committed wackos living in a perpetual barfight.  Bring on season five!

---